Belonging Is a Two-Way Street: What a City Inclusion Officer Learned Building It

Connected Conversations · Sep 2, 2026 · 1h 20m

What if belonging isn't only something you feel when you walk into a room, but something you help build for the people who walk in after you?

In this episode of Connected Conversations, Elena Petrova sits down with Claudia Menendez, an equity and inclusion officer for the City of Fort Collins, whose work comes down to a single thing: making people feel understood, in their own language, in their own community. Claudia has lived on every side of belonging, as the visible outsider in northern Uganda, as a teacher who recognized a student's home village on sight, and as a public servant who…