Consulting

I specialize in helping companies creatively integrate gender expertise to ensure their products, marketing, training, and communications are gender-aware. Do you want a marketing campaign to resonate with young women? Do you want your financial products to be equitably utilized by people of all genders? I bring key research and practical applications to your work, to create something imaginative that puts your product ahead of the rest. I am not just an “ideas person”—I take ownership of deliverables like toolkits, videos, reports, curriculum, blogs, workshops, and events. Let’s connect and make your project even stronger.

Sometimes organizations have internal issues. Staff are not cooperating. Communications are off. Spirits are down. And this means production and output is down. What do you do? Policy can’t fix everything—oftentimes you need some norms work.

I joke that people only call me when they’re at their lowest—and I don’t mind! I like listening. I like to talk to people and figure out what underlying norms are causing your problem. What is bothering people? What is going on that no one will say out loud? And then most importantly—how do we fix it? What changes need to happen to make things better? I will work with you to figure out what is going on, and identify ways you can make things better.

Creating a plan or policy around gender and inclusion is just the beginning. Operationalizing your plan is actually the hard part. You have to find a way to get everyone to do the work.

Let me give you an example. Of the men who have a parental leave entitlement in their benefits package, only about 35 take advantage. Why. Because the baseline norm about how a father's #1 job is to be the income earner is still strong. Men tell each other under their breath, "don't take more than two weeks. It sends the wrong message to management. This is the time for you to learn in at work." In this case the norm is sabotaging the policy. And it happens more often then we realize!

To operationalize policy you have to determine what are the social norms that must change to implement your policy, and then take your staff through the steps to get there. Using tested methodologies, I have help you determine what you need to differently on a day to day basis to make this plan a reality. With expertise in behavior change and norms change, I like helping organizations and companies figure out how to make gender and social inclusion aspirations a reality.

Whether you are planning a staff retreat, a strategic planning meeting, onboarding a new cadre of workers, adapting to change, or working through an institutional challenge—I am happy to take the responsibility off your hands and guide the conversation for you. No problem or topic is prohibited. I have plenty of experience talking about uncomfortable difficult topic, and promise to approach each situation with care, empathy and compassion—and I will work hard to make sure that everyone feel heard, and compromises are made so by the time I am finish, you have a clear roadmap for next steps.

The words we choose to describe our products and programs are critical, especially important as the gender language is forever shifting and changing. I can help you articulate complicated concepts in easy-to-understand, jargon-free English—and make sure that your internal and external communications are keeping up with the (forever shifting and changing) gender vernacular. If you want to test my writing style, check out my work here.