Aparna Shekar
Aparna Shekar is a passionate and highly experienced soft skills trainer and leadership coach with over 20 years of experience designing and delivering learning programs that support both individual growth and business transformation. Her work is rooted in the belief that strengthening people’s capabilities leads to better outcomes, and she brings this to life through interactive, insight-driven workshops and one-on-one coaching engagements with clients across the world. With a background in marketing, education, and facilitation, Aparna partners with organizations in sectors such as banking, technology, automotive, consulting, and education to help leaders deepen emotional intelligence, build resilient teams, and lead with clarity and purpose. She is especially skilled at facilitating learning for culturally diverse groups and is known for creating high-energy, inclusive learning environments both online and in person. As a certified coach and master trainer, Aparna is consistently praised for her engaging facilitation style and her ability to foster meaningful connection. Her areas of expertise include leadership development, communication, coaching and mentoring, emotional intelligence, influencing without authority, and managing uncertainty with resilience. She has led programs for organizations such as Microsoft, UBS, Mastercard, Deloitte, Intuit, Skoda Auto, Thoughtworks, and many others. Outside of her professional work, Aparna is a trained classical singer and dancer, a curious and enthusiastic home gardener, and a passionate storyteller. She has won awards for her writing and creativity and brings warmth, curiosity, and care into every space she enters. Whether she is coaching a senior leader, designing a team workshop, or simply listening deeply, Aparna remains committed to helping people show up with intention and grow with confidence.
Jake Wild Crea
Jake Wild Crea brings conflict management practices from the peacebuilding field to improve how organizations do good in the world. He is an independent conflict resolution practitioner with local, national, and international experience. Fueled by the belief that conflict is inherent to change, Jake helps organizations and individuals lean into productive conflict and address barriers to impact head-on. In addition to his organizational work, he uses conflict resolution dialogue techniques to bring funder and nonprofit leaders together to build higher-trust partnerships and increase the impact of philanthropic giving. He is currently on faculty at the University of San Diego, teaching conflict management and resolution at the Joan B Kroc School of Peace Studies. Previously, he served as Associate Director with Arabella Advisors, functioning in nonprofit, funder, and intermediary roles. He oversaw Loyola Marymount University’s Study Abroad program in Argentina, worked in youth programming in Chicago, and disability advocacy in Minnesota.
Kara Bender
Kara Bender (she/her) is a systems thinker, organizer, participant-centered educator, and a skillful and playful facilitator. Through her consulting organization, Seed & Spiral, she encourages growing our collective imaginations for liberation through body-based, earth-centered, equity offerings. Kara specializes in team building and takes an experiential approach to all of her facilitation in order to foster a mind-body connection, which supports long-term integration and change. She has experience working with departments of Health and Human Services, universities, non-profits, philanthropy, faith-based institutions, along with, for-profit companies. Kara is actively curating customized curriculum in online and retreat settings for white folks going deeper on their anti-racism journeys as well supporting multi-racial organizations in innovative and equity focused systems re-design. Deeply committed to naming her stake and responsibility as a white woman in ending oppressive systems, she has committed over 15 years to learning with and from anti-racist communities of color and anti-racist white folks. Her biggest influences have come from serving as an affordable housing organizer, co-directing a legislative advocacy program, being a racial equity facilitator and educator, and participating in creative projects like the Carnival de Resistance, that bridged art, activism, and faith to engage communities in conversations about environmental justice. With roots on the east coast, she now lives at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, on unceded Osage land that is colonially known as St Louis MO.
Gabriel Arteaga
As the CoFounder of Create&, Gabriel Arteaga trains local government agencies, community-based organizations, entrepreneurs, and social impact ventures on various innovation frameworks like Design Sprints, Lean Startup, storytelling and Community Experience Design (CxD) to launch their big ideas. He is a bilingual facilitator of Design Sprint and Design Thinking workshops, and created virtual and physical environments that are immersive and interactive to foster creative conversations that develop new products, services, offerings, and strategic plans. His signature framework, CxD, was developed to incorporate the needs of diverse ecosystems, using human-centered design and community organizing tactics to align stakeholders quickly, produce sustainable growth, and deliver meaningful value.
Mary Njenga Murimi
Mary Njenga Murimi is a Certified Organizational Development (OD) Consultant and an ICF PCC Accredited Coach. She works as Coach, Facilitator/trainer, Organizational Development and Development Consultant based in Nairobi-Kenya with assignments in Africa, North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. The main focus of her work is Organizational Development, Change Management, Leadership Development, Executive team, leadership Coaching, Training, Process Facilitation and Moderation. She holds two Masters Degrees in Sociology and Organizational Development and is currently working on a Doctorate in Business Administration dissertation on Leadership and change management. Her past and current clients are in the public sector, International Non-Governmental Organizations and the private sector. Some of her clients in the past have been Parliaments of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania, devolved governments in Kenya, International NGOs among them OXFAM, Global YWCA, Women for Women International, Women Link International, Womankind International, Mastercard Foundation Amnesty International-International Secretariat, Amnesty International UK section, Kenya Section and Regional offices in East, Southern and Western Africa, Europe and Asia, Plan International East, Southern, Middle East Regional Office, IPPF Africa Regional Office, Action Aid, SNV, DAI, VSO, WWF, UN Agencies and donor agencies such as USAID and GIZ.
Harouna Abdolaye
Dynamic, and committed leader and manager with 21+ year of experience in organizational management, strategic planning, and business development focusing on social cohesion and peace consolidation, on countering stigmatization and reducing the filling of marginalization of community at risk, on community mobilization and on countering violence extremism with community based resilience approach. Exceptional interpersonal talents, able to bring together community leaders, local organizations, and government agencies to consolidate strategies of dialogue, and stability. Excellent project management skills, capable of building effective and enthusiastic teams to complete projects on time, within budget, and with tangible impact. Harouna Abdoulaye participated as a panelist at the United Nations General Assembly on the Rehabilitation and Reintegration process of former violent extremists in September 2017. He is also a facilitator and leadership advisor and experienced in Art of Living and personal development. He is seeking for opportunities to share his experiences and to learn and adapt from others experiences in order to foster his sense of creativity and innovation.
Corita Brown
Corita Brown, PhD is passionate about partnering with leaders and organizations who work to build values-based, equitable, inclusive environments. Over the last 18 years, Dr. Brown has supported organizational development and community change efforts in every region in the country, where she has worked as a facilitator, coach, consultant, nonprofit director, board member, social entrepreneur, researcher and writer. Her design and facilitation approach always embeds a racial equity and justice lens and incorporates innovative frameworks such as design thinking, transformational practice and emergent strategy. To help clients improve their effectiveness and growth, Dr. Brown works with them to strengthen collaboration, cultivate authentic communication, navigate power dynamics, and approach conflict as a positive catalyst for learning and transformation. She also has extensive experience helping leaders and changemakers explore how different issues and identities intersect and inform each other, which can help break down the silos that divide and separate us. Her work incorporates kinesthetic awareness, creativity, and mindfulness-based approaches, in addition to action research and more traditional organizational theories and models. This helps her clients draw lessons from their lived experiences and embodied knowledge, as well as from research and data. Dr. Brown’s educational background includes a Masters in Organizational Psychology and Adult Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a PhD in Urban Studies from Temple University. She holds a certificate in nonprofit management from Duke University and is a Certified Professional Coach. Her work is grounded by a 25-year yoga practice, and deeply informed by her experience in the natural world and the three generations of social change agents in her family. Based in Philadelphia, Dr. Brown works around the country and globally in both English and Spanish, in-person and online.
Yolonda Earl-Thompson
Raised in Detroit, Yolonda enjoys using her interpersonal communication skills to create successful outcomes for families and their communities. With over 25 years of experience of community development, she has led many community initiatives that have led to systemic changes that address social and racial equity. In 2019, she was recognized by Fairfax County’s Neighborhood Community Services for her community efforts. Currently, Yolonda serves as the Executive Director of LAZERA Ministries whose mission is to o provide human centered programs and services that educate and bring restoration to community members during times of hardship and despair. The organization provides program that provides free healing programs and safe space for marginalized communities. Her ability to move from inspiration to implementation was highlighted on channel ABC7. Yolonda is also a sought-out lived experience consultant and community facilitator due to her unique approach to conduct human centered interviews, focus groups as well as interactive workshops and training that explore social and emotional awareness, community building, family development, and decision-making with a local and global perspective. Yolonda has a B.A. in Communications from George Washington University, an M.A. in Family and Marriage Counseling from Liberty University and is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband of 20 years and 2 sons. Yolonda seeks to “awaken the human concern of others to bring healing, peace, unity, and world changing results to humanity – one person and one community at a time.”
Virginia Lacayo
Virginia helps audacious, socially conscious leaders to develop a System Thinking Leadership Style they can bring about the impact they seek in their organizations and society while achieving personal, financial and professional freedom. System Thinking approaches allow you unleash collective intelligence and creativity to solve highly complex problems, to promote a culture of learning and innovation, to improve relationships with your teams and among teams and groups, to improve exponentially your level of efficiency and efficacy on all your processes, meetings and systems, to build a sense of belonging and ownership among the members of the organization or community, to promote shared responsibility and reduce resistance to change, to think ahead of time and develop competitive advantages, and to increase your organization’s resilience capacity to quickly and effectively adjust to the changes in the environment. By a System Thinking or Complexity approach to Leadership starts with the leader him/herself. It implies a deep understanding of oneself as a complex adaptive system, to understand the relationship between our thoughts, our emotions, our actions and our results; to manage our mind and emotions in a way that we can be compassionate towards ourselves and others while being able to think strategically and make strategic decisions. A Systemic Leaders is aware that the quality of the interactions is more important for the evolution of the system (organization, company, community or society) than the quality of its individuals and focuses on facilitate a better way to work together and to enable conditions for joint improvement. Her signature programs are: 1. Get Unstuck and Get “the impossible” Done (in an efficient, effective and stress-free manner). 2. Emotional Intelligence, strategic thinking, and resiliency for decision-makers, so they function at their highest level no matter the circumstances. 3. Unleash the Whole System’s potential to solve highly complex problems, develop organizational resiliency, learning, and innovation capacity, decrease resistance to change and to increase competitive advantages and profitability with the right facilitation tools and skills.