We Are
Minority Women committed to Social Impact
Teresa Cruz Foley
(She/hers) Founder and Lead Consultant
A Mexican American behavior analyst and social justice advocate who struggled to navigate her own intersectional identity.
Her desire to heal from internalized oppression and supremacy beliefs, led her to research best practices in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) from corporate, HR, education, and individual perspectives. And Brave Space was born.
Her approach integrating compassion and science to create mindful, evidence-based learning experiences has made her a sought-after speaker and presenter.
Suzi Robinson
(she/hers) Strategy Consultant
Suzi Robinson brings proven success in leading strategies to help launch global brands to developing diverse non-profits. Focused on business and brand strategy, she helps organizations define their mission, elevate their brand, compete and succeed. A Korean-American adoptee and co-president of a non-profit, Diversity and Inclusion for Community Empowerment (DICE Massachusetts), she incorporates an equity lens into every engagement, ensuring a business strategy that is not only sound to sustain an organization, but puts all its people at its core.
Ebony Griffith
(she/her) Research and Social Justice Expert
A PhD student in the Applied Development Psychology program at Suffolk University, Ebony began her career at Boston University’s African Presidential Archives & Research Center (APARC), where she stewarded a collaborative that brought together college students from HBCUs in the US with their peers from Africa-based universities. Through this experience she saw the power of education to transform, uplift, and inspire. From there she worked with College Bound Dorchester to ensure Dorchester’s residents are college bound, and supported the Wilmer Hale Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in fighting for fairness and justice in the community. Both experiences fostered her passion to support underserved and marginalized groups.
She welcomed her beautiful daughter Journee to the world in 2014. Parenting a child with special needs, spurred her to become an advocate for parents and children with physical disabilities and learning difficulties.
Shannon Sheldon
(she/hers) Education Specialist
Shannon has served as an ESL/ SEI teacher for Brockton Public Schools for 16 years. Shannon is passionate about improving equity and access to all students, increasing diversity in the workforce, and inclusion of all backgrounds and people in her environments. She is passionate about creating energetic, engaging, and welcoming spaces for all members of our learning community. Shannon is a Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Semifinalist (22-23) and hopes to share her love for teaching with others as she steps into a new role as English Language Acquisition Coach.
Joined Forces
Tanya Lobo
Community Engagement
CEO and Founder of T.R.U.E. Diversity, a civic organization housing the T.O.G.E.T.H.E.R. Youth Program, a therapeutic social emotional summer program for underserved youth, R.E.A.D.Y. (Restorative Economic Advancement for Diverse Youth) financial literacy program.
Kristie Dean
Community Engagement
Founder of The Soul Project, a women's empowerment nonprofit community helping all women and girls see and celebrate that they are innately worthy and wildly capable.
Rahul Kay
Engagement Survey Tech
CEO and Co-Founder of The Sukhi Project, which
creates custom engagement surveys that monitor the emotional pulse of organizations by demographic, and other employee wellness solutions. He has been featured by Harvard, The World Bank, and Microsoft.
Allessandria Polizzi
Resiliency
Training
Founder of Verdant Consulting, which offers research-based resliency skills training. Ask about the grant which funds the program for Massachusetts companies of up to 100 employees!