Institute+

Institute+ lifts up the work of five remarkable women entrepreneurs who inspire, transform, create, craft, and nourish.
All Institute members/friends are encouraged to learn more, reach out, connect, and study with them!

 

*Institute+ is a 6-month business mentoring program lifting up the work of Institute-aligned businesses. Institute+ provides marketing support, encouragement, and monthly learning opportunities for entrepreneurs. The next Institute+ program begins in the Spring of 2025. Contact Amy Wright Glenn for more information.

 

 


Mariela Quesada Centeno  ~ (she/ella) is a Ph.D. student in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mariela is also a Maternal and Child Health Research Fellow at Centro Hispano of Dane County and Roots 4 Change Cooperative’s manager- the first woman- and immigrant-owned cooperative in Wisconsin. Mariela’s professional and personal interests have always focused on understanding the interactions between animal and human health and the role race, gender, and the built environment play in community development. Mariela earned my DVM degree at the Universidad Nacional in Heredia, Costa Rica  a Master’s in Public Health at UW-Madison with a Certificate in Global Health. Mariela brings her focus to the realization of the community health workers/doula framework as a community-based empowerment program that simultaneously serves as a peer support model for Latina mothers as they develop a new relationship with their babies. Her overarching vision is to develop community-based health and wellness educational opportunities fueled by the community, with the aim to proactively reduce the observed and documented health disparities in the Latinx population in the U.S. and abroad.

Learn more here.

 


Em Chiappinelli ~ (she/they) is training to become an integrative breathworker and has long been drawn to the themes of interconnection, disconnection, and consciousness, gravitating towards the shadows of awareness as the route into enhanced possibilities for connection. Their background is in impact measurement, permaculture, and organizational design, and they have supplemented their lifelong education with numerous spiritual schools and trainings in everything from sacred sexuality to unlearning white supremacy culture. Currently, Em is building their business called Dismantling Deadness and lives in a farming community on the traditional homelands of the Manahoac, Piscataway, and Shawnee in northern Virginia.

Learn more here.

 

 

 

 


Nicole George – (she/her) CEO, Editor-in-Chief | Founder of Sovereign Magazine. Nicole George worked in the corporate world for 18+ years, which left her burned out and in the unhealthiest physical and mental health of her life. In 2021, she left the corporate world and started her healing journey. It took many twists and turns, ultimately leading her to Sovereign Magazine. One of Nicole’s core values is owning a global company where women can flourish in an environment with inclusivity, kindness, fairness, and equality. She believes every woman’s superpowers should be celebrated, shared, and encouraged. Nicole’s mission is to provide you (women or those who identify as a woman) a global platform to share your story and purpose with the world. Sovereign Magazine was birthed to uplift and support you and the collective. You should be allowed to be seen and heard, and to connect to a greater purpose. We are here to help you share your message so it may resonate with those it is meant for. To help you stand in the SOVEREIGN-ty of your soul’s purpose!

 

Learn more through the links below.

The Sovereign Institute

Book a call with Nicole here.

Read Sovereign Magazine’s February 2024 issue.

 


Alexandra Fusco ~ (she/her) is an experienced psychodynamic psychotherapist, educator and life/wellbeing coach. She trained as a psychotherapist at The Ashburn Clinic in New Zealand and also has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education. She is committed to providing a safe, non-judgmental, empathic, respectful approach in a caring and compassionate space. She has over ten years of experience of working with people individually and in groups as they navigate many life challenges and mental health difficulties including, but not limited to: eating disorders, sexual trauma, grief – particularly people grieving the death of a loved one by suicide and postnatal depression.

Having migrated to New Zealand and returned to the UK fifteen years later, she is experienced in the effect migration has on people’s lives from the practical to the emotional and the process of shifting, transitional space, change and settling. Her therapy work explores the present in the context of the past and her coaching work explores how the future can be impacted by the present. She has also completed the BBD teacher training.

Alexandra is partway through training as a certified poetry therapist and is exploring ways of using creative writing as a therapeutic tool. Alexandra feels privileged to do the work she does and to walk alongside people as they navigate their lives and the process of knowing themselves. She is continuously learning and developing ways to be of service in the world that are heart-centred. In the words of Rumi “we are all just walking each other home.”

Contact Alexandra here: Alexandra@therapyandcoaching.space


Sonja Erin Ausen (she/her) earned her Master of Public Health, Maternal and Child Health from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Sonja’s core professional experience lies in systems creation and operations, facilitative processes, space holding, conducting/implementing research, and organizing and convening difficult conversations. These have expressed themselves in the domains of spirituality (expansive), public health, international development, small business, grants management, and refugee resettlement. Sonja has taken numerous classes from the Institute (including Birth, Breath, and Death Teacher Training) and is curious about tending and holding space in liminal times and about how our bodies hold our stories and help us heal. She is a full spectrum doula who believes that our own individual journey of increasing our capacity to stay with ourselves in difficult times is connected to our ability to do this with others; every moment is an opportunity to lean into this transformative invitation.

Contact Sonja here: theembodieddoula.sea@gmail.com