Sooni Gillett — Designer · Builder · Connector
"What we pay attention to grows." — Adrienne Maree Brown

Sooni Gillett has spent over fifteen years designing and building programs, partnerships, and networks that connect leaders, capital, and ideas to address complex social challenges. Her work sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, philanthropy, impact, and global development. She helps mission-driven organizations, funders, and innovators develop strategies, partnerships, and pathways that move promising ideas from early vision into practice. Through Meridian Collective, Sooni partners with foundations, family offices, universities, investors, and mission-driven organizations on impact and capital strategy, opportunity sourcing, and program and initiative development.

Most recently, Sooni served as the founding Director of Programs at Stanford Emergence within the School of Medicine, where she designed and led programs focused on advancing solutions that move healthcare beyond treatment and toward prevention. Her work included designing and leading Stanford's flagship Preventive Medicine Accelerator. Over four years, she developed and ran the Accelerator, shaping its model, venture pipeline, mentor network, investor engagement strategy, and flagship annual Impact Summit, connecting researchers, entrepreneurs, clinicians, philanthropists, and investors working across the healthcare sector. To date, the Accelerator has launched 43 ventures addressing health challenges, raising more than $30M.

Earlier in her career, Sooni co-founded the Raechel & Jacqueline Houck Foundation, where she supported trust-based philanthropy and locally led development across Central America. She later founded ConnectED Fellows, a leadership and education investing platform supporting Indigenous and rural education leaders in Latin America through catalytic funding, leadership development, peer learning, and long-term partnership. She has also advised global education and development efforts, including USAID's Education in Crisis and Conflict portfolio, and has supported initiatives across Latin America, Africa, and Asia focused on strengthening local leadership and community-driven solutions across climate, health, education, and economic development.

Through her advisory practice, Fisher, Wilder & Associates, Sooni continues to support organizations navigating questions of strategy, ecosystem building, and impact. Across her work, she focuses on bridging the gap between those holding resources and those building solutions on the ground, helping translate vision into action and creating pathways for capital, partnerships, and innovation to reach where they are most needed.

Sooni is a Just Economy Institute Fellow and holds a Master's in International Development and Ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from San José State University. She also holds certificates in Impact Investing from the Impact Finance Center and Nonprofit Management from Chapman University. Outside of work, Sooni enjoys creative adventures with her family, hiking on the North Coast of Santa Cruz, tending to an ever-expanding garden, and pursuing art and photography while traveling.