Team
Sandy Ordonez, Head of Team
Sandy has over 20+ years of experience working at the intersection of technology, community engagement, and human rights. She is one of the first Latinas to occupy leadership positions in the public interest technology field, notably having served as the first Director of Communications for the Wikimedia Foundation. As a native New Yorker and daughter of immigrants, throughout her career she has worked towards increasing the leadership of individuals from underrepresented and often marginalized communities. This experience led her to envision and create Team CommUNITY and their popular annual in-person gathering, Global Gathering. She is a recipient of the prestigious Hispanic Leadership Award by Fundacion Carolina. She is also the founder of LatinaMagick, a platform amplifies the untold stories of resilient US Latinas doing impactful, often unrecognized work, and serves on the board of several organizations.
Lindsay Beck, Deputy Head of Team
Lindsay manages operations, project delivery and reporting, partnership development and fundraising, ensure effective financial operations including carrying out due diligence on new partnerships and contracts. She also works closely with the Head of Team to chart Team CommUNITY’s future growth and strategic response to a post pandemic environment.
Lindsay has over 15 years of experience working on the intersection of technology, security and human rights across a variety of non-profit organizations. She has worked extensively with US and local activism networks to implement digital security strategies into their program activities to ensure their core work remains resilient against the changing threat landscape. Lindsay received her Master’s degree, focusing on Technology in International Affairs, from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.
Erin McConnell, Event Lead and VPN Community Lead
Erin has been coordinating Team CommUNITY's Global Gathering as well as bringing individuals working across the VPN ecosystem together to discuss and collaborate around emerging issues within the space. She has worked at the intersection of language, human rights and technology for over a decade, focused on accessibility in technology, language access and localization of open source technology, and community building within the global digital rights space. She also worked as the Program Manager at Localization Lab and as a Localization Advisor with EngageMedia, and is a member of the Global Coalition for Language Rights. She is motivated to build inclusive, global communities that collectively move human and digital rights initiatives forward.