A Message From Our Board

Dear Yoga Alliance® community,

As mentioned in an earlier announcement on September 3, Yoga Alliance President Richard Karpel announced he will be stepping down from Yoga Alliance and Yoga Alliance Registry. The board would like to thank him for his service during the last two years as our community grew and our programs expanded. Our growth has created a challenging but rewarding experience as we kept pace with the administration of a larger community and worked hard to deliver more programs, services and benefits to our members and registrants.

As a response to the demands of our growth, in April, our staff was moved under the guidance of Chief Operating Officer Barbara Dobberthien, who joined the organization in 2012. All of the 20-plus employees in our Arlington, Virginia headquarters will carry on reporting to Barbara, who will continue to oversee internal growth and management of Yoga Alliance and Yoga Alliance Registry.

Barbara led our staff through the development of our Member Perks and Online Workshops. She has also been involved with the overhaul of our credentialing structure, including a brand new website, to deliver more oversight via Social Credentialing and offer a more robust Directory of our teachers and schools. All of these developments are designed to make our organization more accessible to you while offering more resources to help yoga teachers and yoga business owners thrive and to help the public gain information about yoga and options for yoga practice and study.

During our leadership transition, we do not anticipate any operational issues at Yoga Alliance, so there will be limited impact on our community. Barbara is positioned to continue growing Yoga Alliance as we plan to expand the benefits and resources to Yoga Alliance members. We will also have a renewed focus on Yoga Alliance Registry’s core mission of credentialing Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT®s) and Registered Yoga Schools (RYS®s) efficiently while providing oversight of our Standards.

Thank you for joining us as we continue to spread the power of yoga, one person at a time.

Sincerely,
Board of directors for Yoga Alliance and Yoga Alliance Registry

Brandon Hartsell, Chair
Linda Rowe, Vice-Chair
Roger Rippy, Treasurer
Kerry Maiorca, Secretary
Arun Tilak
Margie Deutsch Lash
Nayaswami Gyandev McCord
Andrew Tanner