BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Nov. 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) today announced four vice presidents who will become part of the foundation’s leadership team in four newly established roles. After national searches, the foundation has made the following selections:
- Dr. Felicia DeHaney Russell, vice president for strategy;
- Miriam Calderón, vice president for impact;
- Sarah Takatani, vice president for technology and integrated services; and
- Roshell R. Rinkins, vice president for transformation and organizational effectivenes.
In September, Dr. Felicia DeHaney Russell was selected as vice president for strategy to lead WKKF’s national and international grantmaking portfolio. Most recently, DeHaney Russell served as director of program and strategy for the foundation, leading the national program team and working with WKKF priority place directors to implement the foundation’s priorities of employment equity, food systems, health equity and early childhood and education systems, all grounded in the foundation’s commitment to racial equity, community engagement and leadership.
Prior to WKKF, DeHaney Russell was president and CEO of the National Black Child Development Institute in Washington, D.C. She also served as the assistant superintendent of Early Childhood for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in the District of Columbia, the principal advisor to the state superintendent of education, to ensure that all District children, from birth to kindergarten, were well prepared for school.
Miriam Calderón has been selected as the foundation’s vice president for impact, where she will oversee program portfolios supporting knowledge and learning; impact investing; and policy advocacy, supporting efforts to achieve WKKF goals on behalf of children, families and communities. In this role, Calderón will lead and develop programming visions and strategies leading towards sustainable impact. She will join the foundation on Nov. 15.
Previously, Calderón was the chief policy officer at ZERO TO THREE, where she led the development and implementation of their policy agenda, priorities and strategies, and had oversight of the Policy Center, focused on federal and state policy and advocacy. Calderón joined ZERO TO THREE after serving as deputy assistant secretary for early learning at the U.S. Department of Education under the Biden Administration. She also advised the White House on early learning policy at the Domestic Policy Council and at the Department of Health and Human Services, during the Obama Administration. In 2017, she served as Oregon’s early learning system director, where she led an agency responsible for the administration of child care, preschool and home visiting programs and supports for the early childhood workforce, overseeing the largest expansion of early childhood investments in the state’s history.
DeHaney Russell and Calderón will report to Dr. Carla Thompson Payton, chief strategist and impact officer. “Felicia’s leadership, knowledge and ability to execute on our strategic framework, paired with her commitment to racial equity and community engagement, allow her to execute with teams in a strong and effective way,” says Thompson Payton. “Add to that Miriam’s wealth of expertise in early learning programs and her state and national policy experience, and a demonstrated approach for making sustainable impact for children and families, we’re excited for greater strategic impact in the future.
On Oct. 7, the foundation welcomed Sarah Takatani as the vice president for technology and integrated services. As part of the executive team and head of the foundation’s systems, data, cybersecurity and workplace environments, she will enhance and safeguard the work of the foundation through human-centered design, artificial intelligence augmentation and data-driven decision-making.
Takatani recently served as interim chief executive officer at NextGen Thriving, a newly launched foundation that empowers historically marginalized youth through workforce development training programs such as Code for Life.
Previously, she led the integration of mission and technology strategy and solutions as chief information officer at Save the Children, making a difference in over 197 million children’s lives annually, and Year Up, empowering nearly 5,000 young adults each year to reach their potential through careers and higher education. At Girl Scouts of the USA, she was the chief digital cookie officer, transforming the Girl Scout Cookie Program for more than 1.8 million girls every year by taking it digital. She also spent 17 years at IBM in various executive, technology development and diversity-focused positions.
Effective Nov. 4, Roshell R. Rinkins will join WKKF as vice president for transformation & organizational effectiveness. She will be responsible for business process reengineering, quality improvement and organizational performance initiatives at the foundation. She will lead and engage staff in organization-wide strategic development and ongoing management of new quality and process improvement programs and protocols. She will oversee change management, WKKF’s concierge services, grants administration and contract functions. She will also lead the foundation’s racial equity and community engagement grantmaking portfolio.
Previously, Rinkins served as vice president for grants administration and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officer for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In this role, she led the development and execution of enterprise-wide systems, policies and management tools to advance grantmaking outcomes. Over her tenure at Knight, the Grants Administration team processed over 1,700 grants representing over $750 million to support more informed and engaged communities. In her DEI capacity, she ensured that a diversity, equity and inclusion lens was embedded into all of the foundation’s work.
She comes to WKKF with close to 20 years of experience in supply chain optimization, operations management, logistics and strategic sourcing. Rinkins worked at Apple as a global supply manager and at Procter & Gamble, where she held various international strategic sourcing and logistics leadership positions, leading strategy, supplier negotiations, developing negotiation plans and executing sourcing strategies for complex supplier relationships. Both Takatani and Rinkins will report to Dr. Alandra Washington, chief of transformation and organizational effectiveness.
“Sarah and Roshell both bring a demonstrated commitment and dedicated experience to their teams, their communities, and at the national and international levels,” says Washington. “We’re excited about what they offer WKKF’s business process and technology systems as part of our social and community change efforts.
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The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Mich., and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. For more information and to read this in Spanish or Haitian Creole, visit www.wkkf.org.
- Four new vice presidents at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation