Cristina Gallegos
Founder & CEO
A passionate entrepreneur, Cristina is a 6X Founder and has 30 years of experience in business, 17 of which as an advisor to philanthropists and nonprofits. She is the Founder & CEO of Sky(lark) Strategies and the Director of Programs for the GG Society Fellowship.
People call Cristina to identify paths to solutions.
A passionate entrepreneur, Cristina is a 6X Founder and has 30 years of experience in business, 18 of which as an advisor to philanthropists and nonprofits. She is the Founder & CEO of Sky(lark) Strategies and the Director of Programs for the GG Society Fellowship, as well as the former VP of JMC Philanthropic Advisors.
A skilled facilitator and international strategist, Cristina Gallegos brings tactical innovation and management consulting methodologies to changemakers and entrepreneurs. She believes that success is often found at the intersection of vision, practicality and elbow grease, loves the business design process and the challenge of taking early-stage entities to scale. Cristina’s sweet spot sits at the intersection of the for-profit and non-profit worlds bridging the gap through psychologic insight and social entrepreneurship. Her personal mission is to tackle big problems, and create positive global change using common sense, the advancement of strong leadership, plus the infusion of new business models and economic paradigms that could move the social sector from bootstrapping to affluence. She does this work by designing effective plans, facilitating difficult dialogues with pragmatism, and advancing the leadership of key people.
Each year, a robust percentage of Cristina’s time is allocated for Pro Bono work, and a significant portion of Sky(lark) profits are donated. She often shares insights from the trenches, speaking publicly about the art and science of social impact.
In addition to her work with philanthropists and NGO leaders, Cristina works with political dissidents to open new markets of freedom and find peaceful, tactical solutions against dictatorship in difficult places such as Ecuador.
As a woman, an immigrant, and a Latina from Eastern Europe married to a Chinese/Mexican man, Cristina lives “diversity” to the bone. At Sky(lark), Cristina’s staff and the clients she represents, are as diverse as they come, in gender, age, economics, race, and national heritage.
Born in communist Romania as the daughter of an entrepreneurial woman and a Renaissance man, Cristina started her first business in high-school at the time when the totalitarian state owned everything and having a business was illegal. Cristina immigrated to the US after giving away pretty much everything she owned; a conscious decision rooted in the compound value of hard work, ambition, and vision. She jumped on the plane to LA with $64 in her pocket and a belief in the power of the American Dream. Why $64? It could have been less or more; $64 was the small change that was left after giving everything else away.
Cristina holds an MBA, a BS in Economics, and a BA in Psychology, currently chairs a non-profit board and mentors one foster youth. She is a particle physics aficionado and a passionate writer and photographer. In the past 20 years she has traveled to 56 countries and territories on 6 continents.
Contact: cristina@skylarkstrategies.com