Our team
The people behind the work
Maki's strength has always come from its people. The organization was built on the conviction that lasting change requires local knowledge, personal trust, and deep community roots. Every member of the Maki team embodies that conviction.
Team
Martha Dudenhoeffer
Founding Executive Director and Board Chair
Martha founded Maki International in 2008 after spending a month volunteering inside a women's prison in Ayacucho, Peru. What she found there set the course of the next 18 years of her life. She has returned multiple times every year since, building programs, deepening relationships, and learning how to be most useful. Before Maki, Martha was an entrepreneur who built her own award-winning landscape design company in San Diego. She holds a Master's degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelor's degree from UC Irvine.
Jessica Chancos Mendoza
Peru Country Director and Head of Andean Communities
Jessica has been part of Maki's Ayacucho-based team since the early years of the organization. Born and raised in the region, she brings deep personal knowledge of the communities Maki serves and the cultural fluency that no amount of outside expertise can replicate. She manages Maki's relationships across the mountain communities, oversees the Andean programs, and navigates the practical realities of working in some of Peru's most remote and underserved areas.
Mirella Chancos Mendoza
Head of Incarcerated Women's Communities
Mirella leads Maki's work inside Huanta Women's Prison, where she has built lasting relationships with the women, the staff, and the institution over many years. Her work encompasses the daily workshop, the psychological support programs, and the broader community events that Maki brings to the full prison population. When COVID closed the prison to outside visitors, it was Mirella who kept everything going from the inside.
Elizabeth Ramirez Condori
Head of Libre Soy and Product Operations
Elizabeth joined Maki's staff in 2023, after serving 12 years at Huanta Women's Prison for a crime she did not commit. During her sentence, she rose from managing the prison's lending library to running Maki's entire operation from the inside, finding new markets, maintaining production, and keeping dozens of women employed. Today she leads Libre Soy, Maki's reentry program for formerly incarcerated women across Peru. She speaks Quechua, travels into the mountain communities, and understands from lived experience what every woman in the Huanta workshop is going through.
Meche Yauri and Faustino Flores
Hilos y Colores
Meche and Faustino are Maki's longest and most important partners, and in many ways the extended heart of the team. Martha first met them in 2008 when they were just beginning to build Hilos y Colores, their artisan enterprise connecting mountain women to international markets. Over 18 years they have been Maki's closest cultural guides and collaborators, helping shape almost every program decision Maki has made. Faustino is now the mayor of Vinchos province, where he continues to advocate for the communities Maki serves. Meche leads Hilos y Colores, which now provides income to 900 women across the mountains of Ayacucho.
Board Directors and Special Advisors
Carina Kolodny
Board Director
Carina Kolodny is the co-founder of Campfire Group, a digital consultancy that works at the intersection of social impact, storytelling, and audience strategy. Her career spans two decades in media and communications, including roles as Creative Director at The Huffington Post and senior positions at Hearst Magazines and Viacom International. She has built a reputation as an expert in content strategy, mission-driven storytelling, and finding creative entry points into complex and difficult subject matter. Her work has been Emmy-nominated, Webby-nominated, and Shorty Award-winning. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA from The New School.
Elisabet Harth
Special Advisor
Elisabet Harth is an entrepreneur and social impact leader based in San Diego. She has been involved with Maki for over a decade, traveling regularly to Ayacucho to engage directly with local teams on the ground and supporting fundraising efforts in the United States. Her long-standing commitment to Maki's mission and her direct experience in the communities make her an invaluable voice in guiding the organization's growth.
Lauren Kolodny
Board Director
Lauren Kolodny is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Acrew Capital, a venture capital firm with nearly $2 billion in assets under management focused on fintech, enterprise AI, and data and security. She leads Acrew's fintech practice with investments including Chime, Gusto, and Plaid, as well as Latin American-based investments including Klar and Clara. She began her career building technology and finance partnerships for the Clinton Foundation in India, followed by product marketing at Google. She has been named to the Forbes Midas List, which recognizes the world's top venture capital investors, and to Barron's 2026 list of the 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance. She served as the youngest trustee on Brown University's Board of Trustees. She holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University, an MSc from Stanford University, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Robert Kolodny
Board Director
Robert Kolodny is the founding partner of Kolodny and Pressman, a boutique real estate and business transactional law firm he has led in San Diego since 1975. Over five decades he has advised clients across industries from hospitality to real estate development, playing a hands-on role in analyzing the viability of ventures, structuring transactions, and providing ongoing strategic counsel to closely-held businesses. He serves on the board of TS Restaurants, one of the largest independent restaurant groups on the West Coast, and has been recognized among San Diego's top attorneys. His experience in business law and governance brings steady, practical counsel to Maki's board.