Colleen Echohawk

Colleen Echohawk is CEO of Native lifestyle brand Eighth Generation, using her connections and business acumen to take the small business global. Through an artist-centric approach and positive outlook, the brand is poised under Colleen’s leadership to share authentic, Native-designed art and home goods with an international audience eager for ethically made cultural products. A born organizer, change-maker, and leader with over twenty years’ experience championing both Seattle’s marginalized populations and Native prosperity nationwide. Her experiences as an Indigenous woman, small business owner, community organizer, and executive leader inform her efforts in building a community of justice and reconciliation. An enrolled member of the Kitkehahki Band of the Pawnee Nation and a member of the Upper Athabascan people of Mentasta Lake. She is a champion for change, igniting successful coalitions to bring about positive shifts in Seattle’s housing, homelessness, racial justice, sustainability, and public safety issues. As the Executive Director at the Chief Seattle Club, Colleen led the effort to create nearly $100 million in new affordable housing in Seattle and oversaw the best rapid rehousing success program in the county. At the Seattle Community Police Commission, Colleen worked hand-in-hand with neighbors to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system and to create progress in how Seattle rethinks public safety. As the founder of the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness, Colleen continues to passionately advocate for homeless Indigenous people in urban centers.