Engaging, intersectional
Inclusion workshops*
*easily rebranded if that matters to you
Previews of Our most popular Workshops
Our team of facilitators is diverse and our workshops are always intersectional, interactive, and practical. Check out some previews below.
Preview of Come Together presented by Erika Latines
Preview of Just the Way You Are presented by Erika Latines
Preview of What’s Going On Presented by Daniel Downer
Meet Our Facilitators
Bernadette Smith (she/her)
CEO
Bernadette Smith is founder and CEO of Equality Institute and award-winning author of four books. Her fourth book is Inclusive 360: Proven Solutions for an Equitable Organization.
Bernadette has presented to enthusiastic audiences of CEOs, associations, entrepreneurs, leadership teams, sales professionals, account executives, marketing executives, human resource managers and more. Her expertise has been sought after by the New York Times, Forbes, the Washington Post, and Fast Company, among many others, and she’s appeared on the Today Show, the BBC, National Public Radio, and CNN.
Bernadette has been named one of Chicago’s Notable LGBTQ Executives by Crain’s Chicago Business. She loves sharing on LinkedIn and each week writes about good vibes in DEI in her newsletter, 5 Things.
Daniel Downer (he/him)
SENIOR FACILITATOR
Daniel J. Downer is an award-winning community advocate, facilitator, and speaker with a long history of advocating for Black and Brown LGBTQ+ and social movements in Central Florida. Through his work with various community initiatives and organizations, he has led community conversations on and facilitated community education campaigns specifically addressing diversity, equity, health equity, HIV, inclusion and LGBTQ+ issues.
Daniel currently serves as the Executive Director of The Bros in Convo Initiative, a community organization in Orlando educating and empowering young Black gay, bisexual, queer, and same gender loving men. In acknowledgment of his commitment to health and social equity, Daniel was honored by GLAAD as a 2018 Rising Star Award honoree, in 2019 The Red Door Foundation Leadership Achievement Award, and in 2020 The Demetrick Brown Humanitarian Award by Metro Inclusive Health and Watermark's Most Remarkable Person in Central Florida.
Patti Flynn (she/her)
SENIOR CONSULTANT AND FACILITATOR
Patti Flynn leads with her heart and mindfulness and brings 25+ years of process improvement and change management experience in manufacturing, distribution, and sales/service operations to Equality Institute. She leads with equality and diversity both professionally and in her personal life. Making a difference in an ever-changing world, she helps others that are also trying to grow and improve themselves. As a trans woman who wasn’t able to be herself until recently, she understands how important it is for LGBTQ people to be able to see themselves out in the world. For fun, she likes to run across mountains and ride her bike all over the Midwest.
Kelvin Goss (he/him)
ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT AND FACILITATOR
Kelvin Goss is a former Chief Diversity Officer with expertise in advising and guiding senior leaders on enhancing employee engagement, evaluating performance trends, and implementing enterprise-wide talent solutions to achieve the organization’s vision and objectives. Kelvin was awarded the honor of 2023 SHRM DEI Leader of the Year and selected as the Top 100 Chief Diversity Officers in the Nation by the National Diversity Council.
Kelvin designed, orchestrated, and implemented a DEI roadmap that led his former employer to being recognized as best in class, based on ISO standards from the Human Resource Standard Institute for DEI Culture.
Erma Ishara (they/them)
FACILITATOR
Erma Ishara (they/them) is a trans non-binary artist, writer, facilitator, and community organizer. They are the creator of The FemmeBoi a trans non-binary multimedia company creating affirming, entertaining, and educational content centering the lives of BIPOC creators. Ishara’s work focuses on creating content and community spaces centering diverse queer experiences.
Ishara has facilitated gender education workshops for nationwide brands as well as consulting and coaching. They have worked with Affinity Community Services, a Chicago-based Black LGBTQ+ organization, and now currently work at a Black youth political education organization creating community spaces for BIPOC trans and queers in Chicago.
Erika Latines (she/her/ella)
FACILITATOR
Erika Latines, also known as Erika with a “K”, is a queer Latine poet, humanitarian, and activist. Her background spans from corporate finance and international business to more recently, a non-profit focused on violence prevention. She has 10 years of experience as a facilitator and trainer in areas such as equity, diversity and inclusion, queer rights, civil rights, and team building. She is the daughter of immigrants.
Erika was born and raised on the southside of Chicago, IL and lived in Mexico as an adult for 10 years. She has traveled all over the country sharing her poetry and story in English and Spanish to educate, empower and encourage youth and adults to be leaders of change.
Seema Jain (she/her)
FACILITATOR
Seema Jain brings years of experience helping companies become more culturally competent when engaging with people from different backgrounds. In her past role as Senior Director, Multicultural Affairs at Marriott International, Seema developed tools and resources for Marriott associates and properties to enhance cultural competencies to better serve the company’s broad diversity of guests and customers.
She is also a co-founder of two non-profit organizations – Supporting Excellence in Education Foundation (SEED), which awards scholarships to high school students and the Young Jains of America (YJA) a national youth organization created to share Jain heritage and culture where she is currently a Board of Trustee member.
Camelú Millan Vargas (she/her/ella)
SENIOR FACILITATOR
Camelú Millan Vargas is Mexico City-based specializing in consulting and creating special events and trainings throughout Latin America and the United States. With a focus of business entrepreneurship, Camelu has taught classes at several institutions of high learning including CESSA Universidad, TEC de Monterrey, Universidad Latina and Universidad Iberoamericana.
As a business consultant, she helps companies effectively create outstanding events designed for their employees and clients.
Dr. Laura Quiros (she/her)
COACH AND FACILITATOR
Dr. Laura Quiros is a Latina and Jewish woman of color, a former associate dean, and an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University. Her passion is in advancing inclusion within executive leadership, and connecting leadership to missions and agendas of diversity, equity and inclusion. She uses relationship building skills as a way to foster inclusion by helping to increase awareness and move towards action.
Laura deepens the conversation around diversity and inclusion by supporting and nurturing leaders to develop a reflective consciousness that is strength-based, critically nurturing and ultimately transformational.
Dagyi Rivera (she/her/ella)
SENIOR FACILITATOR
Dagyi Rivera is Mexico City-based and conducts Equality Institute consulting and trainings throughout Latin America. She has a Bachelors Degree in Management and a Masters Degree in marketing for small business with expertise in advertising, marketing, PR, event and event planning.
As a business coach and facilitator, Dagyi helps companies more effectively serve their diverse employees and clients.
Let’s get proactive about inclusion.
Diversity & Inclusion Strategists and Speakers