Introducing Our New Leadership Team

By Clare Nolan and Sonia Taddy-Sandino

At Engage R+D, we are starting the New Year rested, strong, and excited about the future. As we lean into our equity journey and explore how to deepen our impact, we’re excited to share important news about our evolving organization and leadership model. 

Since our inception in 2017, we have been practicing a shared leadership approach with two co-founders guiding the organization in collaboration with a stellar group of talented team members. We’ve built a solid foundation and are committed to diversifying and distributing leadership in ways that will enable us to advance equity in evaluation and philanthropy long into the future. 

So it’s with great excitement that we are announcing the promotion of five internal leaders, each tasked with different but intersecting organizational responsibilities. All five of these team members have been diligently working - often behind the scenes - to support the success and health of our organization. Together with Nikki Hawkins, our new Director of Talent and Operations, this new leadership team will enable us to take our collective work and commitment to equity to the next level with greater focus, intentionality, and accountability. 

Pilar Mendoza and Mary Gray have been promoted to Managing Director roles, where they will work alongside us and our Director of Talent and Operations to strategically support our people-first culture. 

• Pilar is a consummate community builder affectionately known as the “glue” that brings our team together. In addition to developing and leading client projects, Pilar is broadly recognized for her efforts to advance equity within the fields of evaluation and philanthropy through presentations, convenings, and briefs. She co-leads our Workload and Wellness Team (WWT) and continuously cultivates a culture of care and inclusion. 

• Mary brings her strengths as a “maximizer” to cultivate the contributions of others. She supports and inspires fellow team members by modeling active listening and a highly collaborative leadership style. She has contributed to internal process improvement efforts, co-leads the WWT alongside Pilar, and ensures equity is embedded into our hiring processes. 

Erika Takada, Anna Saltzman, and Giannina Fehler-Cabral have been promoted to Director roles, each with a unique purview and working in close collaboration with our full leadership team. 

• Erika brings over two decades of experience leading projects, designing trainings, and building the capacity of social sector leaders and organizations. A skilled and creative facilitator, she will bring her deep technical expertise to ensure high-quality consulting and research practices. This will include designing and implementing training on equity-driven methods and approaches, creating organizational learning opportunities and information on field trends, and lifting-up ways to continuously innovate our practice.

• Anna has been helping to build our infrastructure and codify our processes since the earliest days of Engage R+D. Over the years, she has helped shape and bring needed structure to staff meetings, organizational learning, field building, and, most recently, business development. Her new role will focus on leading team efforts to assess new project opportunities that align with our values and cultivating partnerships with other firms and partners.

• Giannina is skilled at modeling, facilitating, and creating safe and brave spaces – internally, with clients, and in communities – encouraging staff and partners to show up as their authentic selves. In her new role, she will focus on mentoring Consultants and building an inclusive culture where everyone feels heard and supported to do their best work.

As co-founders of Engage R+D, we will continue to provide overall strategic guidance and leadership at an executive level alongside this diverse and seasoned group of leaders. All members of this leadership team will continue to lead project work and provide the same high quality consulting services that our partners and clients expect and for which our firm is known. 

Please join us in congratulating Anna, Erika, Giannina, Mary, Nikki, and Pilar! We are grateful to them and every member of the Engage R+D team for shaping who we are as an organization and helping us imagine the future. We look forward to sharing more updates about our evolving organizational structure and what we’re learning in the future.