Kari Sides Suva
Kari Sides Suva believes that grassroots, visionary organizations have tremendous potential to help alleviate poverty around the world. Her experience in low and middle income countries has prepared her for understanding the challenges of working in the humanitarian sector and the importance of and opportunity to empower local people to develop their own successful interventions, products and services. She ensures that their passion and good intentions are impactful and sustainable by working with them to build a capable and engaged board, to coach their leaders, and to put strong management systems and practices in place. She is an avid proponent of teleconferencing as a way to bring her services to small and lean organizations around the world.
To do her work, Kari draws on her 30+ year career in the non-profit sector as a healthcare executive, civic leader, and NGO manager during which she gained broad-based management skills in operations, strategic planning, marketing and project management. A certified coach, she has mentored and advised both seasoned and emerging leaders. She has provided services to organizations working in China, Nepal, Cambodia, Haiti, Tanzania and Malawi in addition to domestic clients.
Kari, who holds graduate degrees from both the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts and a BA in Biology from Middlebury College, is passionate about women’s leadership and serves as Co-President of the Fletcher Women’s Network and as a board member of the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute. She continues her volunteer civic work with a current focus on increasing voter participation in Maine.
Living in Portland with her husband, she loves to sail, travel (of course!), and spend time with her adult children.