About Us

HAI CHAN (she/her), ACCOUNTING MANAGER

Hai Chan is the Accounting Manager at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence.  She manages the full accounting cycle and payroll, prepares on-going financials and financial budgets and cost reports for federal and foundation grants.  She is responsible for preparing the federal drawdown and quarterly, semi-annual and annual cost reports.  Hai coordinates the organization’s annual independent audit, and other program audits as required.  She works closely with Executive Director and Finance Director.

Hai has 16 years of accounting experience, eleven of which are in non-profit accounting and financial management.  She has BS degree in Accounting and Finance.  Before joining the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence in 2015, she was Senior Accountant at the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum for nine years.

 

Kayla CHAN (she/her), Program Coordinator

Kayla Chan is a Program Coordinator at the Language Access Program with the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. She is responsible for leading the Improving Language Access in the Courts project, and providing technical assistance and training to partner agencies around providing language access through a cultural-humility and healing-informed lens. Prior to this, Kayla was the Later in Life Program Manager at Womankind (formerly New York Asian Women’s Center) where she designed and implemented programs for older API survivors of gender-based violence.

Identifying as a survivor and immigrant, Kayla believes in the power of grassroots activism and comes from a direct services background. Born and raised in Singapore, she migrated to New York in 2009 and has worked in various non-profit organizations in different capacities. Kayla enjoys facilitating workshops to professionals and communities around cultural humility, historical trauma, intergenerational trauma and spreading awareness of gender-based violence that perpetuates across the lifespan.

Kayla received her M.A. in Global Gender Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is excited to expand her advocacy work on a national level with API-GBV. Kayla had a stroke in July 2019, and she has a communication disability called verbal apraxia and aphasia.

 

Gabby DeBelen (she/her/ella), Policy Coordinator

Gabrielle DeBelen is the Policy Coordinator at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. As Policy Coordinator, she assists in furthering API-GBV’s legislative, administrative, and court policy advocacy by representing API-GBV in meetings with stakeholders, researching and drafting reports on policy issues affecting the AAPI community and gender-based violence, and collaborating with the Director of Policy . Before joining API-GBV, Gabrielle worked in various legal fields, including victim/witness assistance, class action, immigration, and financial services. She received her BA from William & Mary in Public Policy and Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies in 2022.

 

Krista Grajo (she/they), Research Coordinator

Krista earned a M.A. in Community Psychology from the University of New Haven, a B.S. in Psychology, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Florida.  Her prior research and evaluation work ranged from public health, university, and culturally-specific nonprofit settings.  Before working for the Asian Pacific Institute, Krista contributed to fact sheets, workshops, and presentations at Esperanza United as a researcher.  As an intern at Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services in Connecticut, Krista provided program implementation, consultation, and evaluation support to their Family Literacy program. In her work, she employs an intersectional lens and values community-based participatory action research to build evidence for GBV prevention and programing.  Krista is passionate about learning from and working alongside advocates to mobilize the existing strengths of AAPI communities.

 

Cannon Han (he/him), Senior Program Manager, Enhancing Access to Services: Training and Technical Assistance Project

Cannon Han is a Senior Program Associate on the OVC Enhancing Access to Services: Training and Technical Assistance Project.  He has over ten years of experience providing technical assistance and training to programs on: Title VI compliance and advocacy; language access; interpretation; and translation. Prior to re-joining API, he was the Title VI Administrator for Caltrain and the San Mateo Transit District.  He also served as a Senior Court Services Analyst with the California Administrative Office of the Courts, Court Interpreter Program, and an attorney with the Mental Health Advocacy Project.

 

Chisato Horikawa (she/her), ARP Support for Survivors Program Coordinator

Chisato is the ARP Support for Survivors Program Coordinator with the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence and brings over a decade of experience in non-profit fields. She has worked in various social service organizations in different capacities.

Prior to joining the Institute, Chisato was a clinician with Sound, providing mental health counseling to low-income community members in Seattle and surrounding cities. She has also worked as the Director at Japanese American Social Services, Inc. (JASSI) in NY, overseeing programs and grants, and was the Advocate and OVS (Office of Victim Services) Program Specialist at Womankind (formerly New York Asian Women’s Center), providing supportive counseling and case management to gender-based violence survivors in the API community as well as providing trainings and technical assistance to staff and interns. She received her MSW from LIU (Long Island University) Post and currently lives in Seattle, WA with her partner and two cats.

 

GRACE HUANG, J.D. (she/her), Director of Policy

Grace Huang is the Policy Director at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, and is responsible for coordinating the Institute’s legislative, administrative and court policy advocacy. Prior to her position at API-GBV, Ms. Huang worked at the state level to advance the interests of survivors of gender based-violence in the Washington State legislature. She worked at the national level to address the needs of victims in the federal Violence Against Women Act and the Family Violence Services and Prevention Act, and to ensure that financial resources authorized in federal legislation are accessible to domestic violence programs providing services for immigrant survivors of domestic violence. Ms. Huang previously worked as an attorney, both in private practice and in civil legal services, representing clients in immigration, family law, government benefits, and housing cases.

Ms. Huang represents the Asian Pacific Institute on the steering committee of the National Taskforce to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, and serves as an appointed Commissioner on the White House Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

Ms. Huang is the recipient of several awards: American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence 20/20 Vision award (2015); University of Washington School of Law Distinguished Alumnae Award from the Law Women’s Caucus (2013); and an inductee of the UW Law School Public Interest Law Association Hall of Fame (2008). She was recognized by the Washington State Bar Family Law Section as “Professional of the Year” (2005); received the Cynthia Gillespie Award from the Northwest Women’s Law Center recognizing her work advancing legal rights for women (2000); and, along with her colleagues received the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project “Golden Door Award” (1999) for her advocacy on behalf of immigrants.

 

Youngju Ji(she/her), Culturally Specific Services Program Manager

Youngju Ji has more than 20 years of leadership experience working in the API community focused on culturally specific programs of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of gender-based violence. She has extensive experience in technical assistance and training, program/project development and implementation for the culturally specific community, coalition building, and government grant management. She has a solid ability to build and foster collaborations with strategic partners in a wide range of settings. Notably, she has a successful trajectory of partnerships with diverse stakeholders, including private, local, state, and federal funders such as the Office of Violence against Women (OVW), community-based organizations, staff and volunteers, advocates, and experts. In addition, she has advanced experience in program operations, strategic planning, policy advocacy, program oversight, and funding advocacy from over 13 years as the Executive Director at KAN-WIN in Chicago that has been a grantee of OVW CSSP/SASP for more than a decade.

 

SARAH KHAN (she/her), DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS

Sarah Khan, is the Director of Programs at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. As the Director of Programs, she oversees the coordination and administration of all aspects of government, public and privately funded API-GBV programs. She also manages and supervises all programmatic areas of technical assistance (TA) and training; designs and evaluates programs and processes; acts as a subject matter expert (SME) on various TA, and training and research topics; supervises staff; develops and monitor budgets. In partnership with the Executive Director and management team, she identifies programmatic opportunities and challenges and helps determines organizational strategy that contributes toward ensuring all programs work collaboratively in tandem to advance the organizational mission and vision.

Sarah’s direct service experience has deeply informed how she understands and addresses challenges faced by the community she serves. After 9-11, she intentionally chose to work at the intersection of race and gender justice to concretely reduce the vulnerability of immigrants, refugees and other marginalized groups. Sarah has a longstanding passion for grassroots activism, domestic violence advocacy, and community education and empowerment, with close to 20 years of working in the field. She has expertise in program design, development and management; with a focus on changes to people, organizations and systems across areas. Her passion is fueled by breaking silos and encouraging herself and others to address intersectionality in their work by addressing root causes of gender based violence.  Originally from Kashmir and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, Sarah is fluently multi-lingual in various South Asian languages.

 

Monica Modi Khant (she/her), Executive Director

As an experienced trainer and national speaker, she shares her expertise on gender-based violence, immigration law, and the intersection of immigrant rights, human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault, and asylum. With over two decades of experience in the non-profit legal community, she is also a speaker on non-profit leadership.  Monica is passionate about impacting systemic changes at the local and national levels, strengthen communities, and create a broader understanding to influence culture and lives of AAPI survivors and their families.

Monica received her BA from Rutgers University in and her J.D. from New England School of Law. Upon graduation, she was the Detention Attorney at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) where she represented detained asylum seekers. In 2000, Monica continued practicing immigration law with private immigration firms in Boston, MA. In 2005, she was appointed as the Director of Legal Services at the International Institute of Boston (IIB) and joined Georgia Asylum & Immigration Network (GAIN) as their first Executive Director from 2006-2020.

Monica currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (GCADV) and the Advisory Board of Raksha.  She is a graduate of Leadership Atlanta Class of 2015 and the Regional Leadership Institute in 2018. Monica is currently a fellow of the prestigious International Women’s Forum fellowship program.  In 2014, she received the Public Interest Award from the South Asian Bar Association (SABA). In 2017, she was honored as Atlanta Magazine’s Women Making a Mark and has received Emory Law School’s EPIC “Unsung Devotion to Those Most in Need” Award in 2018.  Monica has also received the Legal Legend Award from the American Constitution Society (ACS) in 2019.

 

Jose Juan Lara Jr., MS (he/him/el), Systems & Advocacy Senior Program Manager

Jose Juan Lara, Jr., MS, is the Systems and Advocacy Senior Program Manager at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, Interpretation Technical Assistance & Resource Center (ITARC) works to improve systems responses to limited English proficient victims by providing technical assistance and training on the development and implementation of language access services. Jose Juan has 23 years of experience in cultural competence and responsiveness, dynamics of gender-based violence, LGBTQ, language access, organizational development, and victim advocacy.  Jose Juan has presented on these issues in the community and nationally, engaging a broad spectrum of multidisciplinary professionals from criminal justice, social services, policy, and health.

 

Matāpuna Levenson (she/her), Project Manager, ARP Support for Survivors Program

Matāpuna Ma’ilo-Levenson is a project manager for the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. She is responsible for providing technical assistance and training on models and issues related to culturally relevant approaches to gender-based violence, as well as analyzing emerging issues and documenting best practices in serving Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the U.S. In addition to training and technical assistance, Matāpuna manages the Institute’s ARP Support for Survivors Program which is a multi-year project funded by FVPSA and provides subgrants to culturally specific, community-based organizations that support survivors and their families.

Prior to the Institute, Matāpuna was the Training and Technical Assistance Director for the Hawaiʻi State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the lead victim advocate and program coordinator for the Salt Lake Area Family Justice Center at YWCA Utah. She received her BSW from BYU-Hawaiʻi, MSW from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, and is currently a PhD student at the University of Hawaiʻi Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health.

 

Jenny Lee (she/her), Director of Finance

Jenny Lee is the Director of Finance for the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and worked in public accounting with small businesses for many years before joining the nonprofit world. Her professional experience includes fund accounting, grants budgeting and management, bookkeeping and accounting, tax planning and preparation, attest engagements and financial statement preparation. 

 

Shirley Luo (she/her), Program Manager, HHS Resource Center

Shirley Luo is the Program Manager for the culturally-specific Resource Center at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. She is responsible for developing and executing strategy related to API-GBV’s public awareness, resource development, and capacity building initiatives. In this role, she also delivers TA and training to diverse audiences on a variety of topics related to gender-based violence, culturally-specific advocacy, and AAPI experiences; and she engages the API-GBV’s national network of AAPI direct service agencies, state coalitions, TA providers, and other partners to deepen collaboration and nurture connections.

Shirley received an M.A. in International Relations from NYU’s Department of Politics and a B.A. in History and Political Science from UC Berkeley. She has been with API-GBV since late-2016, and through its work on the national and community level, she has become a strong believer in the power of partnerships in creating safer, equitable, and joyful communities.

 

Courtney Peters (she/her), Grants & Compliance Manager

Courtney is the Grants & Compliance Manager for the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence and brings over a decade of experience in non-profit grants management and leadership of multistakeholder projects and programs. She has worked across various public health fields including sexual and reproductive health, tobacco prevention and control, and healthy food policy. Prior to joining API-GBV, Courtney served as the Associate Director with the Global Health Advocacy Incubator, coordinating policy campaigns across multiple countries. She has also worked as a Program and Financial Compliance Officer, overseeing multi-million dollar public health projects, and was the Project Director for a large HHS grant for teen pregnancy prevention in Dallas County, among numerous other positions in state government and the nonprofit sector. She holds a MPH in Global Health from Emory University and lives in Savannah, GA with her partner and rescue puppy.

 

Swathi Reddy, PhD, LMSW (she/her), Research and Evaluation Manager

Swathi brings extensive knowledge of interdisciplinary research addressing issues related to gender-based violence among AAPI communities, as well as experience and expertise in culturally sensitive program evaluation. Prior to joining API-GBV, Swathi held a research position at the Council on Social Work Education. She also served as a clinical practitioner in New York City working with AAPI adolescent and adult survivors of gender-based violence and has taught social work courses at the University of Texas at Austin. Swathi’s clinical experience and academic training together with her fierce commitment to strengthening AAPI communities have shaped her research agenda for the past decade and continue to do so today.

 

Kimberly Vongnalith (she/her), Administrative Coordinator

Kimberly Vongnalith is the Administrative Coordinator for the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Gender, Ethnic, and Multicultural Studies from California Polytechnic State University, Pomona. Prior to starting at API-GBV in May 2023, she worked in the family law, higher education, and public health fields.

 

Kaylee Wong (she/her), Communications Coordinator

Kaylee is the Communications Coordinator for the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. She creates content and messaging to amplify API-GBV’s voice and work to broader audiences. Kaylee earned her MBA with a Marketing concentration and BAs in Global Studies and Communication from the University of Arizona. Before joining the API-GBV team in July 2022, Kaylee worked as an International Student Specialist with Arizona Global and a Marketing Specialist for the Southwest Institute for Research on Women.

SARAH HAWK, Co-Chair

Partner | Barnes & Thornburg

Sarah Hawk provides immigration counsel to numerous corporate clients and is a frequent speaker nationally and regionally on business immigration issues. Sarah brings nearly 20 years of experience helping domestic and multinational companies – in various industries such as healthcare, financial services, hospitality, higher education, and technology, among others companies – develop and implement immigration policies to secure visas and permanent residence status for executives, managers and critical employees, as well as those at universities and research institutions, along with artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, and investors.

Sarah is a 2013 Leadership Atlanta alumna and is actively involved in the Leadership Atlanta Race Task Force, working on its programs and partnership committees to educate and inspire corporations and organizations to encourage dialogue and invoke action in the greater Atlanta community to achieve racial equity and justice.  Sarah is a pro bono attorney and advisor for the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN), whose mission is to provide free immigration legal services to victims of crime and persecution, in numerous capacities.

Sarah is a former president of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association (GAPABA), through which she has been active with pro bono immigration programs, mentorship and promotion of women’s development and pipeline of local law school student programs. Additionally, she provides direct support  and counsel to the Philippine Honorary Consulate of Atlanta. For the consulate, in the midst of COVID-19, Sarah assists with pandemic-related relief efforts by contributing her time and legal services pro bono. Sarah was a former National Board Member and Vice President of professional development for the National Association of Asian American Professionals.

 

MAY LEONG, Co-CHAIR

Founder | Blue Star Quilt Consulting

May Leong is the principal of Blue Star Quilt Consulting which provides professional development coaching and leadership consulting. She is a passionate community builder with more than 30 years of experience in a variety of positions from Wall Street to Tokyo, Seattle, and San Francisco. She is now based in Valencia, Spain. Prior to BSQC May served in two roles at the East Bay Community Foundation; first as Director of Donor Services, then as the Senior Institutional Partnerships Officer, focusing on fundraising and creating institutional partnerships in philanthropy. Previously she served as interim Executive Director at the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco and before that was Executive Director at Donaldina Cameron House.

Her life’s mission is promoting global citizenship on a local level and she is happy that her values and passions align so well with the API-GBV mission and vision. May has directed fundraising teams at nonprofits focused on effectively serving K-12 kids of color, homeless youth, and vulnerable seniors in the areas of education, housing and social services. She was the co-founder and Executive Director of DigitalEve, the first international nonprofit for women involved with the Internet, and grew the organization to serve 31 chapters in five countries with 15,000 members, using web technology and traveling to meet personally with chapter leaders to develop strong relationships and trust. After earning her MA in English from San Francisco State University, she taught English as a Second Language at college and university programs in the SF Bay area, Seattle, and Japan.

May’s business articles have been published in print and online in the United States and Japan. She is regularly invited to lead workshops for nonprofit Boards and senior leaders in the areas of sustainability, fundraising, grantmaking, and leadership. When not learning to speak Spanish, May is busy exploring the sights of Spain and beyond. As a writer, she finished her first novel and screenplay, and is currently working on future manuscripts.

 

Suzy An, MPH, CDP, Secretary

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Consultant

Suzy started her communications career at Porter Novelli, using her public health communications and disease education background to shape unbranded health education campaigns. Since then, Suzy has built her career on supporting her clients with corporate and product communications, data and regulatory milestone support, internal/employee communications and campaign launches.

Suzy has worked with large and small organizations as well as government agencies across several industries and fields, including healthcare, medical devices, tech, food, apparel and DEI.

Suzy developed and implements JEDI strategies, guidelines, policies, and trainings in close partnership with HR departments and senior executives.

Suzy attended University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and received her Master of Public Health degree with a focus on health communications and behavior change. Suzy received her B.A. in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and recently earned her accreditation as a Certified Diversity Professional (CDP).

 

APARNA BHATTACHARYYA, Treasurer

Executive Director | Raksha

Aparna has served as Executive Director of Raksha since 1998. She started her career as a victim advocate in City of Atlanta and helped train and coordinate the 1996 Olympic Crisis Response team. Much of Aparna’s work is focused on crime victimization and gender-based violence in immigrant communities and providing training on the needs of underserved communities. Aparna is an experienced national and statewide trainer on cultural competency, language access, collaboration, and meeting the intersectional needs of immigrant and refugee survivors. She has trained law enforcement, advocates, organizers, community members, prosecutors, and judges. She has been faculty for Georgia’s statewide Victim Assistance Academy since its inception in 2005, Over the years, she has been a part of creating organizations like Tapestri, Inc and International Women’s House to meet the needs of immigrant and refugee survivors in Georgia. She was a White House Champion of Change in May 2013 with other Asian American Women leaders. She has also received the Georgia Commission on Family Violence Gender Justice Award, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Eagle Award and the Dekalb County Domestic Violence Task Force’s Deborah C. McDorman Award for her work in Georgia. Aparna was recognized by the Georgia State University with The Distinguished Alumni Service Award by the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and 2018 she received the Hope for Tomorrow Award from International Women’s House for her advocacy work. In 2023, She was listed in the 500 Most Influential Leaders in the 2023 Atlanta 500 list by Atlanta Magazine.   Throughout the years, she has served on the board of NIWAP, Inc, VIda Legal Assistance, Tapestri, Inc,  The Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and The Cross Keys Foundation. She currently serves as the board treasurer for The Asian Institute on Gender-Based Violence and is a co-founder and advisory board member for SOAR, South Asian Survivors, Organizations Allied and Rising.

 

Amy Y. Chen

Surgeon |  Emory Healthcare

Amy Y. Chen is a head and neck surgeon in practice at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, Georgia. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan and moved to the US with her parents and brother when she was in elementary school. Not only has she witnessed racist and sexist acts against others, she also has endured countless acts of bias. The Atlanta spa murders that occurred on March 16, 2021 was a pivotal moment for Amy. She led efforts to galvanize awareness of anti-AAPI hate at Emory and in Atlanta. She is honored to serve on the Board of API-GBV because she believes in efforts to end gender based violence in the AAPI community. She has helped numerous individuals (one at a time) with her clinical care, and wishes to expand her reach by impacting populations. Amy spent most of her formative years in Texas, and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Plan II degree. After graduating from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she returned to Houston where she completed her surgical training. She then moved to Atlanta to start her clinical surgical career. She is married and is the proud mother of two adult daughters and a rescue yellow Labrador retriever.

 

SANGEETA CHOWDHRY

Executive Director | Common Counsel Foundation

Sangeeta is a highly experienced strategic leader with strong operational acumen, with deeply held social justice values and intersectional analysis of the justice and equity issues CCF’s partners and communities are working on every day. She has a wealth of experience in strategic planning, fundraising, fostering strong networks, and cultivating partnerships that have transformative impact. Throughout her career, Sangeeta has dedicated herself to efforts that focus on shifting power, strengthening human rights, and working towards a more equitable and just society.

Prior to joining Common Counsel Foundation, Sangeeta served as Interim Vice President at the Global Fund for Women, leading strategic grantmaking and movement strengthening for global programs. She has also led various multi-year initiatives at the Global Fund for Women such as supporting women’s leadership for economic and political empowerment, centering movement-led solutions to climate justice, addressing gender-based violence in the garment industry, securing domestic worker rights and strengthening young women’s leadership through feminist mentorship programs.

 

Bincy Jacob

Broker-Associate, Team Lead | Advocates Real Estate Group

Bincy Jacob is a business owner and community leader in Houston, Texas. Bincy serves the community as an industry leader, a contributor to various news and online media, and an advocate for civic engagement and marginalized communities. Bincy started her work in this field in 2002 as a domestic violence case manager with the New York City Police Department, and continued on to work as a domestic violence clinical consultant at NYC Administration for Children’s Services (CPS), before going to My Sisters’ Place, a comprehensive domestic violence agency serving survivors of intimate partner violence and human trafficking.  She is a certified Federal Law Enforcement Trainer for Domestic Violence through the United States Department of Homeland Security and has presented to hundreds of audiences about intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and related topics. In 2010, Bincy joined API Safety Center in Seattle, WA as the Executive Director, where she managed their merger with Chaya, ultimately forming “API Chaya,” an organization serving Asian, Pacific Islander, and South Asian survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. Bincy continued her work by joining Daya, serving South Asian survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Houston as their first Executive Director in 2015, and later as a manager at Alliance for Multicultural Community Services in various roles. Bincy has also worked as a paralegal community organizer with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, primarily working with trafficked H2-B guestworkers in a bi-national campaign. In 2014, Bincy formed the Advocates Real Estate Group and in addition to running her team, she sits on several committees for the Houston Association of Realtors and is a state representative on the board of Texas Realtors, as well as serving as a Board Member of Global Labor Justice/International Labor Rights Forum based in Washington, DC. Along with her real estate work, Bincy continues to serve as a consultant and national trainer focusing on faith based and culturally specific communities.  She received her Bachelor’s degree from State University of New York at Albany.

 

Jennifer Solidum Rose, JD

Executive Director | University of Hawai’i Office of Equity Assurance

EEO/AA Director | UHM and System

Interim Title IX Coordinator | UHM Office of Title IX

Jenn Rose is a Director at the University of Hawai’i where she oversees centralized compliance functions and system-wide initiatives for all ten University of Hawai‘i campuses with the shared goal of preventing sex discrimination and gender violence.  She is an educator, faculty specialist, experienced compliance director, social justice lawyer and civil rights advocate with demonstrated expertise designing, developing and implementing institutional (prevention and training) programs and policies to advance gender equity and prevent and respond to allegations of sex discrimination, gender based violence and harassment within workplace and academic settings.  Jenn’s professional career and volunteer/community advocacy is dedicated to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within the legal profession, the courts and higher education.  Jenn is also a trainer and public speaker on Title IX, equity and inclusion, gender violence, working with underserved populations and access to justice.  Jenn was also previously the Director of Legal Serices at the Domestic Violence Action Center.

 

Shefali Shah

Global Real Estate & Workplace Transformation Leader | Merck & Co.

Ms. Shefali Shah is a respected executive in the pharmaceutical industry and a visionary strategist in business transformation. She has 24 years of experience leading strategy and execution to fuel innovation across the globe.

In her current role, she leads the Global Real Estate Services, a strategic corporate function that serves global business by developing and executing cost effective real estate strategy & workplace solutions.  During her tenure at Merck, she has developed a great reputation with a proven track record and expertise in strategy development and execution, marketing, policy, communications, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, lean six sigma, change management and business transformation.

Shefali holds an MBA with a concentration in Pharmaceutical Business from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia; a Bachelor of Science in Toxicology from Rutgers University, NJ; and a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology, M. G Science University, India. This educational background coupled with her extensive diverse experience equips Shefali with a unique perspective and valuable insights into the needs to communities served by various organizations.

In addition to her professional accomplishments, Shefali is deeply committed to giving back to the communities that she actively volunteers with other nonprofit organizations and has contributed towards initiatives aimed at improving the lives of underprivileged and promoting quality and equity. Through her tireless effort and dedication, Shefali strives to make a lasting impact for API-GBV.

Shefali serves on various committees When she is not working, she enjoys yoga, meditation and cooking.

 

Debra Suh

Debra worked for nonprofit organizations for over three decades to build a safer and more equitable society. As the executive director of the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF), an organization founded to support survivors of domestic and sexual violence in the immigrant Asian/Pacific Islander community, she addressed the intersections of gender and racial/ethnic inequity for over 23 years. Prior to joining CPAF, she worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles where she established the Asian Unit to increase indigent Asian/Pacific Islander immigrants’ access to legal services and representation. Debra serves on the board of the Sequoyah School where her son attended high school, and California Office of Emergency Service’s Domestic Violence Advisory Council. She served as vice president and board member of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, co-lead of the Culturally Responsive Domestic Violence Network, president and board member of the Korean American Bar Association.

 

K. Sujata

Strategist, Advisor, Consultant

Sujata brings over 20 years of nonprofit experience to enhance the impact of philanthropy – foundations, donors and social change organizations. She has managed nonprofit organizations, led a community foundation, and advised others in strategic planning, grantmaking, evaluation and research.

She is a methodical, purposeful and strategic leader who works quickly to assess the needs of an organization, build trusting relationships with staff and board and develops and implements strategies that will position the organization to achieve its mission.

Most recently, Sujata served as President and CEO of Chicago Foundation for Women from 2011-2019, a grantmaking organization focused on basic rights and equal opportunities for women and girls in the greater Chicago area. She worked closely with the board to advance racial and gender equity both internally and externally and led the foundation through double digit growth.

Sujata has also served at the Eleanor Foundation, as Executive Director of Apna Ghar, Director of Chicago Continuum of Care (now All Chicago), and Director of Planning and Development at Interfaith Housing Development Corporation.

Sujata received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University and an MBA from IIT, and studied engineering in her native India.

She currently serves on the Board of Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence. She has previously served as the Chair of the Women’s Funding Network and the Asset Funders Network, as well as on the boards of several notable nonprofits.

API-GBV is currently accepting applications for the following positions:

• Language Access VOCA and Courts Program Manager (Applications due December 1)

Sign up for emails or watch this space to stay updated on future opportunities!