Our People
Our people are what make our approach work.
We’re a team of professionals in academia and business with years of experience supporting corporations and professional networks to create environments that are both culturally safe and brave.
Clients have described our team time and again as deeply engaging, conscientious, practical, witty and relatable. Our style and our experience make our people our most valued asset when it comes to connecting with your people to catalyze change.
We approach every session in earnest, with deep commitment to our “Be Brave, Be Humble, Be Dedicated” Inclusive Mindset, ready to tackle the hard questions with you, facilitate conflict constructively, connect, and even have fun!
Dereca Blackmon
Co-Founder and President, Dereca Blackmon, is also our head trainer and responsible for the creation of the dynamic set of workshops and follow-up activities used by our team. Her experiential training models cut through “diversity fatigue” and allow participants to engage in deep, authentic, and meaningful dialogues.
For over 25 years, she has consulted with a wide variety of corporate, educational, nonprofit, and community-based groups to facilitate “uncommon conversations” on issues of race, gender, class, and social justice.
She served as the Associate Dean and Director of the Diversity and First-Generation Office at Stanford University where she introduced groundbreaking work on authentic engagement, intergroup dialogue, and unconscious bias to over 30,000 students, staff, faculty and alumni. She taught several courses at Stanford including Intergroup Communication with renowned cultural psychologist Hazel Markus, which reached a waitlist of over 100 students.
Erin Conner, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Vice President, Dr. Erin Conner, has enjoyed the privilege of a diverse and fulfilling professional history, grounded in educational consulting, business development, and social activism. Her academic background includes the completion of undergraduate and graduate work in both the biological and social sciences, culminating in a post-doc in diversifying the sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.
Her career ultimately led her to work in both the education and technology sectors. She developed programs and served as an instructor in higher education at the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. She also has several years of experience working in business, co-founding a social media company, and providing consulting support to both local and national organizations with communications infrastructure, research and evaluation, fundraising, and youth engagement strategies.
Mohammed Soriano-Bilal
Mohammed Soriano-Bilal is an accomplished Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIBE) consultant, an educator, and a strategist. Currently, Mohammed serves as Associate Dean & Director of the Office for Inclusion, Belonging and Intergroup Communication at Stanford University, where he oversees a team of skilled facilitator-scholars, teaches two courses on intergroup communication, and consults on DEIB issues, including recruitment, retention, and design innovation. Additionally, Mohammed has spent the last 20 years using DEIB strategy to help Fortune 500 companies like Twitter, Whirlpool, and the Progressive Corporation remove blockages that stand in the way of impact and growth.
Gabriela Nalvio Melillo, J.D. Ph.D.
Gabriela Nalvio Melillo is a political scientist and lawyer whose passion for building equitable team cultures is rooted in her study of systems of power that exacerbate pre-existing social injustices. She believes that policy is a key change agent in shifting these systems, but knows that policy is simply a reflection of people. As such, she has dedicated much of her career to facilitating difficult conversations and empowering others to do the same.
She served as the Director of a cutting-edge program at Stanford University at the intersection of public service and diversity and inclusion. In 2019 she received a grant to develop a diversity education curriculum implemented in the mandatory curriculum for all Stanford Medical School students. She holds a JD and PhD from Duke University, where her doctoral research focused on climate change and its consequences for communities and institutions.
Sienna J. Brown
Sienna J. Brown is a leadership strategist, speaker, and consultant with more than a decade of experience guiding leaders and organizations to build more inclusive cultures, navigate transformation, and create sustainable change.
Her work sits at the intersection of leadership, organizational culture, belonging through a people-first lens. She has partnered with organizations across sectors, from Fortune 500 companies and global corporations to nonprofits, government agencies, and healthcare organizations, to develop and coach leaders, strengthen workplace culture, and translate ambitious employee experience initiatives into strategies that create lasting impact.
Previously, Sienna served as a Vice President where she led global teams and initiatives spanning DEIB, talent experience, business development, and company culture. Throughout her career, she has built and led multi-million-dollar initiatives, advised senior executives, facilitated conversations across complex organizations, and supported companies navigating periods of growth and transformation.
Today, her work explores not only how we create organizations where people can thrive, but also how we develop leaders capable of building them. She brings together strategic expertise, lived leadership experience, and a deeply human approach to help leaders rethink how they lead, work, and create impact.
Lori Allen
Lori has spent the last 25+ years as an HR Leader responsible for designing talent strategies and partnering with executives to drive business results. Lori is passionate about Diversity Inclusion and belonging and was named on the 2018 list of women worth watching in the Profiles in Diversity Journal. Lori focuses on helping organizations translate their diversity goals into actions. She has partnered with organizations to increase diversity, inclusion and belonging awareness, create inclusive cultures and evaluate their internal systems of accountability to drive change. Originally from Wichita, Kansas, she graduated from the University of Kansas with a BA and later received a master’s degree from Webster University.