Implementation Team (FIT)

Sammie Ardito Rivera is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe with paternal ties to White Earth. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Sammie spent most of her young adult life learning from diverse communities across the United States while working on issues of economic justice, indigenous rights, environmental justice, education, and climate. She received her movement education in the San Francisco Bay Area and earned a Bachelor of Science in Applied Indigenous Studies with an emphasis in Traditional Knowledge at Northern Arizona University. As Senior Project Director for Marnita’s Table she ensures the project teams effectively deliver the model of Intentional Social Interaction to the communities that need it most. She is also the co-founder of Sin Fronteras Farm & Food, a full spectrum doula, and an herbalist in training. She is passionate about creating resilient, sustainable, healthy, and just communities for her daughter and for all our future generations.

“FORESIGHT is a unique opportunity to join forces across sectors and to elevate the voices of communities that are rarely heard. We need to have a national conversation about health, and doing so by relying on future trends is the smart thing to do.”

Edith is the founder of Asibey Consulting. She is an advocacy and communication strategist, behavior designer, and Tiny Habits® Coach who has honed her skills leading global organizations dedicated to solving the most pressing challenges of our time. Multicultural since birth, Edith has lived and worked in several countries and is fluent in four languages. She has been recognized for running effective campaigns in a variety of cultural settings.

Edith leads Asibey Consulting’s work with nonprofits, foundations, humanitarian organizations, and socially responsible companies that want to drastically improve how they engage supporters. She teaches a digital strategies graduate course at New York University, is a frequent speaker at trade conferences, as well as the author of several articles and two popular “how-to” guides.

During her time as a humanitarian worker with UNICEF, Edith was stationed in Brazil when the country was about to host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and during the unexpected response to the Zika virus epidemic, also in 2016. In response, she and her teams designed cutting-edge global engagement strategies that leveraged digital channels in new ways. They successfully mobilized millions of people in over 150 countries in support of children’s rights.

Edith also brought strategic thinking to her role as Chief Communications Officer at The Atlantic Philanthropies in New York, the largest limited-life foundation in the world, which invested $8 billion to advance opportunity and promote equity and dignity before it completed grant making in 2016. She directed global communications; established the Foundation’s digital imprint; shared Atlantic’s lessons learned and elevated the profile of Atlantic’s programs which supported over 1,000 grantee organizations all over the world.

Edith holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Education both from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil; a Master of Arts in Media Studies from Stanford University; and a specialization in Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

“I love that FORESIGHT emphasizes the great importance of community building and interconnectivity to overall health and well-being.”

Molly coordinates logistics and research for the many branches of the FORESIGHT team, and acts as a catch-all support system for the Implementation Team. Molly held a number of different roles before coming to Rippel, all with the same through line of fostering communication and empathy between groups of people. She taught middle school history and theatre for two years before working as a canvass director for Planned Parenthood—two jobs that bore a striking resemblance to each other in terms of helping people discover and articulate causes that they believe in. Her love of storytelling and human connection is what drives her in all endeavors.

More about Molly: As a formerly hour-plus commuter—as well as being generally uncomfortable with silence while she does things like cleaning the bathroom or cooking dinner—Molly regularly listens to many podcasts, on topics as broad as women in business and politics, and as narrow as Harry Potter being read as a sacred text.

Education: Trinity College (BA)

“Momentum is building in the movement toward a more equitable and sustainable future for health and well-being, which creates so many opportunities for collaboration and distributed leadership in all sectors—and through FORESIGHT I get to bring that inspiration to action.”

Maggie Cooke provides Rippel with project management, grants administration, proposal development, and high-level support around the development and cultivation of new partners and emerging projects. Working side by side with Rippel President and CEO Laura Landy, Maggie has helped lead the significant fundraising and strategic partnerships efforts of FORESIGHT. Previously, as part of a research project exploring tax credits’ potential as a source of sustainable financing for population health, Maggie co-authored a paper for the National Academy of Medicine (2018). This work also earned her an award of distinction for her practicum project at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. Before joining Rippel, Maggie worked at Johnson & Johnson for 10 years, most recently as the senior executive assistant to the chief strategy and business transformation officer, and was a service coordinator at the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation before that, where she assisted residents by connecting them to critical resources in order to empower them in maintaining independent housing.

More about Maggie: Maggie enjoys living on the Delaware River with her family and is an active member of her community, participating in the Hunterdon County Anti-Racism Coalition, and serving on both the Frenchtown School Advisory Council and the Frenchtown Planning Board.

Education: Dartmouth College (MPH), University of Alaska Fairbanks (BA)

“FORESIGHT has the potential to change how philanthropy does business to bring about a new future for health.”

Katy Evans is project manager of the FORESIGHT initiative. In this role, she keeps things running on time and on budget by developing and overseeing workplans, managing the project budget, coordinating across the team and partners, and managing key meetings and events. Previously, Katy was senior program associate for Rippel’s ReThink Health Ventures project. She helped lead a collaborative and transparent process to articulate what was learned from the project and its significance for regional leaders and catalyzing organizations across the country. The products produced include toolkits to help leaders strengthen their resident engagement, public narrative, and value propositions—all critical for successful regional transformation efforts. Katy came to Rippel from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, where she ran communications and programming for a large-scale project on institutional corruption.

Education: Boston University (doctoral candidate), Kings College London (MA), Boston College (BA)

“The good work Rippel does to improve health and well-being drives me to make our messages visually effective and cohesive so everyone can easily absorb them.”—Bradley Girard, Director of Branding & Creative

Joined Rippel: 2017

Current Roles: Bradley directs the Branding & Creative Team, leading a team on the creative design and production of all Rippel branding vehicles. He makes complex concepts easier for all to understand and unifies messaging around Rippel’s shared vision and its initiatives. His team designs visuals to make ideas more straightforward for all to understand.

Career: Brad has provided Rippel with branding and visual design support for years as principal of his own award-winning boutique agency. In his 28 years as a professional designer, photographer, and marketer, Brad has worked with a variety of large brands—including Kaiser Permanente, Toshiba, Verio Healthcare, and the San Francisco 49ers—and received multiple international awards for design, print, and marketing.

More about Brad: Brad serves on portfolio review boards for AIGA, Cal State Fullerton, and Chapman University, mentoring students as they ready themselves for professional careers. Most weekends, Brad can be found cheering on his daughter’s club court and beach volleyball teams. On his off-time, he and his family love to relax on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

“FORESIGHT has incredible potential to equitably inform, design, and test strategies to advance a holistic, comprehensive system and culture that fosters health and well-being. It is the first initiative of its kind in which an equitable design process is prioritized as much as the hoped-for outcome in that FORESIGHT is bringing in resident voices to inform and shape future strategies for change.”

Olivia Mastry is principal and founder of Collective Action Lab, a unique collaborative forum that fosters cross-sector, large-scale systems change in the health and well-being. Olivia combines her training and experience in law, health administration, public health, and conflict resolution to support a disciplined collaboration process that enables organizations to accomplish together what they cannot do alone. Her previous collaborations include ACT on Alzheimer’s and Dementia Friendly America, LTSS Pathways, Silos to Circles, and Mill City Kids. She holds an MPH and JD from the University of Minnesota, and has received the 2015 Public Health Innovator Award (from the University of Minnesota) and the 2016 Gerontologist of the Year (from the Minnesota Gerontologist Society).

“FORESIGHT is an expansive and inclusive project that is being designed and carried out by distinctive groups operating across diverse regions and in varying capacities. It is a massive undertaking! I am thrilled to help develop messaging and products that will continue to catalyze engagement while keeping participants in the loop. The architects, philanthropists, and residents all have roles in informing and driving the work and the Communications Team is here to work in concert by framing, narrating, and documenting this journey.”

Amanda McIntosh manages Rippel’s editorial and visual production as well as its social media efforts. She also leads Rippel’s work to measure its outreach effectiveness. She has provided critical research, design, and project management support to national-level Rippel projects, including the Convening of Catalysts leadership group that brings together health system transformation trailblazers. As part of a ReThink Health initiative project exploring tax credits’ potential as a source of sustainable financing for population health, she co-authored a paper for the National Academy of Medicine (2018) and contributed greatly to advancing high-level conversation and interest in the topic via Rippel’s social media channels. Amanda formerly worked to support nationwide programs and outreach campaigns for consumer health advocacy organizations, serving as program associate to Community Catalyst’s Roadmaps to Health project and as statewide coordinator at Health Care For All.

More about Amanda: Amanda grew up on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, not as a summer resident, but as a third-generation “year-rounder.” She had some of the same teachers that had taught her father when he went through the island’s school system, decades before. On a recent visit, she found a rare fossilized Megalodon tooth.

Education: Drexel University (MPH), College of Charleston (BA)

“I tend to be a very practical person whose default is to figure out the best, smartest way to operate in the current set of circumstances. FORESIGHT takes me out of that comfort zone. It provides the rare opportunity to abandon current circumstances and ask: What do I want the future to look like? And what do thousands of other people—whose lives are very different from mine—want it to look like? And how can we shape that together to improve health and well-being for everyone in our country?”

Joy Portella is the president of Minerva Strategies, a boutique consultancy that inspires positive change through smart communication. Minerva specializes in communicating about health challenges and innovations in the United States, as well as in low- and middle-income countries.

Prior to establishing Minerva, Joy spent more than five years as director of communications at Mercy Corps. Joy led a team of communicators in the U.S. and Europe, and she personally guided Mercy Corps’ messaging, media relations, crisis communication, and communication related to corporate relationships.

Previously, Joy worked for a decade at leading communication firms—Burson-Marsteller, Ruder Finn, and SS+K—in New York and Washington DC. Eclectic highlights of those years include running the media announcement of Warren Buffett’s unprecedented $31 billion gift to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, developing a restructure plan for the UN Department of Public Information, and crafting a brand identity and outreach plan for Pfizer Philanthropy’s “Global Health Fellows” program.

Joy holds a BA from Yale University and an MA in international economics and European studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“As our world continues to change rapidly, we must determine how we can be more responsive, nimble, and able to meet community needs in the realm of health and well-being in the future. That takes a team that brings a wide variety of perspectives and expertise—a team that can listen, learn, and imagine what is possible. I’m excited to be a part of this team to create influence and inspiration for the future.”

Anne Jin Soo Preston has been working with nonprofits, government agencies, and foundations for over a decade and specializes in research and evaluation. She works with inter-agency partners and cross-sector collaborations to impact society’s toughest issues in aging, arts and culture, disability, education, health, housing, science, social services, and transportation. Anne’s work across multiple sectors helps her visualize entire ecosystems, finding challenges and interdependencies within. Her abilities for aligning strategy, programmatic goals, advocacy, and program outcomes has helped organizations evaluate the process around learning, relationship building, collaboration, and collective impact. Recent projects include: We Are Water MN, MinnesotaHelp.Info, Disability Hub MN, Help Me Grow MN, Reach out and Read MN, and Metro Transit. Anne holds an MPS and a BA from the University of Minnesota.

“It’s an honor to have a seat at the FORESIGHT Initiative table. This initiative is the embodiment of intentional and innovative collaboration. It is clear that bringing together, listening to, and lifting up multiple voices and views across generation, ethnicity, class, ideology, and other means of self-identity has never been more critical for improving and sustaining our collective well-being. The relationships being catalyzed and the trust being established through this inclusive process moves us beyond words into actions as we build a bridge from today to the future that we want to share.”

In a world increasingly fraught with ideological polarization and political tensions, Marnita Schroedl works tirelessly, bringing people together to collaborate more effectively, creating lasting systems change, and greater equity in communities across Minnesota through the incubation of critical social capital. As a bi-racial former foster child raised in an all-white rural town in the Pacific Northwest, she has taken her experiences with disparity and disconnection, in combination with her expertise as a senior communications professional (with decades of experience facilitating, coaching, training and teambuilding) and developed an experience engineering model designed to help others learn to part with their preconceived notions of “the Other” long enough to work together to create meaningful, grassroots change on issues that affect our increasingly diverse communities.

The model she developed, Intentional Social Interaction (or “IZI”) is a replicable, measurable way to deliver cross-cultural competency while simultaneously developing leadership, engaging communities across difference, and conducting participatory action research. Over the past 15 years, over 64,000 marginalized community members, decisionmakers and other constituents have come together in the model of IZI to find common ground on issues ranging from public health and education access to collective resilience, healing from trauma, women’s rights and youth leadership. Currently, over 3,200 people have been trained in IZI, equipping them with the tools necessary to bring the connection and collaboration of radical hospitality and intentional dialogue to their own communities in order to address the issues most salient to their communities’ needs.

Ever attentive to the need to demonstrate equity in action as well as principle, in her current role as the Founder and CEO of social entrepreneurship Marnita’s Table, Marnita makes a point of modeling the ease of hiring, cultivating, and promoting people of color, (wo)manning a staff of nine—including a senior leadership team that is 100% female or nonbinary—of whom 90% identify as Indigenous or a person of color and nearly 50% LGBTQIA+. She ensures that proceeds from community engagement projects go directly back into the communities IZI serves, and actively mentors young professionals all over the world, helping to recommend a diversity of talented young leadership to boards, fellowships, colleges, and universities. In her life, her work and her fierce but compassionate commitment to justice and equity, Marnita exemplifies community leadership and social entrepreneurship for the 21st century, recognizing that only in coming together can we create the future that we seek.

“The FORESIGHT Initiative recognizes that we all have a role to play in ensuring that historic and contemporary inequities in health and well-being are fundamentally transformed for the benefit of current and future generations.  As a firm believer in the idea that a more equitable and healthy future emanates from an intentional practice of sharing power as we co-create the future together, I am honored to collaborate with community members, partners and allies across sectors in order to effect meaningful change and improve health and well-being outcomes for all.”

Elexis Trinity is a community-based researcher and director of projects at Marnita’s Table where they are responsible for project design and implementation, evaluation, and reportage, and oversight of the organization’s grant writing efforts. Previously, they worked as an educator and community arts organizer and served as a researcher with the Women Writers Project—more recently, on projects for Human Rights Watch and the Stimson Center. Elexis completed their undergraduate degree at Brown University in 2013, where they were named a Sidney E. Frank First Generation Scholar and a Community Fellow with the Swearer Center for Public Service. They completed a master’s degree in human rights with a minor field in science, technology, and environmental policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 2020. During their time at the University of Minnesota, they were named a Diversity of Views and Experiences Scholar and were twice awarded a FLAS Fellowship in Russian and International Studies through the Institute for Global Studies at the College of Liberal Arts. While their research sits largely at the intersections of science and technology, public policy, and community engagement, they are broadly passionate about intentional community-building, rights-based advocacy, and collaborating to create more equitable and humane systems.

“The FORESIGHT Initiative provides an opportunity to hear voices across socioeconomic, political, and regional divides in order to come together as one national community and engage in a timely conversation about the future of health and wellness. I am thankful to be part of such a dynamic and forward-thinking team focused on reevaluating our current practices, norms, and systems in order to strategically plan for a future where we all thrive.”

As a Minneapolis native, with roots in the Historic St. Paul Rondo community, Lauren Williams has been engaged with community service organizations focused on uplifting communities of color since childhood—developing her leadership on the shoulders of strong community educators and activists.

Lauren graduated from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Communications Studies and a minor in Leadership. During her time as a student, Lauren was a Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence Ambassador and volunteered with Be The Match, the national bone marrow registry, educating and registering community members in an effort to increase the likelihood that people of color could find a bone marrow donor match.

Starting as a volunteer with the Marnita’s Table Youth Advisory Board at the age of nineteen, Lauren joined the team in 2016 as Communications Coordinator, changing roles in 2017 to focus on enhancing the Intentional Social Interaction training experience. As Training and Project Director at Marnita’s Table, Lauren manages trainings and client-based projects involving training components, ensuring that Intentional Social Interaction (IZI) is accessible to all.