Who we are
Board Members
Sharmila Rathinam
Founder-CEO
Sharmila is a dynamic, accomplished leader and a social entrepreneur, who founded Eat happy, a Nonprofit organization. Eat Happy’s mission is to tackle food waste and hunger by leveraging innovative technology. Helping those less fortunate has always been her passion, hence being actively involved with non-profits like Upaya, Pratham, and Indian American Community Services, by serving on some of their boards and volunteering her time to advance their cause. Her deep-rooted desire to make a difference in the food space, coupled with her passion for giving back to the community, inspired her to launch Eat Happy. Her vision aligns with her mission of fostering unity and compassion through food.
With over 20 years of experience in business and financial management in top tier companies like Microsoft, Ernst & Young and Anderson Consulting, she brings a wealth of expertise and strategic thinking to her social impact work and philanthropic endeavors.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, She is an avid hiker and traveler, exploring new cultures and cuisines wherever she goes. As a true gastronome, she experiments with fusing food from different regions, embodying her philosophy of bringing people together through the universal language of food.
Shada Al-Nasser
Board Member, Chair
Shada Al-Nasser brings her unwavering commitment to positive change and a wealth of leadership experience to her role as Board Vice Chair at Eat Happy Now. With a background in program and product management, Shada has honed her ability to drive impactful initiatives, and she now channels that expertise into making a difference within her community.
Throughout her career, Shada has navigated complex challenges, always seeking innovative solutions. Her tenure as a Principal Product Manager at Microsoft, where she oversaw global projects, prepared her to lead and inspire teams, making her an ideal advocate for Eat Happy Now’s mission.
Beyond her corporate accomplishments, Shada is deeply passionate about social impact, women’s empowerment, and self-discovery. As a Council Member on Vital Voices Global Partners NW, she has contributed to women’s empowerment on a global scale. At East Happy Now, she’s determined to harness the power of community and collaboration to drive meaningful change.
Shada approaches every endeavor with a growth mindset, data-driven analysis, and a dedication to fostering talent. In her free time, you can often find her practicing yoga, embracing wellness, and staying active through her passion for fitness. She believes that a balanced mind and body are essential for personal and societal well-being.
Klorida Miraj
Board Member, Vice Chair- COO
Klorida is passionate about leveraging technology to improve people’s lives, with proven record of delivering innovative products that transform user experiences and drive significant impact. With over 20 years of experience in both product innovation and operational leadership at companies like Microsoft, Meta, and recently Cruise, Klorida brings a proven record of both strategic innovation and operational excellence. This dual expertise will be instrumental as we refine our technology platform and streamline our processes, ensuring that we not only maximize our impact but also remain true to our core values of sustainability and community care.
Minaz Abji
Board Member- Treasurer
A seasoned executive with experience in global hotel operations, asset management, finance, real estate investment and value enhancement. A forward-thinking independent board director and having served on the compensation, cyber security and audit committee and involved in key strategic, changing consumer desires, cultural transformation, and the impact of new technologies. An entrepreneurial and agile executive renowned for building and leading diverse teams through uncertainty to delivering on business results. An acknowledged champion of Education for the underprivileged and Early Childhood Education in developing countries.
Dipika Matthias
Board Member
Dipika Matthias is a global health and nutrition executive with 20+ years of experience across the sectors to develop and scale innovations for humanitarian impact. Dipika was formerly a Deputy Director on the Nutrition team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), leading their investment portfolio in nutrition product innovations.
Prior to BMGF, she was on the executive team of a social enterprise start-up that upcycled by-product from coffee milling operations into a food ingredient for worldwide markets. Earlier in her career, Dipika worked at PATH, a global health NGO, where amongst several leadership roles she directed a global rice fortification program to advance the technology, clinical evidence base, policies, and markets for fortified rice, a product that is now reaching hundreds of millions of nutritionally at-risk consumes with critically needed micronutrients.
Dipika is passionate about bringing together NGOs, governments, the private sector, and funders to leverage their respective strengths in advancing social causes.
Anina Estrem M.P.P.
Board Member
Anina is a food justice advocate with over a decade of experience in building food access. She carries a passionate commitment to the idea that food should be fun for everyone but knows this can’t be achieved until we eliminate hunger.
Her professional background includes building school gardens as a FoodCorps Service Member in rural Montana, coordinating Farm to School efforts in Eastern Oregon, supporting immigrant vendors at Portland farmers markets, and implementing federal food access programs at food banks and food pantries. She has a master’s degree in public policy specializing in food justice and a graduate certificate in sustainable food systems.
Anina is an adventurous cook who spends her free time rock climbing, gardening, and listening to live music.
Mina Velamoor
Board Member
Mina Velamoor spent 15 years with Microsoft leading global product management teams and building insightful technology solutions for big data needs across product lines. Her expertise with data driven decision management helped steer product development for some of Microsoft’s leading businesses through a combination of creativity and collaborative leadership. Through her time at Microsoft, she found her passion, working with youth, and left Microsoft, to build career pathways at a college prep program where she created pathways across STEM, medicine, law, humanities, business, and entrepreneurship. She has worked with students from middle school through college and in their careers to identify coursework, complete passion projects and internships, and create a strategy for a college application in a field they are passionate about.Mina was part of the founding team that established career pathways for health care in Washington State in partnership with UW, Seattle Children's and Kaiser. Mina is also an active member of the community & serves on the board of the Virginia Mason Franciscan Foundation, Pitch Your Peers, Seattle & Columbia Hospitality. She most recently served as director of BoardReady, an organization that catapults board diversity through data, experience and thought leadership and is a regular speaker at the Women Board Directors Development Program at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.
Staff
Anuja Regmi
Development Lead
Doo Yoon
Technical Lead
Doo brings over 20 years of diverse technical expertise and extensive experience in process engineering. His passion lies in simplifying complex systems, and he has dedicated his career to developing and refining processes and tools. Throughout his career, Doo has consistently ensured that the right processes are effectively implemented and supported throughout their entire lifecycle.
Rittik Bhattacharya
Social Media Intern
A high school student, Rittik has worked with Washington State Senators, district educators, university professors, and Bellevue council members to further his passion for building equity and justice for all. He strives to be a top student both in and out of the classroom. With experience in social research in human geography, transitional justice, and social media marketing, Rittik is a youth talent that dreams of a fruitful career promoting social good through business relationships. Rittik spends his free time diving deep into philosophy, enjoying walks in nature, and connecting with people from around the world.
Volunteers
Shamilli Gosh
Volunteer, Outreach Strategy
Madonna Messina
Volunteer (Development Relations)
Madonna is a “purposeful socialite”. She attracts genuine and reliable friends who enjoy giving back. Madonna provides introductions to new volunteers and links Eat Happy with other partner organizations, including Bellevue LifeSpring.
Madonna combines her background in outside sales and participation in numerous volunteer roles to cultivate community. She (and her children) founded a service organization for youth (Serving Our Society), has led various auction committees, created new programs within the Issaquah School District, Co-chaired One Circle and, from her new base in San Diego, will help Eat Happy with expansion efforts.
Archana Verma
Volunteer, Community Ambassador, Social outreach
Archana developed a passion for community service and philanthropy while observing extreme lack of privilege in many patients visiting the medical clinic of her Dad, in a small town in India.
While raising her own family, as an adult in USA, Archana started volunteering in local public schools after quitting a 10 year corporate career as a software engineer. After more than a decade of volunteering in local schools, Archana was invited to join the board of her local public school foundation as the first Indian American Trustee.
Archana is a foodie who is passionate about healthy global cuisine. After quitting her Engineering career, she dabbled in the food industry as a culinary instructor for 8 years, in a Pacific northwest based culinary school.
Archana volunteers in her local school district to help underprivileged kids apply to colleges.
Archana volunteers at a local senior center as well as at a local meditation organization as a volunteer cook for meditation retreats.
Archana is passionate about and committed to Eat Happy Now’s mission to rescue food.