Niki Papazoglakis
Baton Rouge, LA
I have fifteen years' experience working in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. I began my career with the Louisiana Ethics Administration where I managed candidate registration and campaign finance reporting. I then moved to the LSU Agricultural Center as the Legislative Liaison. In this role, I developed policy recommendations and lobbied the legislature to pass legislation creating a comprehensive statewide water policy. I then moved into the private sector where I spent ten years as a sales executive with technology giants IBM, Unisys and Hewlett-Packard selling to public sector accounts across the nation before becoming General Manager for the LA branch of a regional IT company.
In 2011, I left the private sector to pursue a career in nonprofit advocacy where I served as the Policy Director for national nonprofit PAVE: Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment before starting my own organization, Citizens Collaborating for Change (C3). I quickly realized the challenges and complexities of IRS rules and nonprofit fundraising as well as the market potential for the concept, so I evolved C3 into the for-profit organization, Freagle. We have raised our seed round to build our proof-of-concept and are about to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.
I have been a volunteer with various other nonprofits and have served on the boards of Leaders with Vision, the LA chapter of Common Cause, and the League of WoMen Voters of Baton Rouge.
I have been to 15 countries, but I hope to see the entire world and leave it a better place than I found it.
I hold a Bachelor's degree in International Trade & Finance and a Masters in Public Administration.