The Safety Respect Equity Network is a fiscally sponsored project of New Venture Fund (NVF).
Our Team
Elana Wien
Executive Director
Ventura, California
Elana Wien
Elana Wien is the inaugural Executive Director of the Safety Respect Equity (SRE) Network, a national Jewish network mobilized to create safe, respectful, and equitable workplaces and communal spaces, through sharing resources, raising awareness and accelerating a broader cultural shift toward addressing sexual harassment, sexism, and gender discrimination.
A trusted community leader, Elana brings a wealth of experience. Prior to joining SRE Network in November 2019, she served as vice president for the Center for Designed Philanthropy at the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles where she led grant programs and provided philanthropic counsel to individuals and families, overseeing $100M in grants benefiting hundreds of nonprofits over the course of her tenure.
Elana has a strong track record of supporting innovation, building capacity, fostering meaningful partnerships, and taking projects and organizations to scale. With a passion for civil rights, community relations, strategic communications, fundraising and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, her prior roles have included assistant regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles and consultant to nonprofit clients including a regional medical center, a national early childhood think tank, a major LA County community clinic system, and a youth homeless services agency.
Elana graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in geography and received a master’s degree in anthropology from the Universidad de las Americas as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Mexico. Elana is a Wexner Field Fellow (2018-2021), a graduate of the Coro SoCal Women in Leadership Cohort 2, a member of the LGBTQ Professionals Network of Southern California Grantmakers, a member of the SAM Initiative women’s giving circle, and a partner of Social Venture Partners LA. She was featured as an “Amazing Woman in the World of Philanthropy” in local Los Angeles media. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she currently resides in Ventura, California with her wife and children, having also lived in the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., NYC, Brazil, Mexico and Spain.
Read the Press Release
Read Elana’s Open Letter to the SRE Community
Lauren Slater Siegmund
Director of Operations & Strategy
Denver, Colorado
Guila Benchimol
Senior Advisor, Research & Learning
Toronto, Canada
Guila Benchimol
Senior Advisor, Research & Learning
Toronto, Canada
Dr. Guila Benchimol is the Senior Advisor on Research and Learning with the Safety Respect Equity Network. As a researcher and public educator on sexual violence, she has crafted standards and policies for Jewish workplaces, institutions, and communal spaces and has been invited to address Jewish professionals and clergy across Canada and the US, as well as other faith communities.
Guila holds a PhD in Sociological Criminology and an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, completed under the supervision of Dr. Myrna Dawson, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence. Her doctoral dissertation examined how victims of sexual violence become advocates and activists against sexual violence, and explored the processes that survivors experience, including victimization and disclosures, which lead them to advocate. Her MA thesis examined the 2011 Kletzky murder in Brooklyn, NY and its impact on the orthodox Jewish community as they discussed addressing communal concerns that arose from the crime and its aftermath. Guila’s first career as a Jewish educator informed her understanding of the need to address victimization of all kinds in Jewish communities. She was the Director of Judaic Studies at Tiferes Bais Yaakov where she also taught grades 9 through 12. She was also the Managing Director for the National Conference of Synagogue Youth in Canada where she founded and directed an international camp for high school girls. She serves as a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence where she works on projects related to homicide and domestic violence deaths. She also sits on the board of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Jayme Loving-Wills
Executive & Operations Associate
San Antonio, Texas
Jayme Loving-Wills
Executive & Operations Associate
San Antonio, Texas
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board provides oversight and strategic guidance for the Safety Respect Equity Network. We are grateful to its members for their leadership:
Lisa Eisen
Advisory Board Chair
President, U.S. Jewish Portfolio
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation
Robert Bank
President & CEO
American Jewish World Service
Barbara Dobkin
Dobkin Family Foundation
Aaron Dorfman
President
Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah
Sheila Katz
CEO
National Council of Jewish Women
Nancy Kaufman
NKK Strategic Advisers
Idit Klein
President & CEO
Keshet
Charlene Seidle
Executive Vice President
Leichtag Foundation