Manager Confessions: This Meeting Could Have been an Email
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Oct. 7 1:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Oct. 7 2:00 PM (Eastern)
Is “progressive manager” an oxymoron? Many of us have seen people in that role oppress and take advantage of others. And most of the resources out there are written by white, corporate-centric people. How do we challenge these olds patterns and systems? How do we live our values as progressives in management roles? This panel will explore our struggles and shortcomings, our aspirations, and how we can continue to push for the progressive movement to treat management as a hard skill, not an afterthought.
Moderator
Lola Elfman
Lola Elfman Greene is a founder and CEO of DevelopWell, as well as a Leadership Coach and Master Trainer with a passion for creative learning and social change.
DevelopWell is a womxn-owned and operated coaching and consulting practice that develops leaders and teams in values-driven organizations with a holistic and innovative approach. Our team brings years of experience from the technology, organizing, and People & Culture fields to ensure our clients are employing the best structures and practices that will allow their teams to achieve their full potential.
Lola’s work focuses on developing strong leaders and teams through coaching, team building, and talent development. She has set the standard for engaging and productive team retreats and meaningful management practices with groups like ActBlue, Sunrise Movement, UltraViolet and others.
Lola believes that everyone is a leader, not just line managers or the C-Suite, and that everyone has the potential to positively impact their organization, their families, and the world.
Other sessions: Develop Management: Leading Teams, Managing the Work
Panelists
Malinda Frevert
Malinda Frevert has 13 years’ experience running digital programs for political organizations and campaigns. She cut her teeth organizing farmers, ranchers, and city folks against the Keystone XL pipeline at BOLD Nebraska. Since then she’s worked on electoral campaigns in Minnesota and Ohio, organized hundreds of thousands of feminists online with UltraViolet, been email director at EMILY’s List, and served as deputy digital director at the DSCC.
She’s been managing teams for 7 years and organizing Manager Confessions panels at Netroots for the last 5 years. Her favorite soapbox is that we need a lot more support for managers in the progressive movement.
Justin Jenkins
Justin Jenkins is a seasoned campaign strategist who has executed cutting-edge digital programs for high-profile campaigns, including Northam for Governor in 2017, McCaskill for Missouri in 2018, Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential primary campaign in 2019, and Mark Kelly for Senate in 2020.
Before starting electoral work, Justin received his master’s degree in political communication from American University and his bachelor’s in political science and communication from the University of Arizona.
Justin has nearly ten years of experience managing diverse teams across multiple fields and a strong interest in developing compassionate, inclusive, and sustainable work environments centered on thoughtful organizational communication structures.
Justin is currently the Deputy Campaign Manager for Senator Mark Kelly’s 2022 re-election campaign.
Ruby Sarron
In 2016, Ruby began her career dedicated to shifting the power structures of our country. Over the years, she’s worked as a fundraiser, a campaign staffer and a trainer. In each of these roles, she has developed her ability to reach people where they’re at and her passion for creating a seat at the table for folks who have historically been left out of the political process. After fundraising with nonprofits for 3 years, Ruby dove head first into the world of political campaigning as the Deputy Training Director for the 2016 Hillary For America campaign in the battleground state of Ohio. In this role, she executed a statewide training program that supported the onboarding, development, empowerment, and retention of hundreds of staff members, fellows, and volunteers. In 2017, Ruby moved to EMILY’s List, where she supported the planning and execution of a year-long Run to Win training program, which came about as a result of the surge of tens of thousands of women coming to the
organization to learn about running for office. During the 2017 and 2018 cycle, EMILY’s List trained 5000+ women, 30% of the total number of women the organization has trained since its founding in 1985. In 2019, Ruby moved back to her hometown of Boston to take a position as the first Training Director at ActBlue. Here, in collaboration with the incredible ActBlue staff, she has built out both a training team and accessible training programs to provide candidates, campaigns, nonprofits and movement leaders the information, support and resources they need to create and run a digital fundraising program. Since the creation of the ActBlue training team, they have trained over 3,000 folks. Ruby remains committed to building power in our communities through training.
Ruby lives in Boston with her partner of two years and their two cats, Hops and Squirrel.
Other sessions: Digital Fundraising 101: Building People Power with Small-dollar Donors