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
Working IDEAL CEO and co-founder Pamela Coukos, JD, PhD is a nationally recognized expert on equity analytics, applying research and experience to build more equitable and inclusive workplaces and business processes. She uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies to understand and identify barriers and to develop metrics to assess progress. She has assessed racial and gender equity at scores of large and small companies, local governments and education, labor and nonprofit organizations. Some of her recent notable projects include leading our interdisciplinary team in their work on the BlackRock racial equity audit, and developing and deploying our unique methodology for pay equity assessment and compensation program design for a number of leading national civil rights nonprofit organizations. She is a former civil rights attorney and served as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of Labor. Read Pam’s full bio here.
Cyrus Mehri
Co-Founder
Working IDEAL Co-founder Cyrus Mehri, Esq. co-leads our work in DEI strategy, policy development, leadership engagement, and developing key metrics. He has developed innovative and effective diversity and inclusion tools across various industries – including the Rooney Rule, a recognized best practice to build diverse leadership. As founding partner of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, Cyrus has identified barriers to equity and implemented reforms at major organizations and companies across industries. He led work with Pam to promote new diversity, equity and inclusion disclosure requirements at large publicly traded companies. He seeks to strategically advance America’s workplaces, from Corporate America to the world of professional sports, to governments and nonprofits. Read Cyrus’ full bio here.
Ahmmad Brown
Principal Advisor
Ahmmad Brown, Ph.D., is an organizational behaviorist and sociologist with experience in social sector consulting and higher education administration. Ahmmad integrates academic theory, evidence-based change management approaches, and mixed-methods approaches to data collection and analysis to support organizations and leadership teams across sectors. In addition to his work with Working IDEAL, Ahmmad is an assistant professor at the Master of Science in Learning and Organizational Change (MSLOC) and the Executive Learning and Organizational Change (ELOC) programs at Northwestern University, where he is also the faculty lead for the Leading Equity and Inclusion in Organizations Certificate (LEIOC) program.
Sarah Crawford
Principal Advisor
Sarah Crawford has a proven track record of breaking down barriers to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. As an attorney with more than twenty-five years of experience as a litigator, advocate, and consultant, she provides solutions to drive sustainable change. She has worked with Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, universities, non-profits, government agencies, unions, and other organizations across the nation to implement best practices. As a principal advisor with Working IDEAL, she provides advice and coaching for organizations of all sizes. As the founder of Crawford Strategies LLC, Sarah assists clients with a wide-range of services, including research, advocacy, training, and compliance consulting. Prior to joining Working IDEAL, Sarah previously worked for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor, and served in senior roles with leading civil rights organizations. She received her legal and undergraduate degrees from William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Read Sarah’s full bio here.
Cherrie Bucknor
Senior Research Fellow
Cherrie Bucknor has expertise in sociological and economic analyses of the causes and consequences of racial and gender disparities in the labor market. At Working IDEAL, Cherrie is a member of our Equity Analytics team, conducting statistical and descriptive analyses of compensation, promotion, retention, and availability/utilization for our client partners as well as assisting in racial and gender equity assessments. She also leads our work on market analysis. In addition to her work at Working IDEAL, Cherrie is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Harvard University where her dissertation research examines the importance of extended family wealth for various life outcomes. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Read Cherrie’s full bio here.
Jenny R. Yang
Collaborating Partner
Jenny R. Yang, Esq., has served in key leadership roles at federal labor and civil rights agencies, including as Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and most recently in the White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President for Racial Justice and Equity. She led a team advancing President Biden’s commitment to strengthening Democracy, voting rights, criminal justice reform, and economic mobility. As an attorney, policy maker, and strategic advisor, she helps ensure organizations carry out the nation’s promise of justice and equal opportunity.
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).
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.
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.