Allyn Summa headshot

Allyn Summa

Executive Director

Allyn was born in Albuquerque and raised in rural New Mexico. She’s the descendent of homesteaders who arrived before NM was a state. She received a BA from the University of New Mexico and an MA from George Mason University (GMU), both in English, before delving into the then-nascent field of web development. After years in the corporate world, she was recruited by the Tahirih Justice Center to be its Development and Communications Director. There she worked to provide legal services to immigrant and refugee women fleeing gender-based violence. She’s been hooked on nonprofit, mission-based work ever since and has served in leadership positions to support fundraising and communications in conservation, international health, and predatory lending.

IGA was still in the very early stages when Allyn was invited to be its Executive Director. She saw in IGA a place she could create meaningful impact on a global scale. As Executive Director, she manages the big picture of the organization: taking the board’s broad vision and figuring out how to turn it into a reality through effective programming and management.

Allyn believes IGA is the right organization at the right time for some of the most important geopolitical challenges facing us all. She is motivated to pursue a more perfect and connected world.

Allyn is proud that her daughter Rainie is also an alum of GMU. She lives with her two Havana Silk dogs, Poe (after Edgar Allen) and Jack (after O’Lantern, as he was born the day before Halloween). She has never met a dog she didn’t love. Outside of work, she enjoys bicycling, snowshoeing, and hiking. She’ll trek great lengths to get to a natural hot spring. Her favorite fiction author is F. Scott Fitzgerald, because there’s never been a more perfect novel than The Great Gatsby.

A brighter future for all