Shelly Tygielski is the co-founder of Partners in Kind, a media and production company and equity fund that focuses on funding, developing, and producing social impact entertainment, as well as the Partners in Kind Foundation, its corresponding 501(c)(3). Honored by CNN Heroes in 2020, she is a grassroots organizer, activist, and philanthropist whose vast experience in building social movements brings a refreshing take to how PIK evaluates projects and attaches robust impact campaigns to each entity. Shelly is a former high-ranking corporate executive in Fortune 1000 and publicly-traded companies who left Corporate America in 2016 to focus on one of her passions: mindfulness. Featured on the cover of Mindful magazine in 2019 and named one of the “12 most powerful women in mindfulness” by mindful.org. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Shelly founded the global, grassroots mutual aid organization, Pandemic of Love, which has helped match millions of people and has facilitated over $150 million of direct aid. She sits on the board of the international humanitarian organization, Global Empowerment Mission and is a bestselling author of two books, Sit Down to Rise Up (2021) and How We Ended Racism: Realizing a New Possibility in One Generation (2023). Shelly holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and a Master’s Degree from Columbia University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership at the Lilly School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, focusing her dissertation on mutual aid and the democratization of philanthropy.
