Rozella Kennedy, At-A-Glance

Rozella Kennedy is a dynamic and accomplished professional with a diverse background in strategic development, communications, marketing, and organizational leadership. Based in Seattle, Washington, she has dedicated her career to driving impact attainment, revenue growth, and sustainable engagement for mission-driven organizations around the world.

As the Founder of Brave Sis Project and its sister entity, GoEquitably, Rozella has provided coaching and facilitation services to a wide range of clients, including Fortune 100 companies, foundations, and social impact innovators. Her expertise in equity coaching, inclusive team building, and implicit bias training has made her a sought-after adviser and activator in the field.

Rozella also brings extensive creative innovation to her practice, as the author of the Nautilus award-winning book Our Brave Foremothers: Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women who Changed the Course of History, published by Workman/Hachette in 2023, and the creator of four editions of the world’s only journal/day planner focusing on BIPOC women in US history. In addition to five years of social media “sistorylessons” adjacent to this theme, she is currently working on a World Brave Sis book, celebrating global she-roes of color.

Throughout her career, Rozella has held leadership positions in various organizations, including California Shakespeare Theater, Elemental Excelerator, and the Women's Foundation of California. In these roles, she has consistently demonstrated her ability to drive fundraising and impact efforts, meeting annual goals while managing robust relationships with stakeholders from UHNW individuals and family offices to civic and corporate leaders. In a recent role as Director of Impact and Equity for global strategic advisory firm Camber Collective, she spearheaded several industry-first initiatives and models for inserting equity and liberatory processes into client delivery, alongside models for bolstering internal cultures of belonging. 

Because of her vast experience working at different organizational levels (creator, entrepreneur, Executive Director, Director of Marketing and Development, and founder of three startup nonprofit organizations among others); across diverse cultural regions (New York, New Mexico, Bay Area, Pacific Northwest); and interfacing with clients and partners across class, social, and educational differences, including internationally, Rozella leverages a wealth of knowledge, experience, and perspective in the areas of equity, justice, liberatory work, and social impact.

Within equity, diversity, and inclusion circles that often disperse or disband before tackling the hard of honest introspection and mindset shifting, Rozella has been praised for her exceptional ability to spur systems refinement (if not outright systems change) across intersectional divides. 

Courageously confronting how the vestiges of monocultural feminism, the socialization of white womanhood, and the social expectations of humanitarian and development fields can sometimes create division and estrangement from the very communities (of color, and of different culture) progressive do-ers most with to collaborate with, Rozella has developed a welcoming, compassionate, and personable praxis of education, coaching, and convening anchored in honesty, truth, and emergence. 

Among recent activations, she has co-facilitated dozens of cohorts, workshops, webinars, panel discussions, and an 2024 Interracial Sisterhood retreat in San Francisco. Her 2024 digital course: “Allies, Advocates, Co-Conspirators, Friends, Sisters: a Playbook for Leading, Learning, and Liberation” is a self-paced cursus for individual awareness and growth. Over eleven modules, this curriculum explores the complexities and possibilities of building authentic collaborations and relationships across race, culture, ethnicity, and class. 

Rozella's educational background includes a Master's degree in French Literature from the Université de Paris, Sorbonne, and a BA in French and English Literature from Tufts University. She is an alumna of the prestigious Brearley School in New York City, her native land, and has also lived in Paris and the UK. She is fluent in French and has strong Spanish language skills (and enough Italian and Portuguese to survive and even make friends.)

Currently, Rozella serves on the Global Advisory Council of Opportunity Collaboration, the premier global “unconference” dedicated to alleviating poverty, where she leads initiatives focused on trust-based philanthropy, power shifting, and inclusion in social impact.