ABOUT US
We can provide you with trusted and innovative advice on inclusive workplaces, diverse talent and fair pay. We partner with large and small companies, universities, non-profits, governments, unions and other organizations across the nation.
About Our Company
We have decades of experience in the private, public, academic and nonprofit sectors – so we understand what’s important about your people and your culture.
We will help you build an inclusive culture, implement new policies, and align your strategic goals with the values of diversity, equity and inclusion. We will identify what works best to strengthen your workplace, based on what we have learned from our successful partnerships with major corporations and leading organizations, startups and established entities.
If you have a serious commitment to equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, and you are looking for an evidence-based approach want to deploy those tools to support stronger workplace inclusion, diversity, equity and access.
If your workplace fosters success and opportunity for all, you can see increased innovation, better connections with customers and stakeholders, and greater alignment with your mission and values. Inclusive culture and climate and harassment-free environments can strengthen retention and make your workforce more productive.
Collaborative Leadership
Together, we build strong teams
Evidence-based Framework
Research drives informed decisions
Multi-level Engagement
Leadership, workforce and the greater community
Proactive Solutions
Results that prove successful over time
Pamela Coukos
Co-Founder and CEO
Pamela Coukos, JD, PhD, is a nationally recognized expert on pay equity and gender equity, and the factors that drive successful and unsuccessful responses to workplace discrimination. She has assessed data and policies at scores of companies and led the development of Department of Labor guidance on pay equity reviews. Pam is an experienced teacher and trainer, with two decades of experience in the public, private, nonprofit and academic sectors.
Cyrus Mehri
Co-Founder
Cyrus Mehri, Esq., has developed innovative and effective diversity and inclusion tools across various industries — stemming from groundbreaking employment cases that benefit employers and workers. He has worked with major companies and leading organizations to develop board diversity and accountability strategies. Cyrus is the originator of the “Rooney Rule” diverse candidate slate requirements that have become best practices.
Ahmmad Brown
Senior Advisor
Ahmmad Brown is a diversity, equity, inclusion and justice practitioner with a background in social sector consulting and higher education administration. As executive director and co-founder of EBDI Consulting, Ahmmad works with organizations across sectors to support them in developing and maintaining equitable and inclusive environments. Previously, Ahmmad was a consultant at The Bridgespan Group where, in addition to engaging with external clients strategy development, he was the lead author of an internal resource on integrating racial equity into the firm’s strategy and case team processes. He has also worked in college admissions, and served in advisory capacities for postsecondary institutions on student recruitment, engagement, and success initiatives. Ahmmad is currently completing doctoral work in organizational behavior at Harvard, with research focusing on Black students’ experiences in higher education and allyship in organizational settings.
Sarah Crawford
Senior Advisor
Sarah Crawford has over two decades of experience as a litigator, advocate, and advisor in the field of equal employment opportunity. As the principal of Crawford Consulting, Sarah provides advice to ensure compliance, training customized to meet the needs of clients, and research to promote sound policies and practices that work. Sarah served as a senior attorney advisor to Chair Jenny R. Yang of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, providing counsel regarding the full range of employment discrimination laws enforced by the Commission. She also directed the Workplace Fairness Program at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she handled issues surrounding fair pay, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, equal opportunity, and other matters that impact working women and their families. Sarah served as senior counsel for the Employment Discrimination Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law and has worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Labor, in the Civil Rights Division of the Solicitor’s Office.
Cherrie Bucknor
Research Fellow
Cherrie Bucknor is a Research Fellow with expertise in using quantitative methods to examine the causes and consequences of racial disparities in wealth and homeownership, as well as racial and gender inequality in the labor market. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Sociology at Harvard University, where she studies how racial disparities in extended-family wealth impact the ability to transition to homeownership. Cherrie has previously worked as a Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC, where she remains a Senior Research Fellow. While at CEPR, Cherrie wrote, co-wrote, and contributed to a wide range of reports, including some focused on evaluating paid sick leave policies, assessing the impact of autonomous vehicles on the future of work, and union wage and benefits premiums. Cherrie holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Public Administration from American University.
Meet the talented professionals who collaborate with us to advise our clients – a wide range of public, private, nonprofit, union, and higher education organizations. Our network collectively brings deep and diverse personal and professional experience, strong operational capacity, and a commitment to demonstrated impact, utilizing best practices.
- Our services are culturally proficient, trauma-informed, and honed by politically astute and sound methodologies.
- We use an evidence-based, research-informed approach, applying research findings from psychology, organizational sociology, and the management and public administration literature – as well as our own experience.
- We have practical experience with organizational reform and working with management and employees to foster race and gender justice in the workplace.
- We have a common language, mission and goals with justice-focused organizations. Our long history advocating on behalf of workers and worker organizations gives us unique credibility and perspective.
- We specialize in restoring trust where that has been broken because of incidents of discrimination and other organizational crises.
- We identify best practices for addressing workplace conduct and strengthening accountability to better align institutional practices with organizational values.
Rene Redwood
Rene Redwood, CEO of Redwood Enterprise, has spent over 30 years working with public and private employers and nonprofits on transformation in the workplace. She has a special focus on building and restoring trust with internal and external customers, including training, assessment and monitoring and strategic guidance on racial justice, gender equity and unconscious bias (for example as a member of the court-appointed Coca-Cola Task Force, Director of the Presidential Glass Ceiling Commission, and as current chair of the Equality Task Force of the U.S. National Security Agency).
Doris Quintanilla
Doris Quintanilla is on a mission to revolutionize the lived experiences of womxn of color through holistic community, facilitated institutional healing, and authentic partnerships as the co-founder and Executive Director of The Melanin Collective. Doris has led community health education programming in the United States and abroad focusing on the health and development of women and young people of color. She has over a decade of experience in empowering marginalized communities living at the many intersections of identity and oppression. Through her work in sexual and reproductive healthcare, she has helped establish communities of practice which are thriving today and conducted healthcare-related surveys and qualitative research. Doris believes that when womxn of color’s power and worth are actualized and institutional, then we will achieve a truly prosperous world in our lifetime. themelanincollective.org
Ellen Eardley
Ellen Eardley, Esq., co-leads the civil rights practice at the law firm of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC. She represents people who have experienced race and gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the workplace or at school. She also advises clients on Title IX and sexual assault matters. Ellen offers consulting services that help organizations build fair employment practices, ensure equal educational opportunity, and promote diverse, inclusive, and equitable communities. Previously, Ellen served as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Civil Rights and Title IX at the University of Missouri, where she founded the first institutional equity office in the wake of several high-profile incidents of sexual assault on campus and student protests of systemic racial injustice. Ellen began her legal career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center.
Desiree Langley
Desiree Langley, Esq., joined Mehri & Skalet in 2019 as an Associate Attorney. She represents people who have experienced race discrimination, sex discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations in the workplace, in addition to whistleblowers in all types of matters including bringing qui tam lawsuits under the False Claims Act. Prior to joining Mehri & Skalet, Desiree worked as an Assistant Public Defender in Maryland, where she represented indigent clients charged with misdemeanors and felonies. www.findjustice.com.
Jeremi Duru
Jeremi Duru, Esq., Of Counsel at Mehri & Skalet, is a Professor of Law at American University, and is among the nation’s foremost sports law authorities. He is widely published and is co-author of one of the field’s premier casebooks, Sports Law and Regulation: Cases and Materials (5th edition) (Wolters Kluwer). Professor Duru has a particular interest in sport’s impact on society, with a principle focus on racial and gender dynamics, and he has counseled sports industry professionals in matters involving the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. In addition, Professor Duru has represented collegiate student-athletes in challenging academic fraud at their institutions.
Anurima Bhargava
Anurima Bhargava, Esq., is the Founder and President of Anthem of Us, a strategic advisory firm promoting dignity and justice in the building of our workplaces, schools and communities. From 2010-2016, she served as the Chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she led federal enforcement of civil rights laws in schools and institutions of higher education nationwide. She worked closely across federal agencies and with the White House and Office of Violence Against Women to issue guidance and provide a comprehensive platform to combat sexual assault and harassment. She served on the White House Task Force to Prevent Campus Sexual Assault and the White House Council on Women and Girls. Prior to joining the DOJ in 2010, Ms. Bhargava was counsel and Director of the Education Practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. https://www.anthemofus.com
Greg McCaffrey
Greg McCaffrey has nearly 30 years of global professional services/products business experience at the partner and national business unit president levels with venture capital backed/start-up and large market makers (annual revenues >$35B) across all industries. He has a strong history of assembling and leading high-performance professional advisory teams supporting public sector and commercial clients in 50 different countries in the area of transformation/process improvement. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, the Air Force Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the Air War College, he is a former United States Air Force (USAF) officer and senior contracting officer.
Izzy Jacques
Izzy Jacques is Co-founder and Principal at Conscious Customers. Izzy led the diversity, equity and inclusion program for the top performing division of Wework, including design and execution of the company’s first voluntary supplier diversity program. Prior to her role in DEI, Izzy worked directly with member businesses providing strategic solutions to some of their most critical operational needs. She previously worked in Asset Management as a Relationship Manager and in the International business expansion sector. In addition to her work at Conscious Customers, Izzy was involved with the Kendall Square Association as a peer facilitator for their Inclusion Drives Innovation program. Izzy holds a Bachelor’s in Managerial Economics and Business Management from Bentley University, a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University and a certificate in Supplier Diversity Leadership from the University of Central Florida.
Andrew Tarsy
Andrew Tarsy leads the strategic Advisory Program at Conscious Customers. He is an experienced executive and former civil rights attorney whose work included roles with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Anti-Defamation League. Andy is also principal and founder of Emblem Strategic LLC and is a graduate of Cornell University and the George Washington Law School
Richard Ugelow
Richard Ugelow is a former Deputy Section Chief of the Employment Litigation Section, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He has substantial experience in ensuring equal employment and promoting diversity in state and local government public safety agencies and was hired as a consultant by the EEOC to work on its report on diversity in policing. From 2002-2017, he held a full-time faculty appointment at the American University Washington College of Law, where he taught experiential legal education and courses in employment discrimination. Until 2019, he served as the faculty honor code prosecutor, where he also had Clery Act compliance experience. https://www.wcl.american.edu/community/faculty/?q=Ugelow. Currently, he is a Complaint Examiner for the District of Columbia’s Office of Police Complaints and is chair of the Personnel Appeals Board at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He served in the U.S. Army, Judge Advocate General Corps for four years.