Managing Partners

  • A woman with long, braided hair wearing a black top and smiling, standing against a plain gray background.

    Nionne's Story

    I’ve spent my career working for nonprofits as the quiet force in the background, optimizing systems, juggling details, and balancing books– creating calm in chaos and order in the overwhelm. In my personal life, it was the same. Conditioned to a life of service by virtue of birth order, firsts and gender–born in America, first college graduate, first to offer help, self-sacrificing, never saying no, never stopping.

    But after two decades of holding it all—at work, in community, and at home—I found myself completely burnt out. I was ready to pack my bags and walk away from the social sector and my life entirely.

    Tandem came from that crossroads. From the deep knowing that we can’t keep building systems of care while abandoning ourselves. I co-founded Tandem to create what I always needed but never received: a space to exhale, to be seen, and to remember that we are worthy of care—not for what we do, but for who we are.

  • A woman with dark, wavy hair and a bright smile posing in front of a textured gray wall, wearing a dark purple top.

    Sarah's Story

    I’ve spent my career building organizations and initiatives at the intersection of gender justice, health, and systems change. I believed deeply in the work—but for years, I ignored what it was costing me. Like so many women and change-makers I know, I poured everything into the mission, without tending to myself.

    A cancer diagnosis forced me to stop. In that stillness, something shifted. I realized that if we want to build a more just and livable world, we have to start by caring for the people doing the work. Rest isn’t a reward for burnout—it’s a foundation for everything we hope to sustain.

    That belief led me to co-found Tandem. It’s my offering back to the community I’ve been part of for decades: a place to pause, to replenish, and to remember that we are more than what we produce. Tandem is where we reclaim rest as a strategy—and as a right.

  • Smiling woman with dark hair, wearing a colorful scarf, in front of a wooden wall.

    seema's Story

    I’ve spent my career working in television, building campaigns, family offices and organizations, and supporting artists and activists throughout it all. In every role, I worried about how the people inside these organizations were being treated: long hours, demanding expectations, little downtime.

    As I built my life around deadlines and outputs, I worried if I was “doing enough.” My therapist asked me, in response to this concern, “Who are you when you’re not trying to please everyone else?” My inner world shattered–I had no idea who I was when I didn’t put the needs of others ahead of my own. That was what I was born and raised not just to know, but to be. 

    Through lifestyle and job changes and, most importantly, changes in my own mindset and behavior, I made a new commitment to myself. A reminder that I am more like nature than I am the cycles of productivity. Tandem grew from that place—from a deep belief that rest is our origin story. We’re to mirror the pace of nature. I co-founded Tandem to help others, and myself, continue to learn and live this truth.

Team Members

  • AMANDA LUCIDON is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker. She is a New York Times best-selling author and motivational speaker with Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau. 

    Lucidon served as an Official White House photographer responsible for documenting First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017. She is one of only a few female White House photographers in history. In 2018, the John F. Kennedy Center appointed Lucidon as a Turnaround Artist, highlighting the importance of the arts in underserved schools. 

    Lucidon is the author of Chasing Light and Reach Higher. She has also instructed more than 10k students through her CreativeLive class: Creating a Life in Storytelling.

    Lucidon is the co-founder of Grounded, an organization of artists creating immersive experiences to inspire hope and healing through collaboration. 

  • Diane brings her full heart to all she does. As a strategist, a qualitative researcher, a leadership coach and collaborator, she listens deeply to see more fully and to surface essential truths that can create more space, freedom and movement. She is a passionate believer in women and the power we hold to create and imagine a just and life-affirming future. Her roots include work in academia, corporate settings, as a co-founder of a 25 year old women-owned consultancy, and as an entrepreneur of her own business. She believes in marrying the head, heart and body in all she does and regularly braids somatic practices, spiritual wisdom, and analytic rigor together. She is honored to be a part of supporting the Tandem team.

  • My name is Jen, the daughter of Christine, the daughter of Harriet, the daughter of Helen, the daughter of the Carrie, the daughter of Sallie. I come from a long lineage of incredible Black women of faith who “made a way out of no way”. I am an ordained minister, public theologian, and national leader in the multi-faith movement for justice. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can collectively build the spiritual infrastructure for our movements for social justice, how we heal legacies of harm in our communities, and about how we can imagine a world in which we all feel seen, valued, and loved.

    In 2014, I founded Faith Matters Network (FMN), a Womanist-led organization accompanying spiritually grounded leaders on their journey to heal themselves and their communities. I am also a Co-Founder of the People's Supper. Founded with two friends after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, The People’s Supper has hosted over 2,000 suppers in 135 communities globally focusing on bringing people together across lines of difference to engage constructively on issues affecting their communities since January 20, 2017.

    An Ashoka Fellow, Aspen Ideas Scholar, On Being Fellow, New Pluralist Field Builder and Truman Scholar, I earned degrees from Tufts University and Vanderbilt University Divinity School where I was awarded the Wilbur F. Tillett Prize for accomplishments in the study of theology.

    A commentator, preacher, and public speaker on the intersection of religion and public life, I have had the privilege of speaking at the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit, Makers, TEDxSkoll, and the White House. Our work at FMN and The People’s Supper has been featured onOnBeing with Krista Tippett, CBS This Morning, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and dozens of other publications. My first book, To My Beloveds: Letters on Faith, Race, Loss and Radical Hope, was published by Chalice Press. Order your copy here!

    I currently sit on the boards of The Fetzer Institute, Jessie Ball duPont Fund and The Healing Trust. In 2013, in the presence of my family and community I was ordained an itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. I serve locally on the staff of Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church in Nashville, Tennessee. I enjoy good food, dancing like nobody is watching, and road trip adventures with my husband Ira, son Max, and daughter Celia Pearl.