Shana Inofuentes (Aymara/Ashkenazi) is a skilled communications strategist with two decades of experience in the corporate, social impact, and performing arts worlds. Her cultural competency across new domestic and global market audiences is particularly invaluable. Shana belonged to the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Summer Launch Incubator 2021 cohort.

Shana founded and runs Ch’ama: Native Americas, an Indigenous consulting and creative firm serving, and responsibly connecting people with, Indigenous communities of the Americas in homeland and diaspora. Client highlights include transcription of Quechua for Paramount’s Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado; and artifact descriptions as well as thought-provoking Aymara poetry prominently displayed at the entrance of the Languages of Migration exhibit, for the Museum of Art and Design MDC.

For over a decade, Shana worked for the Fortune-500 U.S. manufacturer Kimberly-Clark Corporation, known for top global consumer brands such as Kleenex and Huggies. There, she garnered cross-departmental support for, built, and managed the company’s federal lobby reporting compliance process. Based in their Legal and Government Relations offices, Shana briefed leadership and wrote talking points to support conversations with government stakeholders.

Before that, Shana was at Running Strong for American Indian Youth, supporting grants and programs in Indian Country. She wrote publications for supporters and worked alongside Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota) to spearhead the organization’s first charity team at the Marine Corps Marathon. 

In her local Bolivian-American community, Shana has volunteered extensively in leadership and principal dancer roles, taught folkloric dance to hundreds of youth, directed choreography, composed music, and has won 8 first or second-place titles in related national competitions. Highlights include a televised performance in the 2011 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Shana’s community work culminated in The Quechua Project (TQP), an innovative way to help English-speaking youth of the Quechua and Aymara Andean diaspora remain multilingual. Shana works for a future where youth do not have to choose between safety and freely being who they are—a right that many of her Jewish and Andean ancestors did not have.

Shana received a B.A. from Columbia College, Columbia University, and an M.A. from Georgetown University in Communication, Culture, and Technology, where she explored strategies for societal good in futures where technology enormously transforms the communication landscape. Shana enjoys the outdoors, researching archives, and family time.

Languages: native fluency in English and Spanish, both written and spoken; beginning Aymara teacher; heritage familiarity with Hebrew and Quechua; Portuguese reading comprehension.