ELRico Blancaflor
Principal
Rico is an experienced executive leader, facilitator, and creative strategist. Before his current role, he was the Vice President for Policy & Collaboration at Philanthropy New York (PNY) where he worked with national and New York based grant making institutions to develop events for foundation staff members. Prior to his time at PNY, Rico was the Vice President of Strategic Projects and member of the executive team responsible for the expansion, evolution and management of The Posse Foundation. He has played multiple roles that have supported the growth of Posse, notably as the national director of training and site development, which helped replicate the Posse program during the early stages of the organization’s growth.
Emilia Chico
Project Partner
Emilia Chico is an educator, facilitator, and youth advocate. She has been working in collaboration with non-profit organizations, schools, and corporations for over 15 years. She is especially skilled at small & large group facilitation and has developed curriculum and trainings on intergroup dialogue, racial justice, gender expansiveness and implicit bias. Emilia serves as a consultant for local and national organizations that are committed to creating equitable and inclusive environments.
ELAINE DAVENPORT
Project Partner
In her two decades as a nonprofit leader and consultant Elaine Davenport has helped design and implement community-based programs and trainings that promote equity, community, and justice. Elaine honed her leadership and facilitations skills in roles at the Posse Foundation, national oral history project StoryCorps, and social service agency Center for Family Life of Sunset Park, and as a consultant for clients that include Shared_Studios, NYC Department of Youth and Community Development, WNYC, and Opportunity Network. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University, completed the Columbia University Business School Institute for Nonprofit Management, and in May 2016 earned a Master of Social Work from Hunter College.
Marta Elena Esquilin
Project Partner
Marta Elena Esquilin is a social justice educator, higher education administrator, and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) consultant. She currently serves as the Associate Dean of the Honors Living Learning Community at Rutgers Newark, and Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the American Studies Program within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She received her Master’s Degree in 2003 from Teachers College, Columbia University in Higher Education Administration. In 2005, under the leadership of Dr. Derald Wing Sue, she was a co-author of the seminal article, “Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice”. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271-286.
EMELY MARTINEZ
Project Partner
Emely Martinez is a leader in talent development, programming, facilitation, and education, with a passion for building organizations to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Emely graduated with a degree in Psychology from Yale University, and began her career with Teach for America as a Kindergarten teacher in Washington, DC. Focused on equity work through education, Emely then joined the national headquarters of After-School All-Stars (ASAS), a federated non-profit. As National Program Director, she was charged with co-creating four signature initiatives, focusing on high school graduation, health and safety, career exploration, and service-learning, including the accompanying curriculum, staff, and youth development experiences.
Chirag Menon
Principal
Chirag is a recording/performing artist, writer, facilitator and educator. He has recorded and released eight albums under Chee Malabar and hip-hop groups Himalayan Project and Oblique Brown. He continues to perform his music and speak at universities and colleges around issues of American identity and race. He was featured in the landmark South Asian-American documentary ‘Brown Like Dat’, and his lyrics and work are the subject of the book Hip Hop Desi’s and a Global Race Consciousness by Northwestern University professor Nitasha Sharma.
JEFFREY SCOTT MILLER
Project Partner
Jeffrey Scott Miller began his career as an educator. He has his MFA in Creative Writing and his BA in Mass Communications. He taught for 15 years in the public, private, and charter school systems. His passion for learning, empowering voices through communication skills, and youth advocacy have all been themes throughout his work. After leaving his classroom, Jeffrey has served as the National Director of Education and National Director of Curriculum and Training for both for profit and nonprofit organizations.
ASIA LIZA MORALES
Project Partner
Asia is an experienced curriculum designer, facilitator, and project manager. Most recently, she worked at The Posse Foundation to support Posse’s strategic partners with their diversity and inclusion priorities. In her role, Asia developed dynamic programming for students and professionals aimed at fostering dialogue about identity, leadership, and today's most pressing social issues. She is currently pursuing her MBA at USC’s Marshall School of Business with an emphasis on workforce strategy and organizational transformation.
MICIA MOSELY
Project Partner
Micia Mosely is the founder and director of The Black Teacher Project, a program of The National Equity Project committed to developing a Black teaching force to transform schools into communities of liberated learning. Prior to leading this work, she was a National Training Specialist with The Posse Foundation. Mosely began her career as a high school social studies teacher before earning her Ph.D. in Education from U.C. Berkeley. She is a published researcher whose work focuses on race and professional development. Also a successful theater artist and performer, Mosely tours the nation with her socio-political stand-up comedy. Learn more at www.miciamosely.com & www.blackteacherproject.org.
Brett Murphy
Project Partner
Brett Gardiner Murphy has over fifteen years of experience in culturally relevant and sustaining curriculum design, professional development, facilitation, writing, and research. She is a 9th grade global history teacher at a public high school in New York City and a PhD student in Urban Education at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Before returning to the classroom, she was the Director of Strategic Projects at the Posse Foundation, where she helped establish a new consulting arm for the organization and developed curricula exploring identity and power, including a series of retreats that attracted over 6,000 participants annually.
Shiza PASHA
Project Advisor
Shiza Pasha is an independent consultant with a singular goal: to grow the capacity and impact of the foundation and nonprofit community. With extensive experience in local and international grantmaking, she understands how to move resources through nonprofit, philanthropic, and government spaces to create social impact. In previous projects, she has provided surge grantmaking capacity to foundation clients during busy board cycles, conducted strategic planning for a non-profit collaborative, and provided grantwriting support to help secure significant federal funding for a statewide project.
Dax-Devlon Ross
Principal
Dax-Devlon Ross is the author of six books, including the acclaimed Letters to My White Male Friends, and his journalism has been featured in Time, The Guardian, The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post Magazine and other national publications. He won the National Association of Black Journalists’ Investigative Reporting Award for his coverage of jury exclusion in North Carolina courts and is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at Type Media Center.
Pooja Sachdev
Project Advisor
Pooja Sachdev is an experienced business psychologist, organisational consultant and founder of Rewire Consulting. She has worked across a range of settings over the last two decades from small start-ups, public sector bodies and niche consultancies to multi-nationals in financial services, technology and media. Pooja is particularly interested in the study of unconscious bias, behaviour change and organisational culture.She is co-author of 'Rewire: A Radical Approach to Tackling Diversity and Difference', which was published by Bloomsbury in 2015 and described by the FT as "the most refreshing approach to diversity I have read" (Nov 4, 2015).
MICKEY STEINER
Project Partner
Mickey Steiner is an educator, facilitator, and curriculum designer specializing in organizational development. Over his ten years working in education and social justice organizations, he has facilitated cross-cultural conversations to drive change at the individual, team, and system levels. As a Trainer for the Posse Foundation, he facilitated large and small group workshops focused on topics such as gender, race, sexuality, and leadership. He has worked for the past five years as a middle and high school teacher, working exclusively with students with learning disabilities. In 2020, he completed his M.S. in Organizational Development.
Justin Weir
Project Partner
Justin is the Deputy Executive Director and one of the co-founders at ProScholars Athletics Inc. He is an experienced leader, facilitator, and financial and marketing strategist. He has played multiple roles that have supported the growth of ProScholars, notably as the director of Programs, which helped lead to the program being featured in segments in such media outlets as ABC Nightly News, and the New York Times. During his 15 years at ProScholars, Justin has seen his programs student athletes earn over $400 million in scholarship awards at the Collegiate and secondary school level.
CARISSA JOHNSON WHITE
Project Partner
Carissa Johnson White is educator, artist, and facilitator. She has served schools and non-profits as an artist-in-residence, created arts integration workshops for teacher professional development, and served as a consultant for schools, community centers, and corporations to create curricula and facilitate trainings on arts activism, racial justice, and global education issues across the United States and beyond.
Principal Photographs by George Del Barrio