Briana Sapp is a strategic marketing, communications, and organizational leader whose career has been defined by a commitment to helping mission-driven institutions translate ambitious ideas into meaningful, measurable impact. With more than 20 years of professional experience spanning nonprofit leadership, education, museums, international development, renewable energy, philanthropy, advocacy, and community organizations, she brings an unusually broad perspective to executive and board leadership. Her expertise sits at the intersection of strategy and execution: she understands how to shape an organization’s vision, communicate it effectively, build stakeholder support, strengthen revenue and fundraising efforts, and use data to make decisions that move a mission forward. Throughout her career, Briana has developed particular strengths in strategic marketing, communications, public relations, branding, digital content, fundraising, governance, organizational planning, executive collaboration, and long-term institutional sustainability.
Today, Briana serves as Managing Director of Marketing at Jewish Federation Bay Area, where she oversees enterprise-wide marketing, branding, content, and digital strategy for a major community foundation managing more than $2.6 billion in assets. Her advancement within the organization reflects the breadth of her leadership responsibilities: after joining as Director of Marketing, Branding and Content Strategy, she progressed to Interim Head of Marketing and then Managing Director of Marketing. In her current leadership capacity, she advises executives on organizational positioning, audience development, campaign strategy, and communications across web, email, social, print, and other channels. Her work requires both a sophisticated understanding of reputation and stakeholder engagement and the practical ability to transform institutional priorities into communications strategies capable of reaching diverse communities.
That combination of strategic leadership and operational understanding was developed over years of progressively responsible nonprofit management. At the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, Briana advanced from a part-time Marketing and Communications Manager to Chief Operating Officer. As COO, she assumed broad operational and P&L responsibility while partnering with executive leadership on annual strategic planning, organizational capacity, development, and fundraising objectives. She oversaw programs ranging from family services and community programming to Holocaust education, summer camp, arts and culture, and other community initiatives. At the same time, she directed marketing, fundraising, donor communications, branding, and publication strategy. The experience strengthened her ability to view an organization holistically—connecting mission, programs, operations, finances, communications, development, and governance rather than treating them as isolated functions.
Briana has also demonstrated how disciplined marketing strategy can directly support organizational growth. As Director of Marketing & Communications for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Sea Center, she developed branding, digital and print advertising, email marketing, and publication strategies aligned with institutional mission and financial objectives. She managed a four-person team and an advertising budget exceeding $500,000 while supporting 13 departments across two campuses. As an organizational spokesperson, she handled media relations and crisis communications while contributing to management and Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. Her emphasis on KPI analysis helped the organization refine audience targeting, allocate resources more effectively, and strengthen revenue-generating activities. During her tenure, the museum surpassed $1 million in combined membership, admissions, and store revenue for the first time in its history and continued exceeding that benchmark in subsequent years.
International experience has been another defining dimension of Briana’s professional development. At the University of California Education Abroad Program, she managed system-wide communications serving the University of California’s campuses and led marketing and student outreach for study-abroad opportunities in more than 40 countries. She directed significant digital and brand initiatives, including a website redesign and organizational rebrand, supervised staff, and co-led work connected with a multi-year system-wide strategic plan. The position combined executive communications, public relations, international education, customer engagement, and strategic planning, strengthening her ability to communicate across institutional, cultural, and geographic boundaries.
Earlier in her career, Briana lived and worked in Europe and built substantial experience at the intersection of international affairs, sustainability, development, and advocacy. As Programme Director of PANGEA, Partners for Euro-African Green Energy, in Brussels, she co-founded a renewable-energy industry association and built its communications and marketing capabilities from the ground up. She organized international conferences, workshops, and high-level meetings across Europe and Africa and participated in advocacy surrounding sustainable bioenergy initiatives in Africa. Her responsibilities brought her into contact with stakeholders at European Union institutions, the African-Caribbean-Pacific Secretariat, United Nations agencies, and other public and private organizations while requiring close attention to European and African legislative developments. This experience continues to inform her interest in environmental sustainability, renewable and clean energy, international affairs, advocacy, and organizations seeking to create positive social impact.
Her international foundation extends even further. At Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health, Briana supported a $38 million USAID-funded maternal and child health initiative serving Francophone Africa, working with field offices in Mali, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Madagascar. Her responsibilities included work plans, budgets, financial reporting, partner coordination, USAID reporting, and support for research, monitoring, evaluation, and communications activities. Before that, while working with the Embassy of the Republic of Malawi to the European Communities in Brussels, she developed ICT and higher-education initiatives involving European NGOs, companies, and universities. Projects included helping establish computer labs at University of Malawi campuses and securing graduate-study opportunities for Malawian students in Belgium. These formative experiences gave Briana a lasting appreciation for cross-cultural collaboration and for the ability of well-designed partnerships to expand access to education, resources, and opportunity.
Alongside her executive career, Briana has built substantial governance and community leadership experience. She served as President of SoCal Museums, helping provide sector-wide governance leadership for a coalition representing more than 80 Southern California museums and guiding collaborative initiatives and marketing programs across member institutions. She also served for more than four years as Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Santa Barbara Audubon Society, contributing to organizational strategy, financial stewardship, public engagement, membership development, and community visibility. Earlier, she served on the board of the Anti-Defamation League and participated in its Glass Leadership Institute. These experiences have given her firsthand familiarity with the responsibilities of board service and reinforced her belief that effective governance depends upon thoughtful questions, sound stewardship, collaborative relationships, and a clear connection between strategy and mission.
Briana’s professional toolkit is correspondingly diverse. Her documented areas of expertise include growth and digital marketing, branding and identity, communications, public relations, project management, fundraising, analytical decision-making, advocacy, sustainability, strategic planning, content strategy, donor management, media strategy, and community outreach. She is comfortable moving between executive-level strategy and hands-on implementation, whether the challenge involves strengthening a brand, evaluating performance data, communicating during a crisis, supporting fundraising, developing digital engagement, advising leadership, or bringing multiple stakeholders together around a common objective. She is also an experienced conference participant, panelist, public speaker, and speechwriter, giving her the ability to represent organizations effectively with internal and external audiences.
Continuous learning has remained important throughout Briana’s career. Her professional development includes a Certificate in Activist Journalism from New York University, the PCM® Digital Marketing credential from the American Marketing Association, certification as a Digital Marketing Professional through the Digital Marketing Institute, and specialized training in marketing strategy, content, and digital communications. Her international background is complemented by advanced French-language study at Université Paris-Sorbonne. She speaks French at full professional proficiency and Spanish at a working level, capabilities that complement a career shaped by extensive experience across Europe, Africa, and the United States.
Briana is especially drawn to organizations operating in education, environmental and scientific fields, social services, justice and inclusion, international affairs, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, renewable and clean energy, philanthropy, and advocacy. She is open to organizations of different sizes and stages when their missions offer a meaningful opportunity to contribute. Rather than approaching board service simply as another volunteer commitment, she is interested in applying her professional expertise in a focused way—helping organizations address strategic questions, improve decision-making, build sustainable resources, strengthen stakeholder relationships, and translate mission into long-term organizational progress.
At the center of Briana’s leadership philosophy is a belief that organizations make their greatest progress when purpose is paired with disciplined strategy. She brings the perspective of someone who has worked across executive leadership, operations, marketing, fundraising, advocacy, governance, and international programs and therefore understands how decisions in one area can influence an entire institution. She values thoughtful collaboration while remaining strongly oriented toward measurable outcomes and data-informed decisions. For boards and leadership teams navigating growth, transformation, reputation, stakeholder engagement, or mission expansion, Briana offers the ability to connect ideas with execution and communication with results.
Character:
Briana demonstrates a sustained commitment to service, responsible stewardship, inclusion, and mission-driven leadership across both her professional career and extensive board involvement. She approaches leadership as an opportunity to contribute expertise purposefully, strengthen institutions, and help organizations create enduring value for the communities they serve.
Knowledge:
Her experience encompasses marketing, communications, branding, public relations, fundraising, nonprofit operations, governance, international development, sustainability, advocacy, digital strategy, and data-informed decision-making. Having worked across nonprofit, cultural, educational, environmental, international, and philanthropic settings, she brings a multidisciplinary perspective that enables her to understand organizational challenges from several angles.
Strategic:
Briana combines long-range thinking with the operational discipline necessary to turn strategy into measurable action, drawing upon experience in executive management, organizational planning, revenue development, budgeting, stakeholder engagement, and governance. She is particularly skilled at connecting data, mission, audience needs, organizational resources, and communications strategy to help leadership teams make informed decisions and move priorities forward.
Communication:
An accomplished communicator whose experience encompasses executive communications, public relations, crisis communications, digital content, branding, public speaking, panel participation, speechwriting, and cross-cultural stakeholder engagement. Her ability to communicate complex ideas clearly and build alignment among diverse audiences has been a consistent thread throughout a career spanning the United States, Europe, and Africa.
