Who Is Cheri Sotelo

Cheri Sotelo is a U.S.-based executive leader, licensed psychotherapist, and systems architect focused on building trauma-informed institutions that endure. As Founder and Executive Director of Face of Illness Co-Op and Founder of Cadence for Change, she designs scalable ecosystems spanning mental health, veteran reintegration, workforce development, and media. Her work bridges clinical expertise and executive governance to deliver ethical, measurable social impact at scale.

The Architecture of Permanence

In an era defined by short-term solutions and rapid-cycle initiatives, Cheri Sotelo is building for permanence. Her work spans mental health, veteran reintegration, workforce development, media, and education, yet the unifying principle is architectural rather than programmatic. Sotelo focuses on how to design trauma-informed ecosystems that can withstand time, leadership transitions, funding cycles, and shifting policy landscapes. Her leadership reflects a deliberate evolution from practitioner to systems architect, guided by a conviction that meaningful social impact requires more than innovation. It requires governance, accountability, and infrastructure built to last.

That conviction was not formed in boardrooms or strategy sessions. It emerged from years of clinical work on the front lines of trauma, illness, and loss, where the limitations of fragmented systems were impossible to ignore. Sotelo did not leave clinical practice because it lacked purpose. She expanded beyond it because care, no matter how skilled, cannot endure without systems capable of holding it.

A Clinical Lens Grounded in Whole-Person Care

Cheri Sotelo’s professional foundation is rooted in clinical mental health counseling and advanced doctoral training in psychology, complemented by extensive postgraduate specialization in trauma treatment, integrative wellness, nutrition, human rights, and behavioral health systems. From the outset, her approach rejected siloed thinking. Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, she adopted a whole-person framework that integrates emotional, physical, intellectual, social, spiritual, occupational, financial, and environmental dimensions of wellness.

This multidimensional lens shaped her early clinical career, which spanned work with combat veterans, military families, survivors of complex trauma, individuals navigating chronic and rare illness, families affected by child loss, and high-performance professionals operating under extreme pressure. Across these populations, Sotelo observed a recurring pattern. Individual resilience was often undermined by systemic instability. Treatment plans collapsed when housing was insecure. Recovery stalled when families lacked support. Progress reversed when institutions failed to coordinate care ethically or consistently.

These experiences sharpened her understanding of trauma not simply as an individual condition, but as a systems issue. They also reinforced her belief that ethical practice extends beyond the therapy room. It must inform policy, organizational design, leadership behavior, and the way institutions structure access, accountability, and care over time.

From Clinical Practice to Systems Leadership

Rather than narrowing her scope, Sotelo expanded it. Her career evolved intentionally from direct clinical service into executive leadership, organizational governance, and cross-sector system building. This transition was not a departure from care, but an extension of responsibility. Where clinical practice focuses on individual outcomes, systems leadership addresses the conditions that determine whether those outcomes are possible at scale.

As Founder and Executive Director of Face of Illness Co-Op, Sotelo leads a national nonprofit portfolio advancing mental health equity, trauma-informed care, and integrative wellness for underserved and veteran populations. Under her leadership, the organization has grown into a complex ecosystem encompassing behavioral health services, research initiatives, community education, workforce development, and policy-aligned programming. Her work emphasizes ethical research standards, data protection, and evidence-based practice, particularly in initiatives serving children and military-connected families.

One such effort includes a first-of-its-kind emotional intelligence and wellness study for military-connected youth, designed with rigorous oversight, trauma-informed safeguards, and transparent funding accountability. Sotelo has been vocal about the often unseen infrastructure required to conduct ethical research, from compliance and training to secure data systems and fidelity monitoring. For her, transparency is not optional. It is foundational to trust, especially when working with vulnerable populations.

Parallel to this work, Sotelo founded Cadence for Change, a multi-state initiative integrating sustainable communities, supportive housing, behavioral health services, creative media production, and workforce pipelines for veterans. Cadence represents her belief that reintegration is not a single service, but an ecosystem. Housing, education, employment, mental health, and purpose must be designed together, not delivered in isolation.

Her leadership extends into education and media through the development of trauma-informed curricula, training platforms, and publishing initiatives that translate complex clinical and systems knowledge into accessible tools for practitioners, organizations, and communities. Across each venture, the throughline remains consistent. Build institutions that can operate ethically, scale responsibly, and endure beyond any one leader.

Governance, Policy, and Institutional Design

Sotelo’s impact is perhaps most visible in the way she bridges disciplines that rarely speak the same language. Clinical science, nonprofit governance, workforce development, media, and public policy often operate in parallel rather than in partnership. Sotelo’s work brings them into alignment.

Her service in state-level leadership roles, including appointments related to emergency medical services for children and child death review, deepened her understanding of how policy, data, and interdisciplinary coordination shape outcomes at scale. These experiences reinforced her focus on governance and systems accountability, particularly where children and families are concerned.

As a consultant, educator, and executive coach, Sotelo works with organizations across healthcare, nonprofit, education, and corporate sectors to embed trauma-informed principles into leadership, operations, and culture. Her approach emphasizes resilience not as a personal trait, but as an organizational capability. It is built through clear governance, ethical decision-making, workforce support, and systems that anticipate stress rather than reacting to crisis.

Her public speaking and training engagements reflect this philosophy. Rather than offering motivational rhetoric, she challenges leaders to examine the structural realities of their organizations. Are systems designed to protect people under pressure? Are accountability mechanisms aligned with values? Are programs built to survive leadership transitions and funding shifts?

These questions define Sotelo’s leadership posture. She is less concerned with visibility than with viability.

Voice and Values: Leadership in Practice

Sotelo’s leadership voice is grounded, direct, and intentionally transparent. In her own words, every investment in ethical systems becomes a tool for healing. Every sponsor, partner, or collaborator becomes part of the solution when accountability and integrity are embedded from the start.

Her public communications often pull back the curtain on the complexity of building trauma-informed programs, from the costs of ethical research to the operational demands of sustainable community development. This transparency is not performative. It reflects a deeper belief that trust is built through honesty, not aspiration alone.

At the same time, her work is deeply human. Whether addressing veteran reintegration, youth mental health, or leadership development, Sotelo consistently centers dignity, agency, and long-term wellbeing. She does not frame impact as charity, but as shared responsibility. Systems, when designed well, honor both service and potential.

Vision for the Future: Designing the Next Decade

Looking ahead, Cheri Sotelo’s focus is firmly on executive governance, institutional design, and long-range systems development. She is aligned with board service, senior advisory roles, and mission-driven joint ventures that operate at the intersection of health equity, veterans’ services, education, creative industries, and large-scale social innovation.

Her vision over the next decade is not defined by expansion for its own sake. It is defined by depth, durability, and ethical scale. She is interested in building institutions that can serve as national and global models, not because they are novel, but because they work.

This future-facing lens shapes how she approaches leadership today. Decisions are evaluated not only for immediate impact, but for their ability to withstand time. Programs are designed with succession in mind. Partnerships are chosen based on alignment, not convenience. For Sotelo, legacy is not a personal concept. It is an institutional one.

Leadership That Endures

Cheri Sotelo’s career offers a compelling model of modern executive leadership. It is not driven by visibility or speed, but by architecture and intention. From clinical practice to systems governance, her work demonstrates what becomes possible when care is supported by infrastructure, and when leadership is measured not by moments, but by what lasts.

Editorial Note

Cheri Sotelo’s journey invites leaders, boards, and institutions to rethink how impact is defined and sustained. In a landscape crowded with short-term solutions, her work challenges us to ask harder questions about governance, accountability, and permanence. The future of trauma-informed leadership will belong to those willing to build systems strong enough to carry care forward.