Announcing our new Director: Alissa Marchant

We, the Innovation Network team and board, are excited to announce that Alissa Marchant will be taking on the position of Director at Innovation Network! The board and team went through a collaborative process to make a final decision on Alissa’s candidacy, and we were in complete alignment about appointing her to the Director role. We are excited about Alissa’s vision for an organization that lives up to its commitment to equity and is conscious of the privileges we hold in this work.

Alissa has been an integral part of our team for the past six years. She worked in partnership with many of our foundation and nonprofit clients to conduct learning, evaluation, and capacity building projects that have furthered their ability to achieve systems changes in their own fields and organizations. In all projects, Alissa has brought both expertise in and commitment to evaluation that creates sustainable social justice and healthy communities, as well as an ability to think creatively and with imagination. We look forward to her stewarding a strategic planning process through which we’ll collectively chart a path for how Innovation Network will live up to its values.

Just as importantly, Alissa has been central to the organization’s transformation towards centering equity and justice. As an organization with a long history of serving the field, and one that has internalized harmful characteristics of white supremacy culture in the way we do our work, we recognize that we have work to do in understanding and acknowledging the harm we have caused, both internally as well as in the field. Alissa has been a leader in the work of organizational transformation and healing, first from her vantage point as a Senior Associate, then as Interim Co-Director.

As we congratulate Alissa, we also want to thank Virginia Roncaglione for her excellent work as Interim Co-Director in the past year. This interim period has been a time of transition, adaptation, learning and development for an organization with a history of 31 years of serving the field. Alissa and Virginia have built on a principle that has been at Innovation Network’s core from the beginning: our ability to continually innovate to meet the moment. Together, Virginia and Alissa re-envisioned Innovation Network’s direction and culture, building an organization rooted in humanity and relationships, with a team-led, horizontal governance, and where the vision, experience, and ways of being of all team members are valued.

We are excited for this new chapter of Innovation Network’s life and look forward to Alissa’s continued equity- and relationships-centered leadership. You can also hear directly from Alissa what she is looking forward to. Please join us in congratulating Alissa!