Lorena Gomez-Barris

Lorena Gomez-Barris is the Director of Administration for the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. With more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, she leads the Admin Team to innovate and maintain administrative systems, plan and execute a robust and inclusive teambuilding initiative and provide effective internal communications. She also co-leads the Employee Experience Advisory Group engaging with staff around the Foundation’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Lorena worked as the Director of Operations and Finance at Rise Up, a global advocacy organization based at the Public Health Institute. For 10 years, she led the team on global compliance, financial management, administrative systems building, procurement and contracting vendors and grantees. Throughout her career, she has worked at several nonprofit organizations where she has lead teams, scaled administrative processes, set and executed organizational strategy and driven communications efforts.

Lorena was born in Santiago, Chile and moved to California with her family at a young age. Early on, she realized the importance of connecting to family and community through storytelling, food and art. Lorena has a BA in Environmental Studies and Business from Sacramento State University and MNA in Nonprofit Administration and Management from the University of San Francisco. She continues to be passionate about storytelling and has produced several films, led video production workshops internationally, and served on the board of directors for Cine Acción and the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival.