Mindy Gulati is founder and CEO of Fundamental Advisory, a consulting firm focused on advising businesses, law firms, state and local governments, and nonprofits, on issues related to Culture, Leadership and Strategy. Using her expertise and personal approach, she designs Culture and DEI strategic plans, drafts policies and procedures, and creates custom content and workshops for a wide range of organizations around the country. Her focus is strategic guidance for equity and inclusion, antiracism, bias awareness, creating innovative cultures, executive leadership coaching, educating on the ethical implications of bias, as well as guiding organizations on legal issues such as sexual harassment and discrimination.
Mindy explains that DEI is “head work, heart work, and hard work,” and she pours into her clients to ensure progress and growth. Her thoughtful approach provides the foundational basis for cultural change through awareness, storytelling and understanding. She regularly tackles complex issues such as racial tensions at the workplace, implicit and explicit bias in decision making, creating culturally intelligent and responsive workplaces, compensation equity, and ethical leadership. Her legal background gives her a key advantage in understanding these issues with an eye towards risk mitigation and by crafting specific policies and procedures to guard against the harms that workplace inequities create.
As a former criminal defense trial attorney and expert on DEI, she is passionate about fostering equity and inclusion through her work and has seen how people thrive when barriers are removed. She is intentional in the projects she takes on and leaves a lasting impact on the organizations she works with. She has invested tremendous energy throughout her career sparking lasting movements for change through relationship-building and hard work; though her most profound joy comes from opening minds, opening doors, and making the world a more just and equitable place. She prides herself on being a support for others and recognizes that incremental improvement is only part of the path to success, not the finish line.
Mindy was raised to seek racial justice and solidarity in our country and has made it her life’s work to do her part to help realize true equity, justice, and access for all.
Denisha Jenkins is an Austin based Equity and Inclusion Consultant that hails from Louisville, Kentucky – home to a rich civil rights history and various movement leaders. As a servant leader, she has been improving systems and developing anti-racist, culturally responsive leaders within the education, healthcare, and economic development industry in the US and abroad for the last 13 years.
Prior to founding Kardia Advisory Group, Denisha pioneered a multi-faceted partnership between MIT and Singapore University of Technology, managed civic projects on behalf of the US State Department, and helped community leaders secure over 600K in grant funding to address disparate outcomes. With each project, she applies a trauma informed, solutions driven framework that prioritizes equitable outcomes and delivers sustainable strategies for disrupting bias and cultivating authentic belonging in small to large organizations.
Denisha “restores humanity within communities” by disarming, affirming, and equipping leaders with the tools they need to efficiently honor and navigate cultural nuances. She models restorative leadership by leveraging her intersectional background and interdisciplinary experience in the public and private sectors to name and dismantle systems that hinder belonging, excellence and innovation.
Workshops and trainings on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Issues such as:
Dr. Alejandra Rodríguez Mielke is a bilingual DEI professional developer, consultant, and coach with more than 15 years experience improving the educational experiences of underrepresented minorities. Utilizing her expertise in adult-learning and social justice, Alejandra supports current and future leaders transcend personal biases and systemic barriers to help build inclusive and equitable workplaces.
As a learning and development expert, Alejandra utilizes research-based approaches to develop and provide learning experiences that allow participants to listen and learn from each other, raise awareness, guide change, build capacity and develop intentionality and ownership of the process when working to improve practices and bring change. She understands that what’s important is not only the efficient delivery of information, but the analysis of the starting point, the focus on clear goals, and the guiding hand during the process.
As a diversity and inclusion coach, Alejandra focuses on two groups. First, individuals or teams who want to grow in their understanding and practice of Diversity and Inclusion measures can benefit from Alejandra’s coaching skills to create safe spaces for conversation and introspection. Through this process, deep-rooted behaviors and perspectives that impede true inclusion can be brought to light and discussed. In addition, Alejandra guides Latinx young adults, women and working mothers to find their voice and passion, and to use their own resilience and determination to build the confidence they need to successfully navigate the workplace.
Captain LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick (Ret.), ACE, ASC, SHRM-SCP, IDI® is the owner and senior consultant for her human resources, organizational development and law enforcement management firm, LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick, Training and Consulting for the Real World ™.
She is an internationally recognized expert and trainer with over 37 years of experience. With a diverse consultancy of local, state, federal, and international companies and organizations, both public and private, LaPonda helps organizations provide their teams with essential tools and insights necessary to add value to the workforce to increase their bottom line and productivity.
Having a passion for Human Resources Management with a focus on non- discrimination, gender equality, diversity and inclusion, and unconscious bias, LaPonda helps organizations improve their service to both their internal and external customers by understanding that an organization is only as good as its culture and its employees. She develops policies and procedures, makes organizational realignments, implements diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, provides individualized coaching programs and other necessary programmatic recommendations based on these analyses.
An avid researcher, LaPonda makes informed recommendations for compliance, implementation and strategic development through comprehensive analysis of local, state, and federal laws, regulations, scholarly works, articles, court decisions, global industry best practices and common sense. LaPonda is authorized to and uses the Global Diversity & Inclusion Benchmarks: Standards for Organizations Around the World© (GDIB©). Her findings and comprehensive analyses are always utilized as the foundation for training, coaching and organizational culture transformations.
LaPonda facilitates targeted focus groups and listening sessions, employee satisfaction surveys and strategic planning sessions. She develops and instructs on unconscious (implicit/hidden) bias, diversity, equity and inclusion, psychological resiliency, and workplace violence among other Human Resources Management and safety/security issues.
Prior to retirement with the Los Angeles World Airports Police, LaPonda was the Commanding Officer of the Professional Standards Section where she updated, developed and reviewed all policies, procedures, employee conduct (Internal Affairs), employee training (police academy and continuing professional), hiring standards and police officer pre employment investigations for over 1100 employees. LaPonda was the liaison to the EEO Coordinator and conducted and reviewed complex discrimination and sexual harassment investigations involving police and civilian employees through their conclusion. She served as a pre-disciplinary hearing officer and assisted the City Attorney with defending personnel decisions to the Civil Service Commission and in Superior Court. LaPonda had a unique role in that she represented both management and labor (union president) in collective bargaining negotiations and was a member of the City of Los Angeles Joint Labor-Management Committee that made recommendations on citywide collective bargaining contracts, employee administrative policy and procedures, and associated employee benefits.
Throughout her career, LaPonda was responsible for ensuring the safety, security, and regulatory compliance of the global gateway known as LAX and its satellite airports. After the events of 9-11, LaPonda conceived and implemented the Los Angeles Airport Police Homeland Security Section to ensure multi-agency law enforcement and public safety activities and responses were properly coordinated with airlines, other tenants, and local state and federal law enforcement and public safety organizations, Customs and Border Protection, both the Transportation Security and Federal Aviation Administrations, and other stakeholders to reduce LAX’s vulnerability to a terrorist event or catastrophic emergency. She also worked directly with airline corporate and ground security coordinators in support of their security needs and requirements. LaPonda developed the nation’s largest airport law enforcement bomb detection K-9 unit, expedited multi-agency intelligence sharing, and an on-site tactical response unit tailored to the aviation environment.
LaPonda developed the LAX Airport Security Advisory Committee that brought together all airport stakeholders to review and make recommendations on airport security and safety. She was responsible for writing and maintaining the Airport Security Program (ASP) and the Airport Emergency Response Plan (AERP) while ensuring overall compliance with security regulations and processes by the over 54,000 employees and hundreds of businesses that called LAX, Ontario, Palmdale (when operating), and Van Nuys Airports their home. She was a part of the Joint Vulnerability and Assessment processes that were conducted by the FBI, TSA, FAA, and other federal agencies and oversaw the LAWA self inspection programs for security and worked directly with federal regulators to resolve any issues that may have arisen. LaPonda developed the Aviation Terrorism Liaison Program that worked directly with the FBI on counter-terrorism measures and assigned Airport Police Officers to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). LaPonda also participated in countless implementations and upgrades of the various security system utilized at the LAWA Airports and made recommendations as to systems, methods and procedures that were utilized.
