Meet Rozella Kennedy

My work and life are dedicated to building cultures and communities of inclusion, celebration, co-creation, power-expansion/sharing, and impact. 

I am the founder of Brave Sis Project, a lifestyle brand & social cause using women’s history, story-weaving, celebration, and socio-emotional awareness and mindset shifts to foster fuller solidarity, shared agency, and Beloved Community across racial, cultural, and class divides. 

My book Our Brave Foremothers: Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women Who Changed the Course of History (Workman/Hachette) is the recipient of a 2024 Nautilus Award. 

While in my recent role as Director of Impact and Equity for a global social advisory consultancy, I focused on building a platform for Equity, Belonging, and Impact—through the application of equitable values into the humanitarian, development, philanthropic, and social impact sectors — shifting power and praxis in post-colonial contexts, local to global. 

I brain-birthed their "bread and butter" impact proposition: Equitable Project Design—a methodology of inserting liberatory, localized, and co-creative frameworks into client deliverables and sectoral influence. 

I am honored to serve on OC's Advisory Council, helming the JEDI+ committee. This association gives me an opportunity to provide leadership across countries, geographies, and cultures, working with solutionists alleviating global poverty. 

I am also a Belonging Ambassador for Seattle through Civic Commons.

Over my multivalent career, I've held executive roles in the arts, environmental, and social service sectors. I started three nonprofits (the award-winning Santa Fe New Music, Creative Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Centennial). 

I cut my career teeth as a magazine writer and managing editor: ranging from Paris Passion to Sports Illustrated, Mothering, and Oxygen.com. 

I am a first-gen collegian and a Black woman, whose lived experience and big heart position me as a bridger (to quote john a. powell) and I revel in the opportunity to engage collaboration in building towards what I call "Beloved Community." 

Relentlessly relational and ridiculously can-do, I strive for results and positive impact, whether in starting a new venture; coaching or training others and/or serving as a thought-leader, consensus-builder and passionate catalyst for understanding, mutuality, and growth. 

I am a very proud alum of NYC’s Brearley School, and earned a double English/French degree from Tufts University, and an M.A. at the Université de Paris, Sorbonne. 

What do I love? African and Brazilian-inspired dance, reading, being creative, and empty nesting with my incredible husband, composer/conductor John Kennedy and our feisty Caribbean Potcake Dog, Pippa. My heart belongs to my two outstanding adult daughters, who reside in New York City.