Megan (left) and Lylianna (right) shared a laugh during their impromptu photoshoot together. From the Fresh Bucks team to leading teams, we’re excited to officially announce Megan Doiron as the Office of Sustainability and Environment’s deputy director!
Megan had been with OSE for nine years, most recently as our finance manager, before becoming deputy director this summer. As a born-and-raised Seattleite, Megan started her career at the City and with OSE by supporting data and finance for Fresh Bucks and our other food access programs. She then served as a senior grants administrator.
Megan and our director, Lylianna Allala, sat down for a conversation about their paths to our office and the experiences that have shaped their leadership. They reflect on how OSE has grown with them and how we can create opportunities for others to grow, too.
Megan and Lylianna’s conversation kicks off our new Leadership in Bloom series on LinkedIn, celebrating how our staff grows as leaders and how their experiences shape the way they lead today. Follow us on LinkedIn! You can read more about Lylianna’s journey to becoming our director in our blog post from earlier this year.
Rooted in where we come from
Megan: What brought you to OSE, and how have your experiences here shaped the way you lead today?
Lylianna: I joined OSE after working for Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, leading outreach, engagement, and policy work focused on environment, natural resources, and climate. Prior to that, I worked in ecological restoration and environmental education, and led leadership development programs for environmental and social change leaders.
Growing up, I always had a strong connection to nature. I was raised learning about how to grow my ancestral foods and medicines. I was exposed to environmental justice issues living near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and seeing the impacts of the fossil fuel industry in South Texas, where my parents were born.
Lylianna: As the eldest daughter of a Chicano family, I learned leadership lessons that have shaped who I am today. I have a strong sense of self, place, and culture. I value genuine relationship building and carry a high sense of integrity and responsibility.
Megan: That really resonates with me. I grew up in Seattle, and my first job was working at Discovery Park doing environmental education. Those early childhood experiences of connecting with the natural landscape set me on a path to learn more about the biology and ecology of the world around me.
We both have fond memories from childhood of being in the space around us. Seattle is such a special place for that, where our natural landscape is just woven throughout our urban city.
What guides us
Megan: As director, what are the priorities you’re most focused on right now?
Lylianna: Mayor Wilson has put forward a clear vision for keeping Seattle livable, affordable, and thriving. I see direct linkages to the priorities that I have for the work of the Office of Sustainability and Environment. Our office’s policies and programs are designed to support the health of people and planet. I am excited about our continued work to transition towards clean and renewable energy through policies like Seattle’s Building Emissions Standard. Ensuring Seattle residents can afford and access fresh, locally grown, culturally relevant fruits and vegetables is another priority.
As someone who spent lots of time restoring forests, wetlands, and prairies across the Puget Sound and in the Midwest, policies that encourage sustainable, smart planning of cities that support the health of our communities and natural environment are important to me. We can and should have increased options for affordable housing located near reliable public transit, thriving greenspaces, and our favorite small businesses.
Megan: I appreciate how you approach the work with an intersectional and systems-thinking lens. It takes working across the city, with community and partners, to action these priorities. I see that showing up in how you lead every day.
Lylianna: Thank you, and absolutely. Currently, the team is working across 20 departments to update Seattle’s Climate Action Plan. Climate change impacts everyone, and the solutions must be systems-oriented, deeply intersectional, and yield outcomes that can close disparities.
This is why working in a multi-sectoral manner and in close partnership with community members is critical. Working together across our different identities and experiences allows us to bring our best ideas forward and leverage each other’s strengths to arrive at the best solutions.
Community at the center
Megan: What does leadership look like when we’re working to make sure our programs and priorities reflect the needs of the communities we serve?
Lylianna: It’s important to me that our staff reflect the diversity of lived experiences of the communities that we work with and seek to partner with in Seattle. Thatmeans leading with a commitment to intentional listening, engaging with each other with empathy, and having the courage to disagree but do so with kindness and integrity. It means embracing opportunities to co-design and co-implement our climate and environmental policies and programs. We rely on meaningful partnerships to ensure collective benefits reach our community.
Megan: I think there’s also an element of that around being open to changing our approach as the problems and the solutions that are responsive to that change.
Megan: Our partnerships and how we work help us to be closer to ideas for solutions that are already out there in the community, so that we can be adaptive as the needs of our city change.
Growing alongside OSE
Megan: We’ve both grown into leadership roles at OSE in different ways, but we’ve both been here for a while. Can you talk a little bit about how your role worked through OSE?
Lylianna: When I started, I was hired as the equity and environment manager.
It felt incredible to lead the work I had informed as a community member. The Equity and Environment Initiative, led by OSE, was the first time the City of Seattle pulled together environmental justice leaders to co-develop a blueprint for what environmental justice could look like here in Seattle.
When I joined OSE as staff, I managed the environmental justice programs that came from that work. With many community partners, I grew that into Seattle’s Green New Deal and became Seattle’s first climate justice director. Then had the honor of serving as interim deputy director. And now, I could never have dreamed I’d be the director of the office that I was advocating to and organizing around.
Megan: I think in some ways both of our paths are also a story of OSE’s growth. You came in and helped lead the growing Green New Deal work and a reframing of how the city approaches this work.
I started at OSE also at a point of expansion and change. I came in as a grants administrator working primarily on the Fresh Bucks program. Very quickly, it started expanding with the start of the Sweetened Beverage Tax. My role grew in different ways while I was on the Fresh Bucks program, but something I grew to care very deeply about was my work on data and evaluation: measuring impact over time, outcomes, and designing programs so we can continuously monitor our efficacy and make changes.
From there, I moved into the finance manager role, which I loved as a way to get to know everything in the department. Now I’m thrilled to be in the deputy director role, and what I’m most excited about is still getting to work with all our policy and programmatic areas and understand that cross-cutting work that we do.
Creating space for future leaders
Megan: As we think about our own growth at the office, what does that mean to you, and how do we create opportunities to cultivate future leaders?
Lylianna: Every opportunity is an opportunity to grow your leadership, even if it doesn’t seem obvious. When you get assigned a task like writing a memo, representing your organization on a coalition, or attending a community event, you have an opportunity to learn and build on your skills.
I’m also a big proponent of proactively seeking out leadership development for yourself. There are several excellent professional development offerings available. In my career, I sought out certificate programs at universities or applied for leadership programs. Seeking or serving as a mentor is another opportunity to grow your leadership or help cultivate other leaders.
Megan: I love that. I would also add taking time to reflect on how the day-to-day work that consumes our time connects to a broader vision or strategy. Being able to articulate how the work you’re doing connects to the department’s mission, the program’s mission, and the city’s mission helps you to tell your story and identify opportunities for future growth in the direction you might want to head.