Staff – Ruth's List Florida

Staff & Bios

Barbara Zdravecky
Interim CEO
Barbara@ruthslistfl.org

Barbara Zdravecky currently serves as the interim CEO of Ruth’s List Florida. Prior to her appointment to CEO she helped lead the organization as a member of the Executive Committee. She is the Principal and Founder of Fern Consulting of Southwest Florida. Lending her extensive knowledge and experience advising not for profits executives and their boards.

Zdravecky served as President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida for nearly 25 years. In 2015, Barbara led the successful regional merger of the affiliate, resulting in a 22-county service area with a team of 160 professionals, 25-member regional board of directors and a $17 million dollar budget. This visionary consolidation has enabled Planned Parenthood to serve more than 39,000 patients annually at its twelve health centers in Southwest and Central Florida, extending from Orlando to Sarasota to Naples. In addition, she served as the President of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, President of the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates and led numerous committees of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

As a registered nurse and social worker, Prior to joining Planned Parenthood, Barbara worked at Manatee Memorial for 10 years as the Head Nurse for inpatient psychiatric services and as Director of Women’s Health Programs. Barbara also worked as the Patient Care Coordinator of the First Hospice Program in Key West, primarily caring for AIDS patients; coordinating research and care with local physicians and Jackson Memorial Hospital staff in Miami. She spent 5 years at the Manatee Community Mental Health Center as a crisis counselor specializing in emergency inpatient treatment in the Baker Act Receiving and Addiction detox units.

Barbara’s service to her community extends well beyond her professional achievements bringing expertise to numerous civic and not for profit boards including the Manatee Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Florida and The League of Women Voters, of which she was the co-chair of Manatee County and served on the state board of Florida. She currently sits on the board for the Selby Foundation in Sarasota.

Barbara has received numerous awards, honors and recognitions, including the “Ruth Green Award”, as the top Planned Parenthood CEO in the country by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the “Voice for Equality Award” from Equality Florida, “A Woman of Power Award” from the National Council of Jewish Women in Sarasota, the AAUW (American Association of University Women) annual leadership award, “A Wonder Woman Award” from the Women’s Resource Center of Manatee County and ”The Distinguished Alumni Award” from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Lucy Sedgwick
Incoming President and CEO

Lucy Sedgwick has dedicated her career to building movements and training the next generation of Democratic leadership.

In 2020, she led Colorado’s Abortion Access for All campaign, a state-wide coalition that defeated a high-profile initiative to ban abortion later in pregnancies.

Through her work, Sedgwick has trained hundreds of organizers, campaign staff and candidates, including serving as National Training Director for Warren for President and Training Director for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, where she taught progressive candidates at all levels to run and win campaigns.

Bessie Skoures
Chief Operating Officer
Bessie@ruthslistfl.org

Bessie Skoures is the Chief Operating Officer for Ruth’s List Florida. Previously she was associate director of outreach for the University of South Florida’s Patel College of Global Sustainability where she supervised marketing, communications and outreach activities, including many global and education outreach initiatives. She began her tenure at USF as special assistant to the Honorable Betty Castor, former executive director of the Patel Center for Global Solutions. Prior to that, she was deputy director of the Term Member Program at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and before that, she worked at Human Rights Watch in New York and Brussels. She has also served as an adjunct instructor at USF. She recently managed the global #FreeNseRamon campaign for EG Justice and prior to that was a program management and strategic outreach consultant for EG Justice and for the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County. She is a member of the Tampa Bay Area Committee on Foreign Relations and Co-chair of its Host Committee and former Executive Chair of the Praxis Haiti Board of Directors. Ms. Skoures received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her M.A. from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is fluent in French and Greek with basic Spanish knowledge.

Kayla vanWieringen
Political Director
Kayla@ruthslistfl.org

Kayla vanWieringen is the Political Director at Ruth’s List FL. She has a wealth of electoral campaign experience and has worked on races at the local, state, and federal levels.

Most recently, Kayla served as the Florida youth outreach coordinator for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. She also worked as a press assistant, finance assistant, call-time manager, and eventually scheduling director on Andrew Gillum’s gubernatorial campaign in the primary and general elections. In 2016, Kayla worked in the field on both Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and a local county commission race. She has also served in the Florida House of Representatives as a legislative aide to Representatives Dotie Joseph and Dan Daley.

Kayla was born and raised in South Florida and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Political Science and Philosophy from Florida State University. She has dedicated her personal and professional life to advancing progressive candidates and causes. She is currently based in West Palm Beach, FL

Krunali Brahmbhatt
Fellow

Krunali Brahmbhatt is a Fellow at Ruth’s List FL and a first-year student at the University of Central Florida, studying Public Administration and Advertising/Public Relations.

She also currently serves as the Communications Director of the Florida College Democrats and Vice President of the Young Democrats of Seminole County, an organization she has been involved with for a few years.

In the past, Ms. Brahmbhatt has served as a Finance Intern on the Patricia Sigman for State Senate Campaign and worked with the Florida for Elizabeth Warren Campaign in the 2020 Election Cycle.

Prior to that, she served on the Executive Board of the Florida High School Democrats, while at the same time interning on the Stephanie Murphy for Congress campaign in the 2018 cycle.

Along with having a passion for Florida politics, Krunali holds a passion for gun violence prevention, formerly working for The Community Justice Action Fund as a Fellow and serving on the State Board of March For Our Lives Florida.

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