Co-founder and Executive DirectorChange Labs
Heather Fleming (Diné/Navajo) is the co-founder and Executive Director of Change Labs, an award-winning Navajo nonprofit supporting entrepreneurship and innovation on the Navajo Nation. Heather engages partners in and around the Navajo Nation to incubate, finance and train new and prospective Native American social entrepreneurs in an effort to diversify local economies and promote innovation.
The inspiration for Heather’s work to seed Native American social entrepreneurship was inspired by her upbringing in rural New Mexico and her work with Catapult Design, a company she co-founded in San Francisco and led for 10 years. Catapult is a product and service design firm with expertise in human-centered design for marginalized communities. Prior to starting Catapult, Heather was an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University and California Academy of the Arts, and worked as a design and innovation consultant in Silicon Valley, designing products and services for a diverse range of corporate clients. Early in her career she co-founded and led a volunteer group, the Appropriate Technology Design Team, focused on social impact design work through a professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) in San Francisco.
Heather was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow for her work with EWB and Catapult Design.