Given the title, “The love child of Oprah, Beyonce, and Michelle Obama”, Briona Jenkins is a public speaker, and activist for the LGBTQIA+, female, and people of color communities, and has years of experience using her platform to evoke change.

Originally from Hamden, Connecticut, Bri attended Albertus Magnus College, in New Haven, CT., which is where she completed her undergrad as a Sociology major with a concentration in Social Work.

Bri has over ten years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She has worked for a variety of organizations where she was able to serve as a Direct Client Support Specialist, Development Coordinator, and Associate Director of Development.

Since October 2019, she has hosted a podcast called The Tea with Bri where she sits and chats with a different guest every week about whatever topic the guest chooses. Bri started ‘The Tea with Bri’ so that she could have a deep dive conversation with her friends and colleagues in Austin, TX. She is a strong believer in sharing stories and having conversations as a way for all of us to expand our views. As she always says, “Change happens in the uncomfortable spaces.”

In the summer of 2020, Briona decided to start her consulting business, Briona Jenkins Consulting and in September 2021 she went into consulting full-time.

She has served on eight nonprofit boards: Keep Austin Fed, Austin Black Pride, Lone Star Victims Advocacy Project, New Leaders Council’s Austin Chapter Board, The Equality Alliance, and currently sits on the board of Random Acts and Equality Texas.

She has spoken at the 2020 Women’s March Rally in Austin, Future Front Texas’s Annual State of the Uterus event, Texas State University’s Business Week, on a virtual SXSWEdu panel, two GISH panels about Racial Equality & Justice, and was an SXSW 2022 Wellness Panelist.

On December 4, 2019, she won the Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce's Rising Star Award’. In February 2020, she was the subject of a documentary entitled, “Uncomfortable Spaces”. In May 2021, she was awarded the Premier Achievement Award from her Alma Mater, Albertus Magnus College.

As of June 2023, she has worked at a nonprofit preschool in Austin as their Director of Development.