Meet the
ROI Community
We’re more than a team. ROI is a community coming together to heal from trauma and build resilience. Get to know the faces behind ROI.
Leadership Team
ROI’s small-but-mighty staff is collaborative, endlessly curious, and goal-oriented. Get in touch with us if you are interested in learning more or partnering with ROI.
Vichi Jagannathan
Cofounder of Rural Opportunity Institute
After starting her career as a Teach For America high school science teacher in Northampton County, NC, Vichi spent two years expanding Microsoft’s TEALS computer science education program into California. Vichi then participated in the Innovation Next accelerator, developing “Real Talk,” a mobile sex education app with over 10,000 downloads. Next, she created the strategy for Self-Help’s branch expansion into Eastern North Carolina. In 2017, Vichi co-founded Rural Opportunity Institute (ROI). Now, Vichi builds strategic partnerships and sets vision for ROI. Vichi holds electrical engineering degrees from Princeton and Stanford Universities and an MBA from Yale School of Management.
Contact Vichi if you believe in ROI’s mission and want to be a part of it, as a partner, funder, or team member.
Naomi Rougely
Director of Operations at Rural Opportunity Institute
Naomi began her career working for several years with the Denver Public Schools Office of Family and Community Engagement. In the Office of Family and Community, she held many different positions, including Senior Regional Coordinator. Naomi then spent four years serving as an Assistant Principal of Operations for various public charter schools in Denver, CO and Tampa, FL. In her roles as Director of Operations at ROI, Naomi builds detailed, well-oiled systems that make it possible for the rest of the team to succeed! Naomi graduated from the University of Denver with a double major in Political Science and Sociology. She is also a certified yoga instructor.
Contact Naomi if you are interested in joining the ROI team!
Seth Saeugling
Cofounder of Rural Opportunity Institute
Seth began his career as a Teach for America high school Special Education teacher in Warren County, NC and Hayward, CA. He then built a community doula program with Tipping Point’s T Lab, teaching positive parenting techniques to first-time trauma-survivor mothers in Oakland, CA. In the summer of 2016, Seth applied his training in human-centered design to conducting participatory research and creating an investment strategy for a $20 million endowment for rural community development. He then worked with Roca’s Two-Gen High-Risk Mothers Program to improve programming and, ultimately, outcomes for children. In 2017, Seth co-founded ROI. He now builds strategic partnerships and sets vision for ROI.
Contact Seth if you believe in ROI’s mission and want to be a part of it, as a partner, funder, or team member.
Graham Palmer
Director of Systems Innovation & Policy
Graham began his career as a strategy consultant in Deloitte’s public sector practice, focusing on defense and intelligence clients. At Deloitte and as Director of Operations for Stage Six, he has also created growth strategies for social entrepreneurs in India, Mexico, Nicaragua, Rwanda, and Uganda. Graham gradually realized that he could be more impactful working at home than abroad, which led him to ROI, where he was a Small Bets Intern in the summer of 2021. He designed and tested ROI’s policy program as part of that internship, and continued working part time at ROI through grad school to grow it. In 2023, he joined ROI full-time as Director of Systems Innovation & Policy. He focuses on identifying and iterating on new ideas for trauma-informed policy and programs with ROI’s partner organizations. Graham has a bachelor’s degree from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead-Cain scholar, and holds an MBA from UPenn’s Wharton School and a Masters of International Relations from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Contact Graham if you believe in ROI’s mission and want to partner with us to design trauma-informed programming to improve your organization’s performance, impact, or both.
La'Shanda Person
Innovation Program Manager
La’Shanda is a Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist A by degree, practice, and passion. Over her professional career, she has had the opportunity to be embedded in rural towns and counties, allowing her to work with families, systems, and communities to create meaningful change in various positive ways. She firmly believes that to do the work and see the desired changes for current and future communities and families, one must first connect. Working in rural communities has been her life, from growing up as a child to returning to her community after finishing her undergraduate studies. She likes to say she is “rooted in rural” and is proud of that. In her spare time (which is very limited), she enjoys audiobooks, Peloton rides, family game nights, and traveling with her family.
Community
Accountability Board
Many nonprofits recruit an external Board to make decisions for their organizations. Our Community Accountability Board turns the traditional nonprofit Board model inside out.
Our Community Accountability Board consists of residents in our community who have been impacted by trauma and have engaged in trauma and resilience work to support healing in their community. The Community Accountability Board makes strategic and financial decisions related to ROI’s trauma-informed programming. The Board exists to center lived experience and the untapped wisdom and power that exists within our community.
Felicia Cofield
Pastor, Organizer, and Community Partner
Eulanda Thorne
School Counselor at Edgecombe County Schools
Debby Futrell
Area L AHEC
Byron Hall
Youth Coordinator at Community Enrichment Organization
Yolanda Ray-Henderson
West Edgecombe Middle School
Meet other community
members who power ROI
Every ROI initiative has a group of advisors, coordinators, or trainers who make it possible.
