Our panelist (Olanike Ayomide-Mensah, LaVada Humphrey, Eboné Lockett, and Shamyra Parker – Pink Mentor Network members & entrepreneurs) have been hosting a series of discussions for white and non-Black allies & champions to attend, listen, & learn, but also to commit to ongoing learning and action to support Black women in their daily lives, while also engaging and allowing other women to share their experiences. They now join us for a panel discussion moderated by our Chief Operating Officer, Kama Pierce, to continue the conversation and to support Levine Museum’s ongoing discussions to commit to real change.
Our panelists invite you to:
Sign the “Courageous Commitment for Racial Equity” & pledge to ongoing action.
Meet the Panelists:
Olanike Ayomide-Mensah, Founder & Chief Equity Officer, Mosaic Consulting (@mosaic_4equity)
Olanike is a workplace equity strategist and executor rolled into one. She is experienced in applying an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) lens to all aspects of workplace management. She has applied her organizational development and leadership skills in both the nonprofit and business/ corporate sectors, spending nearly 20 years leading local, national, and international organizations. Her experience living on two continents gives her a unique, global lens that enriches her perspective.
Olanike is passionate about equity and leadership development! She founded Mosaic Consulting to offer training, coaching, and consulting to individuals and institutions seeking transformation. She partners with clients to achieve greater workplace equity via strategies unearthed through facilitating complex dialogue and bolstered by change leadership principles. She is obsessed with building equity in the world, starting with the workplace!
She currently resides in North Carolina with her spouse, daughter, and Shihpoo Penni, where she serves on the board of The Possibility Project Charlotte and plays a lot(!) of tennis!
LaVada Humphrey, Chief Leadership Officer, PureRising Group (@lavadaspeaks)
LaVada Humphrey is a Speaker, Trainer, and Organizational Development practitioner. She is the Founder and President of PureRising, a personal and development company that specializes in leadership, communication and empowering human potential.
LaVada has extensive work experience and knowledge starting her career in banking, which led her down a career path in training and professional development. This was the catalyst that ignited her purpose, passion and curiosity in human potential.
She has a bachelor in Business Administration, and a few courses away from completing her Masters in Organizational Leadership. LaVada is passionate about helping others’ “uncheck the boxes” in their careers and to align to their purpose for “authentic leading and being” to fulfill their life’s work.
Eboné Lockett, Founder & CEO Harvesting Humanity LLC (@harvestinghumanity)
Author, Innovative Curricula Designer, and Educational Practitioner Eboné Lockett, has spent majority of her life, living, leading, and serving in the spirit of her middle and high school mantra, “Non Scholae Sed Vitae Discimus”, which translates to remind us that, “we learn not for school but for life”.
Through a plethora of high impact experiences such as: designing, delivering, and facilitating Integrated Science, Technology, Reading & Writing, Engineering, Arts, and Math (S.T.R.E.A.M) lessons as a highly-qualified, award-winning, Secondary School Educator for the past 20+ years, creating, co-creating, presenting, and judging poetry as a distinguished and published poet, designing and curating a place-based, Integrated Arts exhibit centered on the hard history of racial, social, and judicial injustice as both Activist and Teaching Artist, hosting and leading global Equity Youth Engagement fellowships as Principal Designer & Consultant of Harvesting Humanity, LLC, and securing grants to support schools, communities, and entire ecosystems, it is evident that Eboné’s passion for her profession is intimately and intricately interwoven with her purpose and her belief that “we learn not for school but for life”.
Shamyra Parker, Founder & Chief Well-Being Officer, Born Boundless International (@iamshamyraparker)
Shamyra is the Founder and Chief Well-Being Officer (CWO) of Born Boundless International. She is a self-care advocate and educator who gives Black women, in leadership positions, a MENTAL MAKEOVER by showing them how to make self-care non-negotiable so they are emotionally whole and no longer suffering in silence, which leads to health issues, fatigue, and burnout. Shamyra shows her clients how to UPGRADE their self-care practice from awesome-to-amazing. She champions for ALL women to show up for themselves the way they serve others.
Shamyra is a four-time author, Charlotte native, and mom of two amazing boys, with a mission to not only inspire, but to also offer strategies and tools that ignite mindset shifts that are critical for lifestyle transformation. She has 10+ years of corporate sales and marketing experience and another 5 years in health and wellness outreach. Shamyra facilitates workshops, courses, and professional development with the urgent message that NOT making yourself a priority has a price tag.
She serves as a Commissioner for the Reimagining America Project: The Truth, Reconciliation, and Atonement Commission of Charlotte, NC (RAP-TRACC) — a project of the George Mason University Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, & Conflict Resolution. Shamyra is also a community partner for both Upper Room Outreach International and SEE HER LEAD.
Kama Pierce, Chief Operating Officer, Levine Museum of the New South
Kama Pierce is Chief Operating Officer at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, North Carolina. As COO, she provides strategic oversight and management of programs and services for an innovative history museum whose mission is to “connect the past to the future to realize the promises of a New South.” Pierce joined Levine Museum as its Director of Development in 2018. Prior to joining the Museum, Pierce was an Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Law at the Charlotte School of Law. She served as a member of the faculty from 2009 until 2017 where she taught Appellate Advocacy, Criminal Law, Lawyering Process I and II, Writing in Chambers, and Comparative Law courses offered in Haiti and Lithuania. As Associate Dean of Practice Ready, Pierce oversaw the legal clinic, externship and advocacy programs. Pierce also taught as an adjunct faculty member at Johnson C. Smith University teaching both Constitutional Law and Introduction to Legal Studies. Prior to joining the academic community, Professor Pierce served several years as a judicial law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, PA with The Honorable Theodore McKee and in the Office of the Staff Attorney. She also practiced criminal defense law as an Assistant Public Defender in Bucks County, PA, and briefly practiced tort defense for a medium-sized law firm in Oakland, CA. Pierce is a member of both the California and Pennsylvania Bar. She earned her B.A. in English from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. prior to earning her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago,