Allyson Senie has served on the Board of Directors for GGRF for six years.  She has brought awareness of the Girls' circumstances to the DMV high school running community to educate young U.S. runners about the challenges of girls and families in the Girls Gotta Run communities and to raise funds to keep the Soddo and Bekoji girls in school.  Prior to joining GGRF, Allyson was a Senior Counsel for International Trade Initiatives for the U S. Department of Commerce, participating in the negotiation of trade agreements in Latin America and Southern Africa focusing on immigration, the environment, and standards provisions. Allyson organized and managed a U.S.- South Africa Commercial Law Seminar in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town after the dismantling of Apartheid. Allyson worked on the Commerce Department's Economic Enrichment of Women Initiative for an interagency task force to fulfill US obligations under the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. Allyson is an avid cyclist and helped organize citizen to citizen sports programs, called Bike for Peace, with amateur U.S. and former Soviet Union cyclists covering over 1,200 miles from Moscow to Washington, D.C. Allyson is a former coach of a Girls on The Run team in Alexandria, Va. Allyson is a graduate of the George Washington University National Law Center and Ithaca College.

Gaby Grebski has been working as a high school counselor, health educator, and track & field and cross country coach for almost 15 years in both private and charter schools. She has spent much of her career counseling, teaching, and mentoring youth and has spent summers working for organizations like the Girls Leadership Institute and LearnServe International. She has worked abroad in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zambia to help bring awareness to the many issues facing young girls including access to education and HIV prevention. Gaby serves on the board of directors of Girls Health Ed, a DC-based nonprofit bringing comprehensive health education to underserved girls. Gaby herself is an avid runner, having competed at both the collegiate and masters levels. Gaby is passionate about empowering and tapping into the potential of girls and young women worldwide.

Gelila Bekele grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Like any Ethiopian, she grew up with a passion for long distance running and would wake up at odd hours in the evening to watch Ethiopian long distance athletes compete on the world stage. Today, Gelila serves as a Board Member of GGRF where she contributes to the advancement of female student athletes in both their academic and athletic pursuits. Gelila is the Founder of Aone Partners, a New York city based private investment firm focused on enterprise software businesses. Prior to Aone, Gelila was a Director at Banyan software, a Post-Graduate Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and an Investor at BlackRock’s Multi Asset Strategies and Solutions Group. Gelila earned a BA from Columbia College, where she was a Kluge Scholar, and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. In addition to GGRF, Gelila is a member of the Project Redwood Evaluation and Impact Committee. She is also a Regional Board Leader of Stanford Women’s Circles in New York. In her free time, she enjoys running and reading books.

A native of the Philippines, Jeggi was raised in California, where he started running after college at the urging of a friend. After a stint in London for school, he settled in New York City, where he has worked professionally with Nike and more recently, Tracksmith. A longtime supporter of GGRF, he brings passion and enthusiasm to the Board. Jeggi has an English Literature degree from the University of California, Irvine and a Mechanical Engineering degree (with an emphasis on Motorsport) from Kingston University, London. He has run over 20 marathons, and learned of Girls Gotta Run after meeting former ED Kayla during the 2014 NYC Marathon. A donor and volunteer since then, Jeggi ran in the Bekoji 100–and is featured in the film! – in 2019; meeting the GGRF Athletic Scholars and Mothers cemented his support. Outside of running, Jeggi enjoys racing cars with his Dad in California, skateboarding, reading and writing, and DJing. He is a founding member of South Brooklyn Mutual Aid, a group that has supported families and individuals with food and life resources in South Brooklyn through the Covid-19 pandemic. He has also organized and consulted on the programming for mentorship programs facilitated by the Harold Hunter Foundation—a group that supports the life and career growth of New York City skateboarders.

Rosie Rodriguez is a passionate advocate for women’s rights with over 10 years of experience in the philanthropic and corporate sectors. Throughout her career, she has cultivated authentic relationships and built collaborative partnerships for mission-driven organizations. She is currently a consultant for nonprofits and social impact companies. She was the interim Director of Development, Board Chair, and mentor at The Lower Eastside Girls Club for 8 years, where she supported the mission through a wide variety of development, programmatic, and advocacy initiatives. Prior to dedicating her life’s work to the advancement of girls and women, she began her career in the international legal field for seven years. She earned her BA from Dartmouth College and MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business. From Rosie's work with women’s organizations in New York City and abroad, she has witnessed the power of education and empowerment to improve the lives of girls and women. On a personal level, running, education, and travel empowered Rosie and enriched her life in many meaningful ways. Her knowledge of nonprofit administration, commitment to helping girls become vital agents of change, and passion for running help her support Girls Gotta Run's mission of investing in girls who use running and education to empower themselves and their communities.

Tammara Walker is an experienced brand marketing professional with a successful track record of designing and delivering holistic brand campaigns that meet consumers where they are – in the store and in their communities. She has worked with top brands such as Nike and JP Morgan Chase, as well as with nonprofit and community organizations. She believes that a focus on inclusion creates tremendous opportunities to grow awareness and broaden community access to brands. Her passion to help women and minority-owned businesses succeed has been a constant thread in her career and volunteer work, and she is an expert at integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion into organizational strategy in a meaningful way. A native New Yorker currently living in Miami, Tammara received her Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing at Hofstra University. In addition to GGRF, she is a board member of the Rockhouse Foundation; a mentor for Black in Corporate, an organization helping people of color navigate Corporate America; a member of the Black Professional Network in Miami, FL and an advisory board member for TING, a diversity and inclusion firm committed to creating safe workspaces for diverse talent in the UK.

Dominique is an international development professional with 25 years of experience in designing, developing, managing and evaluating projects with a focus on the HIV/AIDS supply chain, livelihood and food security, and nutrition. A strong supporter of GGRF's mission, she will use her professional skills to help guide and shape GGRF to deliver effective and efficient services to its community of girls. In her current role as Executive Director of the People that Deliver, a part of UNICEF, Dominique is responsible for the management and overall performance of a broad coalition of governments and international, regional and national organizations working together to raise the profile of supply chain management as a key strategic function of health systems, and promote and support sustainable workforce excellence in health supply chain management. Prior to UNICEF she worked at the Partnership for Supply Chain Management and with a variety of multilateral agencies and NGOs, including the International Food Policy Research Institute, Innovative Resources Management, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Dominique has both an MBA in International Business Administration and a Master's degree in Nutrition. She is fluent in English, Spanish and Dutch. As a native of The Netherlands and having lived in Latin America (Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela) and visited Africa on many occasions, she is now working remotely from the Washington, DC area.

Dr. Patricia E. Ortman is a retired Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1987, she accepted a position at the small private women’s college, Mount Vernon, in Northwest WDC. There she taught for 12 years, specializing in the psychology of women and gender and women’s growth and development throughout the lifespan. Among her accomplishments were the creation of an area of concentration in the growth and development of women and girls within the Human Development major and an interdisciplinary minor in Women’s Studies.

When the College was closed, she continued to do scholarly work, including co-writing articles for and acting as Executive Editor of Improving Schools for African American Students: A Reader for Educational Leaders for the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center (Charles C. Thomas, 2002). During the same time, she began more aggressively pursuing her interest and talent in painting. As an artist she came to work mainly on commission, specializing in portraits of all kinds, murals and a body of work called “Prayers.” She also donated specially created paintings to raise money for women’s and other causes she supports. One of her paintings, “Equity Rules (Be Fair, Be Fair, Be Fair),” was created specifically to benefit the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Education Equality program and is featured on the cover of the Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education, a publication supported by the Foundation and published in April 2007.

In mid-2006 Dr. Ortman, inspired by an article in the Washington Post (by East African correspondent Emily Wax) about girls in Ethiopia, founded and acted as first Executive Director of, the Girls Gotta Run Foundation, Inc, (http://www.girlsgottarun.org/). The organization was dedicated to raising funds to support Ethiopian girls training to be runners in order to be able to stay in school and avoid being basically sold into marriage by impoverished parents. Initially the funds provided the girls with athletic shoes, clothes, extra food (called “calorie” money), some coaches’ fees, and other items incidental to training such as showers, soap, transportation, medical attention and so forth. Starting out by supporting four girls on one team, mostly through donations and the sale of art (“shoe art”), the organization grew over the first few years to provide support for some 100 girls on three teams and in one training program, and also begun generating funds by partnering with members of the running community. Girls Gotta Run caught some positive press attention, including from the Washington Post, an Ethio-American magazine (Helm), and a Danish radio journalist, and even when still relatively new and relatively small, the effects on the girls and their families were enormous, especially, perhaps, in providing hope where there was none.

In 2012, it became clear that in order to continue to grow, the organization needed to transform from one that depended on volunteers entirely to one with some paid employees and one that had its own program model. At that point Dr. Ortman contacted Kayla Nolan, who had visited Ethiopia to do research on women and running under Girls Gotta Run’s auspices for independent study college credit in 2010, and she agreed to come on board as Girls Gotta Run’s first paid Executive Director. Dr. Ortman stayed on the Board as Chair for several more years as the Girls Gotta Run program model was developed, piloted, evaluated, adjusted, and expanded at the first site and implemented in an additional site before retiring in (2016). She remains involved as adviser, donor, fundraiser and head cheerleader.