Shonn Shearlds
Customer Success Manager
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Rich Fernandez
Global Head of Product
Ryan Heinl
Ryan is an award winning B2B EdTech product innovation and management executive who takes products from concept to market in a 0 to 1 fashion. Having worked for one of the leading global leadership development firms for more than a decade, Ryan has the unique ability to bring together market strategy, innovative product solutions, and drive execution of business outcomes. Having worked with admired global companies in a range of different industry sectors, Ryan understands the challenges that complex organizations face and is able to translate these challenges into training and development solutions that have measurable impact.
Global Head of Finance & Accounting
Alex Moyle
Alex brings his extensive background in Corporate Accounting and Finance along with his passion for mindfulness and social change to the SIY Global team. He is extremely excited to participate in such a worthy cause along side the incredibly talented staff and contributors at SIY Global. When he isn’t busy at work, Alex loves to continue his pursuit of knowledge of all things cheese, and to get out in nature on his bicycle.
Director of Product Development
Jason Sbordone
Jason is a talent management consultant and I/O psychologist with a long history in leadership development, change management, coaching, and program design. He has worked across many industries, geographies, and with leaders at all levels. He believes mindfulness is the key to a healthy world. He also has a passion for travel, photography, drums, and chocolate.
Lead Visual Designer
Shivani Womack
Director of Marketing
Grace Edmunds
Grace joined SIY Global after a decade as a mindfulness and embodiment facilitator and entrepreneur, teaching individuals essential skills to support well-being and personal growth, training organizations to collaborate and work more effectively, and supporting brands to authentically tell their stories and connect with their audiences. She has led retreats and workshops around the world for women to deepen their self-awareness through contemplative practice. Grace believes in a world where work can be joyful, organizations are regenerative (delivering value for all of their stakeholders, communities and the earth), and individuals can be vulnerable and honest with themselves and each other….she’s also by nature a major optimist! She loves a good story and is passionate about embodying mindfulness and care in the way we tell the SIY Global story. After spending years traveling the world, Grace now lives in the mountains in New Hampshire with her toddler, husband, dog, and bunny, and enjoys a simpler way of being; walking in the forest in all seasons and sitting mindfully with tea.
Customer Success Manager
Nafessa Kassim
Nafessa has the unique ability to connect deeply and empathetically which allows her to intuitively see, improve and transform systems in order to help people and organizations thrive. Before joining SIY Global, she spent 10+ years as a Social Impact Consultant and as a Social Worker who has worked with various populations including survivors of torture. Nafessa holds a dual Master’s in Global Public Health & Social Work from Columbia University. Her work and passions have taken her around the world, including time in Spain, India, Indonesia, and Kenya. In her spare time Nafessa is often found breaking into song and dance to fulfill her Bollywood dream.
Customer Success Manager
Cori Carr
Cori is thrilled to bring her experience as a classroom teacher and educational technology specialist to the SIY Global team. She began her career as a classroom teacher in 2003 after earning a Master’s Degree in Secondary Education from the University of Michigan. After 12 years in the classroom, where she sought to involve mindfulness and emotional intelligence into the daily lives of her students and colleagues, she joined the world of educational publishing, supporting educators and learners around the world. She is passionate about the power of mindfulness and emotional intelligence in navigating everyday life. She seeks to live out the mission of SIY Global at work and in her personal life.
In her spare time, you’ll find her on the stage or in the audience of local community theaters. She thrives on helping to create joy for others through the performing arts.
Program Coordinator
Lindsay Hirata
Before joining SIY Global, Lindsay brought her passion for well-being and transformational experiences to individuals and groups in various settings as a clinical music therapist, vocalist, and facilitator. Her exploration continues to evolve as she integrates her previous experience with a deep desire to expand the positive impact she can have in the lives of others. Outside work you can find her enjoying time in nature, traveling to new places, reading a good book, and drinking all the boba.
Program Management Associate
Aislinn Pluta
Aislinn joins SIY Global with an authentic enthusiasm for helping individuals lead fuller, more meaningful lives. She has a decade of experience creating high-impact, evidence-based products that support individual growth and well-being. She has written or produced dozens of engaging, digital programs teaching skills in positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and rationality, ranging in scope from a few minutes to full-fledged apps. Aislinn holds a master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and is also keenly interested in the relationship between well-being and the natural world. She loves time spent with family, hiking, cooking, and growing food.
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Account Executive
Gretchen Wallace
Gretchen thrives on creating meaningful connections. She has a deep understanding of the intricate complexities and challenges that organizations navigate today. Collaborating closely with business leaders, she delves into organization priorities, implementing impactful resources that not only drive business results but also positively influence individuals within the organization.
Customer Success Manager
Shonn Shearlds
With a rich background in cultivating strategic partnerships and addressing complex business needs for clients, Shonn brings a unique blend of sales acumen and empathy to every endeavor. His professional success, as well as that of his clients, stems from his natural ability to build positive relationships, foster open communication, and promote a culture of empathy, collaboration, and respect with everyone he encounters.
Elizabeth R. Koch
Member, Board of Directors
Over the past decade Elizabeth R. Koch has helped found companies in the fields of publishing, media, neuroscience, and transformational experiences. They include: Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, a research foundation that seeks to understand and measure the quantity and quality of consciousness; Catapult, an award-winning publishing company that celebrates extraordinary storytelling; and, most recently, Unlikely Collaborators which creates unlikely collaborations through four areas: Experiences, Storytelling, Investments and Impact. All of Elizabeth’s companies and activities share the same goal of bringing people’s awareness of their Perception Box™.
“We all live inside an invisible but ever-present mental box—a Perception Box,” she explains. “Built from the material of your beliefs, the Perception Box has the power to distort your reality and leave you feeling isolated, disconnected, and fearful. By asking sometimes contradictory but always consequential questions, our goal is to show people how to understand and work with their Perception Box—how to overcome the limiting beliefs that hold them back, expand the possibilities of perception, and invite in new ways of seeing and being seen.”
Elizabeth graduated from Princeton with a BA in English Literature. She earned an MFA in fiction from Syracuse University, where she was advised by George Saunders and won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for short fiction.
Rich Fernandez
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Rich is the CEO of SIY Global. He was previously the director of executive education and people development at Google, where he was also one of the first SIY teachers. Rich previously founded Wisdom Labs and has also served in senior roles at eBay, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America. He received his PhD in Psychology from Columbia University and is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review.
Dr. Amishi Jha
Dr. Amishi Jha, PhD is Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami. Prior to her current post, she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.S in Biological Psychology from the University of Michigan, her Ph.D in Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) from the University of California–Davis, and her post-doctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging.
With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she leads research on the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, resilience, and performance in education, corporate, elite sports, first-responder, and military contexts.
In her laboratory at the University of Miami, she uses functional MRI, electrophysiological recordings and behavioral techniques to understand why our attention sometimes fails us, and if it can be trained for greater focus and less distractibility. She launched the first-ever study to offer mindfulness training tools to active-duty military service members as they prepared for deployment. What she has discovered is that without intervention, attention is compromised, and attentional lapses increase. Yet, with mindfulness training, attention can be strengthened and protected.
In addition to her own published body of research, her work has been featured at TED, NATO, the World Economic Forum, the Pentagon, and the UK Parliament. She has received coverage in The New York Times, TIME, Forbes, Mindful Magazine, NPR, and more. In addition, she has been interviewed by Joe Rogan, Brene Brown, Russell Brand, Deepak Chopra, Duncan Trussell, Dan Harris, Sharon Salzberg, and many others. In her national bestseller, Peak Mind (Harper Collins), she shares her discoveries on how attention can be trained for optimal performance and well-being. You can find Dr. Jha at http://amishi.com.
Dr. Ekaterina Denkova
Dr. Denkova is a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Assistant Director of the Neuroimaging Facility and Assistant Director of Research for the UMindfulness Initiative. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Strasbourg after which she joined the University of Alberta as a CIHR Fellow. She serves as Co-investigator on several federally funded grants with Dr. Amishi Jha.
Dr. Denkova expertise is in cognitive and affective neuroscience. Using brain and behavioral methods, she studies the neural basis of cognitive and affective processes and their trainability with mindfulness training. Her program of research focuses on: 1) The interplay between cognitive and affective processes underlying personal memories and thoughts, such as mind- wandering, ruminations, and intrusions; 2) The impact of mindfulness training on these cognitive and affective processes in high-stress/high-demand professionals.
Rhonda Magee
Professor of Law at the Univ. of San Francisco and a leader integrating mindfulness into law and social justice.
Rhonda V. Magee (M.A., J.D.) is Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco, and is an internationally-recognized thought and practice leader on integrating Mindfulness into Higher Education, Law and Social Justice. She is past President of the Board of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute. She is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness.
Professor Magee is the author of numerous articles, including Educating Lawyers to Meditate? 79 UMKC L. Rev. 535 (2011), and The Way of ColorInsight: Understanding Race and Law Effectively Using Mindfulness-Based ColorInsight Practices, 8 Georgetown J. of Mod. Crit. Race Perspectives 251 (2016). She is the author of a forthcoming book on Mindfulness and Social Justice to be published by TarcherParigee, a member of the Penguin Random House Group.
Ruchika Sikri
Ruchika led Well Being and Mindfulness Learning Programs & Strategy at Google for 7+ years, where she scaled these programs and communities of practice to 150+ offices and thousands of employees around the world. She currently leads learning and development initiatives in Google Cloud.
For over 20 years, her daily meditation and yoga practice is grounded in increasing clarity in mind, purity in heart and sincerity in action. She believes these skills are increasingly needed to uplift humanity, build genuine connections and increase respect for our planet. Her goal is to bring secular and science based mindfulness and compassion learning to many organizations and communities globally.
Ruchika has successfully architected, facilitated and curated several well-being and mindfulness programs for over 120,000 employees at Google. She helped establish a self-sustaining culture where tens of thousands of Googlers regularly practice mindfulness for better well-being, healthier interpersonal relationships and sustainable high performance. She leads a passionate community of 350+ employees who volunteer their time to make this reach and impact possible at Google.
Outside of Google, Ruchika is a board member and advisor to several nonprofits that empower women living in shelters, support mental health of at-risk students and provide a safe home to orphaned children around the world. She also advises the founders of wellness technology and conscious living start-ups. Ruchika is a mother to 2 loving kids and lives with her wonderful husband in Bay Area California.
Alex Echols
Alex Echols has been a student of mindfulness & mindset mastery for over 15 years. He not only attributes his daily practices to his successes as a best-selling author & entrepreneur, but also to the skills he has developed to support him through some of his most trying times. Today, Alex is focused on supporting professionals to become more effective leaders at work, at home and in the world.
Veronique Lafargue
Veronique is a global executive, with 20+ years of experience in getting tech innovation to transform the way we communicate, learn and grow. Since her first SIY training at Google, she has championed mindfulness programs in the workplace and continues exploring her own path to balance, purpose and joy.
Tania Lowenthal
Mindfulness and meditation student, practitioner, and teacher. 25 years working in education, helping schools grow in mindful alignment with their mission, purpose and vision. Tania created and leads Shmanga, a weekly in person and now online gathering of a broad range of mindfulness modalities and meditation practices, combining a bit of dharma, a bit of Torah, a bit of science and a whole lot of human connection.