A yoga student for 20 years, Shannon Roche’s career has centered around building bridges between mainstream institutions and community and coalition-driven initiatives to drive progressive social change. Prior to joining Yoga Alliance and the Yoga Alliance Foundation as Chief Operating Officer in 2017, Shannon served on the Obama Administration’s economic policy team, where she led stakeholder engagement for the U.S. Commerce Secretary. She also played key roles on the founding leadership teams of three innovative nonprofits, including the Democracy Alliance. Shannon has a Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and Women’s Studies from Duke University and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and her most enlightening and humbling teachers of all, their two children.
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Jo-Ann Bance's yoga journey began with her first yoga class in 1999 during which she felt an instant knowing that there was so much more to learn. In 2013, Jo-Ann completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training program, leaving with an even greater knowing of what was still left to discover. Having graduated from a 300-hour training, she has been teaching ever since, finding opportunities to practice, teach, and grow via a student of yoga.
Jo-Ann has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Master’s in Human Resource Management. She has worked in various senior management roles for both government and post-secondary institutions. Jo-Ann has over 20 years of experience as an administrator, which is combined with her solid financial and human resources background.
Since her first classical Hatha Yoga class in 2001, Chantelle Diachina has studied in ashrams with Shri Yogi Hari (United States) and Swami Nityamuktananda (India), both students of the late Swami Vishnu Devananda of the Sivananda lineage. Her commitment to yoga and the betterment of humanity is reflected in all her work. After a decade-long career as an educator, she has evolved into a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, corporate wellness facilitator and consultant, and meditation teacher for the Insight Timer app. In 2021, she appeared as a Wisdom 2.0 community speaker. Her current projects include addressing mental health for the Racial Justice Program at University of Victoria’s Faculty of Law in Victoria, British Columbia and contributing to the latest Changing Work Collective Anthology to be released Summer 2025.
Diachina holds a Bachelor of Science in education from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, a master’s degree in education from University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, a Master of Arts in counseling psychology from Yorkville University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and a post-graduate certificate in corporate communications and public relations from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario.