Transforming Workplace Cultures
We help organizations across the private, public, and social sectors increase engagement, innovation and performance by building inclusive and equitable workplace cultures where everyone thrives and belong.
Our Approach
why?
We believe in a just and equitable world in which everyone has equal opportunities regardless of race, gender, sexuality, religion, ability or class or any other social identity.
We thrive on building relationships and helping organizations dismantle inequitable practices and free up everyone’s potential.
how?
We measure your organization’s orientation to diversity, equity and inclusion and help you develop a plan to foster a more inclusive and equitable workplace culture.
Our targeted educational programs engage leaders in concrete organizational issues to expand awareness and better equip them to respond strategically to “real-world” situations.
what?
We develop and implement inclusion strategies that fit the unique culture of individual businesses.
We transform workplace cultures through collective and inclusive visioning processes that engage multiple stakeholders and elevate all voices.
Let’s create something amazing together.
Our core values serve as our north star for every decision we make.
Our Values
Co-Creating equity
Organizations are a microcosm of the world in which inequitable systems and practices are embedded. Dismantling inequitable practices together creates a culture where all people and business can succeed.
Change that matters
By going beyond fixing problems, organizations can truly transform their culture. While we work with organizations at every stage of the diversity, equity and inclusion continuum, our ideal client loves to challenge the status quo.
Diversity is strength
Improving inclusion is a source of economic strength. We help organizations improve quality and reduce costs by harnessing the power of diversity, and turning differences into creativity and innovation.
Resistance is welcome
We believe resistance is a necessary force for change. When leaders can identify resistance and its sources they can harness it as a positive force to create sustainable change.
Inclusive Leadership
Everyone is responsible for building an inclusive culture; however, leaders send a powerful message when they demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion through action.
All-Inclusive Approach
Transforming cultures requires engagement and collaboration from all leaders and organizational members. We invite, listen to and address all concerns, ensuring everyone feels included.
Meet Our Team
our team members are dedicated to helping you reshape your workplace culture into more inclusive, high functioning and equitable.
Core Team
Maria Velasco
MA
Maria Velasco is the Founder and CEO of Beyond Inclusion Group. She is a strategic organizational development and leadership consultant for organizations seeking transformational change in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion. She has over 15 years’ experience developing and implementing sustainable diversity and inclusion initiatives to help strengthen and leverage diversity for organizations from a variety of sectors with the goal of reducing bias, increasing cultural competence, promoting inclusion and institutional change.
Her clients come from fields such as education, healthcare, mental health, technology, scientific, government and non-profit organizations throughout the U.S. Maria uses Appreciative Inquiry and Action Learning methodologies to build cultures of inclusion and to foster intercultural understanding.
Born and raised in Salamanca, Spain, Maria has a BA in Business Administration, a Master of Arts in Organizational Development and Leadership and a Graduate Certificate in Organizational Consulting from Fielding University. Her master thesis focused on defining the role of transformational leaders around the implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Her research has been recently published in the international peer reviewed Organizational Development Journal.
Monica Sherese Brewster
PMP
Monica has nearly 25 years of experience as an Organizational Development and Strategy Consultant, Certified Professional Coach, and xchange Certified Facilitation Guide.
Highly regarded as a motivational and influential leader collaborator, she leverages expertise in business transformation, change management, leadership coaching, and facilitation to enable stellar results for dynamic executive leaders and teams.
She’s worked with top firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Consulting, and Guidehouse to provide consulting services to several federal civilian, defense and intelligence organizations, including:
- U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
- Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- Department of Homeland Security – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS-ICE)
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- Department of Defense (DOD)
- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
Monica also brings experience working with senior leaders in the private sector and non-profit organizations. Currently, she provides ongoing consulting and executive coaching services to the Chief Diversity Officer of the American Psychological Association (APA) and her team of senior leaders. Monica is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Management and Leadership from Webster University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy.
Lain Adams
Lain has worked with organizations and executives for 25 years as a global leader, consultant and coach. He has focused throughout on being a catalyst for positive, sustainable change, helping leaders prepare their organizations to be continuously adaptive and future fit. His clients include diverse organizations across sectors and geographies including business, healthcare, education, non-profits, agencies, and institutions. He has a passion for helping organizations to improve the employee experience for everyone, creating workplace communities rich in trust, connection, engagement and belonging.
Lain has held enterprise-level HR/OD functional leadership roles in Fortune 30 and S&P 500 corporations and holds the Senior Professional Human Resource (SPHR) and Professional Certified Coach (PCC) designations alongside specialized skills in the Denison Leadership and Culture 360 Survey and Gallup’s Employee Engagement and Strengths Leadership. His education includes a B.A. from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and executive programs at M.I.T’s Sloan School of Management and the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business.
Lain brings a combination of rigorous academic training, extensive professional experience, and a commitment to civic engagement to drive meaningful change and foster inclusive environments in his role as a Senior Consultant.
Lain has provided professional services to a wide range of organizations.
- Regis University
- Comcast
- University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
- HealthStream
- Trimble
His civic involvements include,
- Board of Directors, Impact on Education Foundation
- Board of Directors, Boulder Chamber of Commerce
- Boulder Economic Council and Blue-Ribbon Panels
- Boulder Community Foundation Community Trust
- Boys and Girls Club and Community Police Advisory Boards
Adriana Medina-López-Portillo
Ph.D
Adriana’s work invites individuals and organizations to operate and relate to others from a place of consciousness and awareness of self and others, and to inhabit the world with the recognition of both the oneness and uniqueness of humankind.
As an intercultural, diversity and Personal Leadership™ trainer, Adriana’s current focus is on topics of communication; cultural sensitivity; and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Examples of the topics she offers are
• creating an inclusive environment,
• intercultural communication,
• interpersonal communication,
• understanding unconscious bias,
• systemic racism,
• white supremacy,
• how to be an ally/accomplice to marginalized groups,
• understanding the immigrant experience, and
• inclusive pedagogy
Recognizing the healing that occurs through deep listening and understanding, Adriana facilitates BIPOC+ and Mixed-Race Affinity groups either in a recurrent basis or a stand-alone listening session. Adriana is qualified to administer the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), the premier cross- culturally valid assessment for building cultural competence based on the IDC. In addition, she uses the Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory to support clients in identifying core approaches to improving communication, resolving conflicts and solving problems across cultural differences.
Adriana is also a professor. She teaches topics on communication and social justice at the University of Denver and Metropolitan State University of Denver. A published author, she is a former Associate Professor of Intercultural Communication and Spanish at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, appointment that she left when she moved to Denver to be with family Her joy is spending time with her husband and her 14-years old, being in nature, playing the djembe, playing and petting her cats, and teaching.
Jose Reyes, Ed. D., LPC
Dr. Jose Reyes is a national presenter and consultant on the topic of Diversity, Respectful Workplace, Cultural Competence and Human Relations. For the past 30 years, he has been working and developing culturally competent strategies for corporations and as well as non-profit organizations.
Dr. Reyes has published in the area of migration, acculturation and trains on strategies to increase cultural competence and integrate workforce diversity. He has consulted nationally with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, and the Office of Civil Rights. He has also served as an advisor to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Office of Health Disparities in the development of the State Report on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
He has consulted with the Annie E. Casey Foundation in their initial System of Care Initiative that included work in several Latino and diverse communities in La Pequeña Habana in Miami, the Third Ward in Houston and the Cabrini-Green neighborhood in Chicago. Dr. Reyes has also consulted with the State Offices of Health Disparities and Minority Health in Regions VI, VII, VIII, IX and X. A recent project included work with four Community and Health Foundations in the Greater Kansas City area where he developed the Kansas City Cultural Competency Initiative. This collaboration included a consortium of over 30 local service programs that participated in a four-year technical assistance Initiative to integrate cultural competency in their organizations. This project included the development, implementation, integration and evaluation methodologies that accounted for sustainable outcomes and replication. This Initiative continues to be a sustainable program and a leader in promoting culturally sensitive services in the greater Kansas City area.
Additionally, Dr. Reyes has provided technical assistance and training to numerous programs that serve the Latino community in several states. As a fully bilingual and Latino migrant, he holds a Doctoral degree from the University of Cincinnati with emphasis on Cultural Anthropology, Educational Foundations, Counseling and Qualitative Research. He also holds a Masters Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Spanish Literature from Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. Dr. Reyes is a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and is a Licensed Professional Counselor. Dr. Reyes’ mission is to provide and create a common understanding of diversity as a primary component of service excellence.
Chris Sansone
PhD
Chris Sansone, PhD believes everyone is a leader all of the time. His forte is engaging collaborative teamwork and individual leadership coaching. His specialty is diverse and cross-functional teams. He delivers on two promises—people generously working together and continuously learning new ways to succeed with their current challenges.
He is a researcher and published author on leadership development program design, making the business case for diversity and inclusion and leadership strategies for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A certified Prosci® Change Management Practitioner, trained mediator, certified professional coach by the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI).
Chris has a doctorate in human and organization systems. He has provided professional services to a broad clientele including,
• 10 th District Federal Reserve Bank, Kansas City, MO
• First Data Corporation
• FirstBank
• Graduate School of Banking Colorado
• Sunrise Medical, Inc., USA and UK
• University of Nebraska, Lincoln
• University Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
• Xilinx Corporation
• State Higher Education Executive Officers Association
• Boulder County Sheriff Department
Psychological and Organizational Assessments
Chris administers team and organizational assessments including the Team Diagnostic Assessment™ (TDA) and the Denison Organizational Culture Survey. He is qualified to administer the Diversity Profiler, Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i®), Myers Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI), California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and other C-level instruments.
Frederick Davis
MA
Frederick is an accomplished professional with experience as a senior leader who has worked with three Fortune 500 companies as part of their Global Diversity & Inclusion and Human Resources teams. He also has an extensive background in higher education and non-profit senior leadership.
Frederick acquired his Bachelor’s degree at Colorado State University where he was a three-year letterman in football and he received his Master’s degree from San Francisco State University. His educational background, work experience, drive, passion and leadership skills are the consistent qualities where Frederick has developed a strong reputation.
His expertise includes:
• Creating an Effective Diversity Recruiting Strategy & Tracking Success
• Customized Diversity Retention
• Establishing Diversity & Inclusion Learning Roadmaps (for Mangers and Senior Leaders)
• Creating A Comprehensive Organizational Diversity Strategy (Talent Management, Work Environment and Services)
• Work with K-12 Schools: Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment
Keynote presentations include such topics as:
• Inclusive Excellence: The Next Phase of Diversity
• The Nine Kinds of Hate . . . and how to defuse them
Extended Network
Gurudev Khalsa
Gurudev is driven by his personal purpose: Catalyzing people and organizations to thrive in pursuit of the purpose at their heart. He specializes in helping groups align their strategic direction for impact and leverage the diversity in their teams for greater effectiveness and satisfaction.
Gurudev is a consummate facilitator of strategy and teambuilding initiatives, with a focus on health, education, government and spiritual organizations. He often complements his facilitation work with individualized leadership coaching that is a win-win for personal development and organizational effectiveness. He has a special interest in advancing inclusive leadership skills in all of his work, thereby realizing the value of diversity and equity as assets. He has worked extensively across cultures both overseas and in Colorado and was the lead facilitator in the formation of a global, grassroots interfaith organization for seven years. He’s passionate about positive, whole system approaches to organizational change, and loves to engage groups large and small in learning from each other to create lasting transformation.
Gurudev began his career as a CPA at KPMG, where he helped found the Pacific Northwest Management Consulting Department and innovated a facilitative approach to “Dynamic Strategic Planning” that was his first book and the basis for nationwide training. He did his doctoral studies in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University, with a focus on collaboration and strength-based development.
Personally, Gurudev enjoys hiking, swimming, meditation, global cuisine and recreational ping pong, and any gathering of people from different parts of the world.
Rossana Johnston
MA
Rossana Johnston is a leadership development consultant with over 20 years of experience leading group, individual and virtual leadership development sessions for many Fortune 500 corporations in the United States, Canada, Europe and throughout Latin America. She is certified in many clients’ trademark methodologies and delivers her work in English and Spanish.
Rossana’s delivery style brings passion, energy and curiosity for learning to her clients. She feels a deep commitment to equality of opportunities, individual leadership development and the positive impact that corporations have in the lives of those people they employ. Her areas of expertise are: intercultural effectiveness and global leadership development accountability, trust building, coaching, team building, corporate culture and sexual harassment prevention. Some of her clients include Apple, ArcelorMittal, BOCH, KPMG Advisory, SIEMENS, Wal-Mart International, Pemex, and Kiewit among others.
Rossana has an undergraduate degree in clinical psychology and received a master’s degree in intercultural management from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. She also completed the Ontological Coaching certification program at Newfield Network.
Rossana loves learning and self-development. She enjoys gardening and dancing and lives with her husband in Boulder, CO.