Board of Directors
SACC’s Board of Directors come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences that are beneficial in helping to drive our organization’s mission.
Board Members
Tandra M. Rutledge
President
Tandra M. Rutledge is a mental health and suicide prevention educator, advocate, and consultant. She currently serves as the Director of Healthcare Systems Initiatives for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Project 2025, a national initiative to reduce the annual suicide rate in the US by 20 percent by the year 2025. In her role, Tandra influences healthcare systems nationwide to initiate and sustain suicide prevention best practices (in primary care, mental health care, and emergency medicine) that serve the strategic goals and priorities of the project. She mobilizes institutions and organizations across the healthcare community and leads working coalitions among national suicide prevention stakeholders in a collective effort to champion systematic, data-driven, and scalable change. A graduate of Spelman College, Tandra has a master’s degree in clinical community psychology from DePaul University. With over 25 years of clinical, leadership, and business development experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, Tandra has used her platform to advocate for culturally responsive, evidence-informed mental health practices and suicide prevention programs for Black Americans. With special emphasis on youth and women as well as the intersection of faith and mental health, Tandra seeks to dismantle stigma in the Black community and cultivate resilience through a social justice and equity framework. A dynamic and engaging facilitator, Tandra inspires individuals as well as institutions to prioritize mental health care and suicide prevention.
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Rayell Grayson, LCPC
Secretary
Rayell is currently the Executive Director of Head/Heart Therapy, a group therapy praciate specializing in holding space for adults and adolescents struggling with trauma, addiction, shame, and many other difficulties of life. Head/Heart Therapy is a practive committed to doing our own work, working from anti-racist and liberation-focused orientations, celebrating the rainbow, and holitic healing. Rayell is a NARM (NeuroAffective Relational Model) therapist, which is a trauma model that supports those who have experienced complex/developmental trauma and centers her work around those who identify as BIPOC. Rayell is a licensed clinical professional counselor and certified addictions counselor who is originally from Kansas City, MO, but graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Clinical Counseling Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Dr. Arielle Smith, LCSW
Treasurer
Dr. Arielle Smith, LCSW is a Mental Wellness Tastemaker and Intervention Designer. She is the owner of Eunoia Wellness Boutique, a wellness company that provides psychotherapy, parent psycho-education, and other culturally curated wellness events and services. She is also the Co-Founder of Goal Digger Academy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving young Black women aging out of foster and residential care. Most of Dr. Arielle’s career has been dedicated to increasing the access of mental healthcare and wellness services to Black Women. Some of her specialties include trauma-informed psychotherapy, social and emotional work with adolescents, as well as speaking and teaching about the importance of personal development and self care.
Dr. Arielle attended Southern Illinois University for her undergraduate degree, Chicago State University for her master’s degree, and earned her Doctorate degree from University of Southern California.
Sarah Suzuki, LCSW
Sarah is the founder of Chicago Compass Counseling (CCC), a group practice dedicated to serving the family system through inclusive, evidence-based behavior change counseling. CCC connects providers to individuals and organizations seeking values-aligned solutions for self-destructive behavior. Sarah has been a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) since 2010 and is a certified MINT trainer. To date, she has worked with more than 50 organizations across the country as a trainer and consultant.
Kiesha Williams, LCSW
Kiesha Williams has two Master’s degrees, one in social work and another in educational leadership. She has been a school social worker for over 20 years. Kiesha has worked in various social work settings from a group home, the emergency room, and private practice to employee assistance programs and schools. She also served as a school administrator overseeing special education teams in several schools. Over a decade ago, Kiesha developed an empowerment program for teen girls. She created a community resource expo during parent teacher conferences to showcase community resources to parents. Kiesha has been an advocate for students transitioning from alternative school placements by creating collaborative systems between the school and the alternative placement. She currently adds to her work consulting around racial healing, self care, adult social emotional learning, strategic planning, and educational transition planning.
Venu Gupta
Venu Gupta serves as Executive Director of the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil
Rights, where she leads one of the Midwest's most effective civil rights legal
organizations. Under her leadership, CLC mobilizes volunteer attorneys from over 30
member law firms to advance racial and economic justice across the Midwest.
Venu brings more than 20 years of experience driving impact for organizations working
on social justice and racial equity. She has deep roots in Chicago's legal community:
She was the first Director of Diversity at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and later
served as Executive Director of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law
Firms. Subsequently, she served as Vice President of Development at the Sargent
Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Venu’s guiding belief, grounded in her practices of Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, is that systems change happens from the inside out. A certified executive coach and yoga teacher, she brings a holistic approach to working toward an equitable, multiracial democracy.
Venu holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern University, and a B.A. in Economics from Tufts
University. She clerked for the Honorable David H. Coar in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois.Venu has been recognized as a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a Fellow ofLeadership Greater Chicago, and a Truman Scholar. Venu lives in Chicago with her
father, husband, and two teenagers.
Shelena Johnson
Shelena Johnson strategically partners with individuals, teams and organizations around change, talent strategy and learning. She is an experienced Change Manager, Learning Designer, Executive Coach and Consultant. She consults full-time for Baringa Partners and also serves as the founder of Hey Coach Lena LLC, an executive coaching firm dedicated to centering and partnering with black women navigating career transitions with increased self-awareness, agency and freedom.
Nicole Tyrpak, LCPC
Nicole is the Owner and Founder of Emerald Mental Health, a group private practice dedicated to fostering safety, connection, and healing for individuals navigating trauma, eating disorders, mood and personality disorders, activist burnout, men’s issues, substance use, and adolescent care, among many other life challenges. Emerald Mental Health is rooted in a decolonized, relational approach—recognizing that the systems, cultures, and communities we exist within are inseparable from our mental health and overall well-being.
Before founding Emerald Mental Health in 2023, Nicole spent 10 years as a special education teacher in Title I schools, specializing in Social Emotional Behavior. Through this work, she developed a deep understanding that a sense of safety within one’s own body is foundational to growth, self-reflection, and meaningful change. This realization guided her transition into the mental health field, where she has worked across community mental health settings and residential treatment programs supporting individuals with eating disorders and severe mental illness.
Nicole is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor who integrates somatic and nervous system-based therapies into her work. She supports clients in cultivating a genuine sense of internal safety, empowering them to access, process, and honor emotions that may have been buried, neglected, or avoided. She earned her undergraduate degree in the Science of Education from the University of Dayton and her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Capella University. Nicole is also a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and a National Certified Counselor.
LeKisha Gunn
Lekisha Gunn currently serves as the Community Engagement and Partnerships Coordinator at Cultivate Collective and the Academy for Global Citizenship. She focuses on economic development and training in the Southwest side of Chicago through partnerships in the area. Since moving to Chicago, she has worked in the educational and non-profit space and is passionate about mental health and wellness. Prior to moving to Chicago, she worked for the U.S. State Department and lived overseas in Monterrey, Mexico and Vienna, Austria.
She has served on the boards of the Junior League of Chicago, the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, and Borderless Magazine. Lekisha is passionate about fundraising and event management, as well as prioritizing marginalized communities. In her free time, she enjoys running and hiking, as well as reading books in new cafes.
She holds a master's degree in public policy from Duke University and a bachelor's in business administration from the University of Alabama.