Where Resilience Takes Root
Leading the transition towards a resilient, connected, and collective well-being economy.
We guide people and organizations as they manage risks and crises by helping them implement practices supporting collective well-being and economic resilience. Through education, workshops and nature immersion experiences, we unlock partnerships, creativity, and emerging potential.
About Us
Emergent Roots is the work of Kate Leftin and Claudia Menasche, who are united by a desire to empower people to imagine and co-create conditions for a flourishing and resilient future. We value approaches supporting collective well-being, living systems thinking, collaboration over competition, and the power of diverse and unanticipated partnerships. We deeply believe in creating an economy that restores and revitalizes itself, creating long-term value and resilience. We also believe that helping people remember their interconnectedness with nature and with each other is key to addressing the polycrisis that we are living in. We are dedicated to facilitating the transition towards this restored remembrance, hope, and untapped potential.
Upcoming Events
Refuturing Leadership: A Workshop for Anyone Ready to Shift How They Lead
November 6, 2026
​Get ready for a workshop that will change how you approach leadership!
This systems-based leadership workshop brings together leaders from across sectors, whether you run a company, manage a team, or lead within your community. It equips participants with elevated systems thinking, creative problem-solving tactics, and leadership strategies that foster collective well-being. Through guided exercises you'll cultivate a new leadership mindset that is receptive to unexpected potential and tools to help you take actions in alignment with your new outlook. You’ll build new connections that offer fresh perspectives and leave with a concrete action to take and a plan for staying aligned with it.
Leadership isn't a title. It's influence, wherever you hold it.
A Dose of Nature: The Health Impacts of Forest Therapy
Presented on July 14, 2026 by Kate Leftin
A virtual presentation on the health benefits of spending mindful time in nature. We discussed what forest therapy is, the scientific evidence emerging over the last 40 years about its health impacts, and opportunities for further research.
Please reach out to us to learn more.
Past Events
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Work With Us
We guide people and organizations to form more resilient, connected and regenerative communities that return people to healthy and reciprocal relationships with the natural world and each other.
Strategic Planning
We guide businesses and organizations in the DMV as they manage risks and crises by helping them implement practices for collective well-being and long-term resilience. This involves identifying strategic leverage points to build reciprocal relationships, adaptable processes, and cultivating trust.
Refuturing Workshops
Group sessions designed to help individuals and organizations move toward systems-based mindsets, working, and leading. Depending on the format, participants come together to envision alternative futures, develop tools for systems-based leadership, or explore other paths toward more resilient, connected ways of operating.
Forest Bathing
A guided sensory immersion in natural spaces. Rooted in the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku, forest bathing invites a wellness experience and the ability to be present to the living systems that we are a part of.
More events coming soon!
We are designing more experiences that bring people into deeper relationships with the land and each other. Check back soon for more events and reach out if you have any ideas you’d like to see come to fruition.
Collaboration
We believe that collaboration over competition leads to greater success and resilience through pooling resources, sharing ideas, and diverse perspectives. Collaborative partnerships lead to unlocking creativity and innovation that could never have been achieved in silos.
Inclusivity
Inclusivity is at the heart of how we build resilience. No community, organization, or ecosystem can flourish by isolating itself from the parts it depends on. We create space for diverse voices, perspectives, and forms of life because the health of the collective is only possible when every part is welcomed to contribute.
Interconnectedness
Living systems work as a whole; no one part can be fully understood, much less controlled, in isolation. We take this living systems approach to addressing complex challenges that have emerged from unhealthy conditions.
Adaptability
Adaptability means meeting a rapidly shifting world without clinging to systems that no longer serve us, even when letting go feels uncertain. We help communities and organizations build the flexibility to sense change early, respond with creativity, and evolve alongside the living systems they're part of.
Our Values
Let’s co-create conditions for a flourishing and resilient future together.
Interested in learning more or working with us?
Rooted in our interconnectedness with the earth and each other.
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