Our Team
Anthony D. Meyers
Founding Director
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About me: I care deeply about the ways that individuals from historically marginalized groups can access the full range of their intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and professional capacities to evolve as human beings. I believe that the foundation of leadership development and learning is based on deep examinations of personal and professional experiences, and using theoretical concepts only as roadmaps for critical self-reflection. Through mentorship, coaching, and training, I examine the impact of oppressive policies and practices on individuals and their abilities to thrive and develop tools for identifying and pursuing opportunities without limit. On a systems level, I am most interested in exploring the ways that power and influence move within arts and cultural sectors across the US. I am most inspired by a quote from Kurt Lewin, considered to be the “Father of Organization Development” when he wrote: “You cannot understand a system until you try to change it.” Read More
Bryan E. Glover
Team Lead, Individual Learning and Organization Development
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About me: I truly believe that everyone deserves access to joy and experiencing their creative potential. This leads me to involvement with artists and arts organizations from an early age, and I found that my organizational and administrative talents could be a valuable contribution to the sector. I soon realized that systemic unequal distributions of power and resources were key limiting (and frustrating) factors in the many marginalized communities of which I was a part. Now, as an administrator, coach and facilitator, I am committed to engaging in work that not only disrupts dominant paradigms, but that also empowers individuals and organizations to create their own structures and narratives to support the lives and world they envision. Read More
Carrie E. Neal
Team Lead, Process and Learning Facilitation
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About me: I am an educator, administrator and artist. I come to the table as an integral thinker and make connections between diverse fields of study. I bring my interest and training in design thinking, strategic analysis, facilitation, social justice, and education to all of the projects that I work on. I have spent the last 25+ years working in and with education institutions, small companies, and NGOs. As a process facilitator and coach. I have led curricular change, structural change, learning events, and leader development programming at several local and national organizations. I often find my role as the one who brings the ethereal into the material. I like to dream, support others, facilitate growth and get very practical. Read More
Erika Hawthorne
Project Manager, Consulting Team
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About me: I am an empathetic leader passionate about human development and dismantling oppressive systems to create a more just society. I am interested in creating spaces where people can be their authentic selves and further explore their identities and beliefs to advance our collective consciousness. As an artist and arts administrator, I know the transformative power of the arts to deepen understanding, build vibrant communities, and explore our broad range of human emotions and experiences. With a background in organizational communication and culture, I use my skills to build authentic relationships, facilitate collaboration, and connect people with resources to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, especially in the arts and culture sector. As I expand my understanding of anti-racism, I strive to help others that have been socialized in harmful systems shift paradigms and combat white-supremacy culture. Being curious enough to interrogate history and who stands to benefit from the status quo can uncover truths and the root causes of inequity. Only through interrogation, deep reflection, and collective action can we achieve liberation. Read More
Jessica Gaines
Team Lead, Project Analysis and Management Strategies
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About me: my style of Arts Leadership encourages meaningful engagement, investment of resources, and compassionate connections in the arts and culture sector. I care deeply about culture, I am motivated by experiences, and I champion spaces where we can bring our full and authentic selves. Lifelong learning, curiosities, evolution, and self-discovery guide my conversations and my career path. Working with Anthony and the rock stars of Leading ChangeMakers brings enormous joy as we align to create, maintain, and hold space for so many leaders doing amazing, thoughtful work. Read More
Joshua Jenkins
Consulting Team Memberm
About me: I am an organizer, an amplifier, a storyteller. I am driven by the promise that all of our communities and the individuals and organizations within them can and deserve to live limitless creative lives. That promise has set me on the path of exploration through worlds of arts marketing, strategic communications, project development, and organizational leadership. These tools and experiences have allowed me the unique opportunity to deconstruct and reconstruct parts of our field that need reimagining while building and magnifying the stories of those too often in the margins. The work has just begun. “Nobody's free until everybody's free.” - Fannie Lou Hamer Read More
Katie Fong
Consulting Team Member
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About me: I believe that understanding how power works in the spaces between and around individuals is the first step in effecting systemic change, and I am dedicated to helping illuminate those power dynamics for leaders and organizations. I believe that creative expression is fundamentally connected to what it means to be human and that the more creativity is nourished, the more humanity thrives. My work as a coach, facilitator, consultant, and advisor draws on my deep knowledge of organizational structures and cultures developed over 15+ years spent working with clients including Fortune 500 consumer brands and retailers, founder-led startups, non-profits, and institutions of higher education. Since embarking on my journey as an organization development and leadership consultant, I find my greatest joy and fulfillment in leveraging my skill at teasing out nuance amid complexity and reframing perception to find paths toward empowerment. Read More
Serena Aquino
Consulting Team Member
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About me: I am passionate about supporting neurodiverse leaders and cultivating fairness and equity for all minds. My coaching and consulting approach focuses on the whole person, prioritizing authenticity and personal growth while dispelling perfectionist value systems that can hinder progress in the workplace. By meeting individuals where they are, I celebrate differences and work to root out systemic imbalances, particularly for marginalized groups, with a focus on neurodivergent and “twice-born” leaders. My mission is to empower leaders to embrace their unique strengths and foster inclusive environments that encourage collaboration and innovation. Read More
Sheila McDaniel
Consulting Team Member
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About me:
About Me: In my work I am and will always be deeply committed to people and communities. In the service to all communities I have, as a community member and as a professional, witnessed the important, impactful and vital work of the Third Sector, better known as the Nonprofit Sector. I deeply believe in these organizations and am committed to their existence and longevity. I spent the last 33 years in the sector, overseeing the strategic, financial, administrative, and operational aspects of multiple organizations across the sector. I have had the privilege to work in education, social service and arts and culture. I have also had the opportunity to work on deeply moving and impactful work at the Manhattan Valley Youth Program, Volunteers of America, the Hetrick Martin Institute, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the National Gallery of Art.
At the core of my leadership practice is a deep belief in the value that every human being has and brings to their communities. I believe everyone is a leader. We all can be “Leaders of One”, holding ourselves accountable, making those around us better and bringing positive change and growth to all we do. We capitalize on this leadership when we create fair, inclusive and collaborative work environments and ecosystems. Read More
Inaugural Advisors
Nadia Elokdah
Deputy Director and Director of Programs, Grantmakers in the Arts
Tracey Knuckles
Advisor, Strategist Counsel Cultural Assets Management, Bloomberg Associates
Monica O. Montgomery Nyathi
Founder and Executive Director, Museum Hue
Executive Director, Prince George's African American Museum and Cultural Center
Mark Randall
Principal and Creative Director, Worldstudio
Assistant Professor, Strategic Design & Management, Parsons School of Design
Jean Tatge
Consultant, Fundraising and Organizational Management, Jean Tatge Consulting
Edwin Torres
President & CEO, Grantmakers in the Arts
Jen van der Meer
Strategist, Educator, Founder & CEO, Reason Street