Congratulating Sara Farley and Welcoming Our New Staff

It’s incredible to look back at the first quarter of 2019 and reflect on the transformation taking place here at the Global Knowledge Initiative.

First, GKI announces the departure of Sara Farley as Chief Operating Officer. A co-founder of GKI, Sara served as an exemplary leader of the organization for nearly a decade. Under her tenure, thousands of partners across the globe learned to transform themselves and their organizations into “Super Collaborators” — people, institutions and networks adept at uniting disparate ideas and resources to solve challenges in complex systems.  We are grateful for her courage, vision and contributions to the organization and wish her the very best as she joins The Rockefeller Foundation to continue to lead transformation in food systems.

Meanwhile, we are thrilled to announce that the GKI team is growing.

• Sona Gandhi, formerly part of the FINCA leadership team, brings a decade of executive expertise in international non-profits to her new role as interim Chief Operating Officer.
• Tom Derr joins GKI and brings to the organization his experience in community-driven systems thinking and participatory action research. Prior to joining GKI, Tom served as a Peace Corps Volunteer and researcher in Uganda focused on community-based adaptation to climate change.
• Christine Geers joins GKI after four years at USAID as an Innovation Advisor in the Global Development Lab. In addition, she served as a Global Innovation Science and Technology Advisor at the AAAS. Both experiences contributed to her passion and experience in designing programs that empower development organizations, local communities, entrepreneurs and innovators around the world to deliver better solutions for complex challenges.

Under the leadership of our new CEO, Seema Patel, GKI is growing its network of partners, co-conspirators, change agents, advisors, problem solvers and facilitators.  We are seeking to grow the community of people and organizations that want to harness the power of collaborative innovation to mobilize systems change and solve the complex challenges of our time.  Please feel free to reach out at seema@gkinitiative.org if you would like to explore opportunities for engagement and partnership.