Join us as Dr. Shelton Goode, President & CEO of ICARUS Consulting shares the unique journey and vision that is ICARUS Consulting.
Our Superheroes
Our partners can run their own consulting firms. In fact,
most of them did.
Meet the talent behind Icarus Consulting LLC. We are a team of thought-leaders that includes researchers, change agents, D&I gurus, and futurists who thrive in a culture of doing.
We all have our accolades, but we embrace the Icarus Consulting LLC approach of getting things done. We collaborate on the big and small stuff. Do you need help in finalizing that report or creating effective strategies? Everyone pitches in.
Meet The Team
Marilyn S. Abney
Marilyn Abney is SVP of Operations and president and principal consultant. In her role, Abney is responsible for business development and project management. She also oversees clients’ needs fulfillment for the company, focusing on conducting organizational assessments, planning, facilitating multiday career and leadership development workshops, and designing curricula. As the principal consultant, Abney facilitates many management skills, technology, and diversity and inclusion sessions.
Kali Alford
Kali is an expert facilitator, instructional designer, and life-long learner & educator. With 12 years of experience he has designed learning workshops for school districts across the country and developed professional learning events in partnership with companies such as Microsoft and Verizon.
Kacey Baker
A values-driven leader adept at improving organizational culture through implementing cutting edge practices and emerging trends focused on cultivating an equitable work culture, building community, and developing high performing employees and teams. Kacey has earned a reputation as a master facilitator with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the Human Resource industry.
Joi Blume
Joi Blume is a high-performing professional who gets to know our clients beyond the surface to provide solutions that meet their current needs and future aspirations. She is well versed in diversity and inclusion content which enables her to support multiple clients in the design and rollout of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. She facilitates inclusive leadership programs beginning with management-level employees and cascades the organization’s training.
Marcus Borders
Marcus Borders experienced educator and Instructional Technology Specialist who thrives as a customer-focused technology consultant. Currently, Marcus is an expert in coaching supporting leaders with innovative best practices and transformative learning experiences. He is also a subject matter expert in digital equity and accessibility in urban communities. As a current doctoral student of instructional technology, Marcus' research interests include assessing strategies that bring innovative technology coaching support to organizations.
Dave Ciliberto
Dave is one of the country’s leading Inclusion, Diversity & Equity consultants. He is an expert facilitator, trainer, coach & leadership development professional with deep experience in several industries and sectors.
Dave has been an expert at providing strategic consulting, coaching, and training services around Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement for the past fifteen + years. With more than 27 years of Human Resources experience, he specializes in Diversity Equity & Inclusion, developing integrated strategies, collaborating with Executive Councils, Employee Resource Group leaders, focus group facilitation, data analysis, and related training.
Melinda Colon
Melinda Colon is an enthusiastic meeting professional with 15 years of exceptional meeting and conference management experience. She is passionate about event planning and will utilize her extensive knowledge to develop, coordinate, and execute successful in-person or virtual meetings, workshops, conventions, networking activities, and more! She also possesses almost 20 years of association management experience and has diverse skills and knowledge, including governance, membership, award administration, program content, and budget development.
Sumayyah Emeh-Edu
Sumayyah Emeh-Edu (she/her) is the Principal Strategist of Embedded Consulting. She has over 20 yrs. of professional experience in Leadership
roles within HR, Program Management and Business Development within higher education and corporate sectors.
Sumayyah’s most recently held roles as VP Diversity, Inclusion & Social Equity at Canopy Growth and DEI Business Partner at Charles Schwab. Prior to this, she successfully supported consulting clients with companies such as Oracle, One Medical, NPR station KQED, and Blue Shield of CA and organized events such as Tech Inclusion and The Better Man Conference.
Jared Fitzpatrick
Senior Consultant
Jared has 8+ years of experience working in management consulting and leading DEI in corporate and nonprofit settings. He has held senior leadership roles in driving culture realignment, diversity talent acquisition, and talent management. Jared has also led large organizational transformations and championed diversity and inclusion initiatives while working as a management consultant with Big 4 and Fortune 500 companies.
Helen Fong
Helen is a technical consultant whose primary responsibilities involve supporting the team’s Inclusive Leadership Development facilitators. Helen is critical to the success of our learning programs by ensuring our workshops run smoothly, resolving technical issues for the facilitator and participants, enhancing the workshop’s impact by adding a new voice).
In working with the facilitators, Helen manages all the technical elements, allowing the facilitator to concentrate on facilitating the workshop, focus on workshop objectives, and guide the participants through the workshop content.
Cherryl M. Harris
Cherryl M. Harris is responsible for business development, project management, client relations, and strategic planning to position the company for continual business growth.
Cherryl’s career experience spans multiple industries and sectors including Fortune 200 corporations, utility, real estate, cable television, banking, non-profit operations, union and non-union environments; with expertise in areas including leadership development, employee engagement, curriculum development, consulting, training, facilitation, budgeting and administration.
Pollie Massey
Pollie Massey is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion senior consultant that delivers! She’s sought after as a cultural architect for leaders and organizational development professionals across global industries, including healthcare, utilities, medical, legal, aviation, hospitality, automobile, technology, and education. She has facilitated workplace fairness, diversity, inclusive leadership, change management, generational synergy, and gender initiatives for government, academic and corporate organizations.
Joyce Aiko McCulloch
Joyce is one of the country’s leading experts on strategy, leadership, and corporate culture transformation. She uses her deep Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and comprehensive human resources (HR) expertise to develop intentionally inclusive leaders and create highly engaged workforces. Joyce’s journey to DEI began long before the practice area was widely recognized. Early in her career as an HR professional with Hilton Hotels, DEI was simply a part of daily life. Outreach to diverse populations resulted in recruiting top talent. Inclusive
practices brought out the best from teams to delight guests and inspired them to return.
Robelyn McNair
Robelyn McNair is the Human Resources Practice Leader and senior consultant. She has more than 25 years in senior and executive human resources leadership roles. She has held a senior professional certification in human resources since 2001 and has both practical and strategic experience in all disciplines of the human resources function.
Robelyn McNair has dedicated more than 25 years to serving in senior and executive human resources leadership roles. She has held a senior professional certification in human resources since 2001 and has both practical and strategic experience in all disciplines of the human resources function.
Melanie Miller
Melanie is a senior consultant who is a highly accomplished and sought-after expert and speaker offering organizations consulting and training services, keynotes, and design with a focus on optimizing organizational effectiveness. Having conducted hundreds of workshops and speaking engagements, Melanie consistently receives excellent reviews and outstanding evaluations.
Alison Oxman
Vice President of Operations / Principal Consultant
Alison Oxman is the vice president of operations and is responsible for integrating project processes and coordinating the different phases through the project management cycle. She also ensures that all project areas come together to deliver the project to a successful conclusion. The entire Icarus teams rely on Alison to develop project management plans, ensure the project plan is consistent and coherent, and monitor the project plan's implementation, including providing all consultants and client stakeholders involved to perform all planned activities.
Robyn Forman Pollack
Robyn is a business strategist focusing on talent, Robyn takes an integrated and comprehensive approach to develop data-driven, strategic solutions to address organizational opportunities around culture, belonging, inclusion, equity, and diversity. Using her extensive background as a restructuring attorney, Robyn uniquely understands the alignment between talent and enterprise performance and the importance of addressing systems and processes to maximize employee experience.
Renzie Richardson
Renzie Richardson is the Chief Compliance Officer and a principal consultant. She is also an author, trainer, and certified business coach. She has over 25 years as an HR professional in various HR leadership roles. Renzie is a certified Prosci ADKAR practitioner and has an extensive background in helping organizations to manage friction that inhibits growth and success successfully. Renzie is also an executive and a certified WABC/RCC business coach. She helps business owners, entrepreneurs, and CEOs to grow their business with certifications and her MYB Eight-Step Signature Coaching Program.
Dr. Tana Session
Dr. Tana M. Session is the CEO & Founder of TanaMSession.com, a certified Women Minority Business Enterprise (WMBE) with over 30 years of Human Resources experience. Dr. Session specializes in cultural engineering, facilitated experiences, and leadership & organizational development.
She has spent ten years as the top Human Resources executive for domestic and international organizations. She led various change initiatives and up-leveled entire departments, including talent, systems, and infrastructure.
Lee Shull
Lee Shull is a consultant with Icarus Consulting. Lee completed is a certified diversity and inclusion practitioner and received his certification from Cornell University. He is also a graduate of the prestigious leadership seminar: White Men's Caucus on
Eliminating Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Organizations. Lee has also completed The Pauli Murray Center's Work of Racial Justice Workshop.
Over the last 30 years, Lee has built a successful career as a senior IT consultant focusing on business process improvement/re-engineering. Over that period, he worked with Dell Services and Venetia Partners and specialized in enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system implementations.
Angie CJ Sims
Angie is an expert rainmaker whose ability to impact change makes her a game-changer. She spent 14 years as an executive in the financial services industry at Morgan Stanley and its predecessor firms in roles such as Deputy Director of Diversity, Director of Online Training and Director of Professional Alliance Relationships. In her Diversity role she developed and facilitated plans to attract diverse talent, enhance workforce environment, create diversity partnerships (internal and external), support employee networking groups communication with management as well as created robust tools to increase management accountability by exposing them to their Diversity pipeline.
Dr. Courtney Teague
Dr. Courtney Teague is Chief Learning and Technology Officer and principal consultant.
She has over 15 years of experience in passionately helping organizations, learning teams, and training professionals successfully transform learning into equitable experiences. She has participated in over 100 industry conferences as a speaker, expert panelist, and workshop trainer. She advises learning and development leaders in areas like virtual learning strategy, technology selection, logistics, and more.
Jenifer Ngo Waldrop
Jenifer Ngo Waldrop is a professional diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) leader with a rich background in working in various global industries and locations. She has developed models and programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to support multiple business units with Fortune 500 companies and organizations in Asia, Canada, and the US. Jenifer has held various leadership experiences that range from Director to Strategic Sr. Advisor. She has crafted talking points to companies’ CEOs and spoken at international conferences on the value and impact of the DEIB practice.
Jeff Thrutchley
Jeff Thrutchley has held a variety of leadership positions ranging from General Manager; Sales Manager; Director of Human Resources; Director of Benefits, Safety and Risk Management; and Director of Training throughout the US and Internationally with industry-leading companies like John H Harland and ADT Security Services / Tyco.
Tracy Y Washington
Tracy Washington is a consultant whose expertise is Leadership Engagement, Speaker, Trainer, and Coach. She is the author of “The Relationship Leadership Philosophy” and Leadership Development Programs including, “Bottom Line Behavior” and “You Be More Confident Executive Coaching for Women.” She is known for helping leaders and organizations to engage and build strong team relationships and improve emotional intelligence competencies to navigate the seamless transition to new and greater challenges for the future.
Tim White
Tim White is a principal consultant. He is an accomplished diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) executive with more than 20 years of experience He has worked with organizations committed to leveraging diversity in the areas of workforce, workplace, and marketplace. Tim is an expert in multiple areas: business consulting, training, and career management services. His work spans industries from public service organizations at the federal, state, and local levels, to insurance, telecommunications, gaming, financial services, investment banking, construction, consumer products, business process outsourcing (BPO), food service, faith-based organizations, automotive manufacturing, consumer electronics, entertainment, hospitality, and private non-profit organizations.
Bradley Wilkinson
Bradley Wilkinson is a consultant, and skilled speaker, facilitator and instructional designer, Brad gets his energy from people development. He describes his focus as helping organizations leverage diversity through creating and maintaining inclusive, high-performance cultures. And he brings over 25 years of hands-on experience designing and delivering high impact adult learning experiences.
Shaun Wilson
Shaun has more than 25 years of combined experience in business, technology, and education with learning the alignment of technology implementations with organizational initiatives. Shaun has also served as a global professional development specialist for over 15 years.
Shaun holds a Master of Science in Human Resource Development with a concentration in Educational Leadership. She has career experiences as a researcher, entrepreneur, management consultant, project manager, middle school teacher and principal.
Stephanie Vander Zanden
Stephanie Vander Zanden is a senior consultant who has earned the reputation for being a resilient, compassionate and driven global business leader./ She has built and integrated Global Diversity and Inclusion at a Forbes 100 company from the ground up. As a professional with a growth mindset, she demands excellence from herself in everything she does, which has led to extraordinary outcomes in the many roles she has held over the past 23 years.
Our Approach
We are a veteran-owned consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations create inclusive cultures that leverage diversity and inclusion for a competitive advantage. We accomplish this by developing strategies that enable our clients to attract, develop, and retain highly skilled talents from an emerging, diverse workforce. At the same time, we help our clients enhance the engagement, knowledge, and skills of current employees.
We Are Family
As a certified minority and veteran-owned HR and Diversity consulting firm, Icarus Consulting understands how important it is to empower all members of the organization to drive positive organizational change in today’s rapidly changing business landscape. We’re based in Atlanta, but we have the global capability. This is achieved by partnering with an exceptional network of HR, talent management, diversity and inclusion, and business experts to deliver exceptional service around the corner and across the globe.
We Defy Gravity
We are a veteran-owned consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations leverage diversity and inclusion for a competitive advantage. We accomplish this by developing strategies that enable our clients to attract, develop, and retain highly skilled talents from an emerging, diverse workforce. At the same time, we help our clients enhance the engagement, knowledge, and skills of current employees.
Our Value
Icarus Consulting LLC helps clients drive positive changes in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. We customize solutions to resolve our clients’ toughest challenges that relate to:
Developing and Delivering Training on Unconscious Bias
Establishing D&I Councils
Leveraging Our Proprietary BRG Leadership Academy℠ to Transform Resource Groups
Launching Executive Learning Programs
Implementing Mentoring Programs
Coaching Senior Executives, Emerging Leaders, or High-Potential Employees
Icarus Consulting LLC works with organizations to design and implement strategies that result in healthy cultures—often in the context of rapidly changing market and industry conditions. Our team is comprised of seasoned consultants with extensive operating experience in both the public and the private sectors.
Our firm serves clients across multiple industries, including:
Energy
At Icarus Consulting LLC, we believe that everybody can fly! Let us help you defy gravity.