• Lead efforts to create inclusive spaces that foster belonging, equity, and prosperity for underrepresented groups.• Steer the organization’s mission to address systemic barriers, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth and empowerment.• Envision and implement innovative strategies in collaboration with communities and organizations, ensuring alignment with broader goals of equity and justice.• Drive forward projects that make a tangible social impact, with a focus on empowering diverse communities to thrive.

I am thrilled to announce my transition to an independent contractor role with Esri. In this new capacity, I continue to engage in activities related to justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging, and access (JEDI-BA). My focus remains on advancing Esri’s mission and supporting key initiatives and strategic partnerships to help organizations use GIS to create equitable and inclusive spaces.

Founder and Leader of NorthStar, a grassroots employee community navigating a course to full inclusion of people of African descent at Esri. Responsible for setting strategy for the employee community and advocating for the concerns of people of African descent. NorthStar seeks to grow our company's success by fully including the perspectives and expertise of people of African descent into our collective efforts to ensure our customers' success. NorthStar is comparable to most Black Employee Networks; particularly those with a strong focus on maximizing business opportunities.Focus Areas:* Social and Career Networking... engaging peers for collecting learning and healing* GIS Career Awareness... connecting students and prospective candidates to a path to opportunities in GIS in general and Esri in particular* Social Equity Solutions... tapping into our collective knowledge, interest and expertise in to amplify help our customers tackle challenges in equity and social justice

As the first Racial Equity & Social Justice Lead at Esri, I've pioneered the integration of GIS and geospatial technologies into racial equity and social justice initiatives. With over two decades of experience in GIS, solution and enterprise architecture, I founded Esri's Racial Equity & Social Justice Initiative. I developed an innovative framework that merges geospatial practices with the principles of justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging, access, and antiracism. This framework has enabled organizations across multiple sectors to make informed, data-driven decisions that advance social justice and racial equity.My intrapreneurial spirit was instrumental in forging a transformative partnership between Esri and the NAACP. This collaboration has further solidified the role of geospatial technology in addressing racial disparities. My work is not merely technical; it is deeply rooted in a commitment to societal change. This unique blend of expertise makes me exceptionally qualified to teach and apply data science for racial justice through the lens of GIS.

As a Solution Architect at Esri, my primary focus was on advising customers on how to leverage geography and GIS to advance their business strategies optimally. I championed the value of geography and GIS, guiding the alignment of geospatial solutions with business goals and objectives. I also crafted roadmaps infused with geospatial solutions tailored for enterprises and various business domains. My ultimate aim was to empower our customers' and partners' users to create, share, and use maps, apps, and dashboards on the right device, at the right time, and in the right place.It was in this role that I first established a focus on equity and social justice at Esri in 2018. I identified a broad set of challenges connected with racial equity and social justice that my customers needed help addressing. To meet these challenges, I pinpointed patterns in geospatial data, practices, services, tools, templates, and apps that could be effectively utilized. This early work laid the foundation for my later initiatives in racial equity and social justice at Esri.

As the Senior Vice President of GeoEquity Innovation (GIO) on loan to the NAACP, I act as an insider, driving the development of the NAACP's new GeoEquity business capabilities. My focus is on strategic geospatial planning, cross-organizational initiatives, and business development, all through the lens of racial equity and social justice.Responsibilities:• Strategic Geospatial Planning: Lead the strategic planning efforts for geospatial initiatives within the NAACP, aligning them with the organization's broader goals for racial equity and social justice.• Cross-Organizational Initiatives: Drive cross-organizational initiatives that leverage geospatial data and technology to advance the NAACP's mission and impact.• Business Development: Spearhead business development efforts aimed at establishing new partnerships and securing resources to support the NAACP's GeoEquity initiatives.• Racial Equity and Social Justice: Integrate principles of racial equity and social justice into all aspects of the NAACP's geospatial planning and business development, ensuring that the organization's efforts are aligned with its mission.• Innovation: Act as a catalyst for innovation within the NAACP, introducing new geospatial technologies and methodologies that can enhance the organization's effectiveness in advocating for racial equity and social justice.

NorthStar of GIS works to create a more racially-just world through a racially-just GIS.We partner with organizations around the world, evolving GIS, geography, and STEM communities to:• Reflect the full breadth of the Black African diaspora• Place intersectional antiracism at the center of their practices

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only collective of innovative leaders and the most creative people in business. The group meets several times a year for webinars and roundtable discussions on some of the greatest opportunities and most pressing challenges of our time, and the role companies and council members can play in shaping the future.

As the first Deputy Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) and Chief Enterprise Architect for the City of Philadelphia, my role was multifaceted and pioneering. I was responsible for aligning IT solutions with the City's business strategy, creating roadmaps to transition from current to future states, and defining technology, process, and data standards to propel the City toward its future vision.Responsibilities:• Strategic Alignment: Defined, documented, and communicated architecture vision and standards to best align with the City's overarching vision and strategy.• Compliance and Governance: Ensured that all technology changes complied with enterprise architecture standards and supported the City's vision and strategy.• Impact Assessment: Reviewed major change initiatives for their potential impact on the City's enterprise IT vision and strategy.• Solution Guidance: Provided solution architecture and design guidance to solution designers and project teams, ensuring that project needs were met that best supported the City's vision and strategies.• Procurement Oversight: Reviewed and approved technology procurements for enterprise architecture compliance and alignment with the City's vision and strategy.Some years before this, I served as the City's first Enterprise Architect. In that former enterprise architecture role, my focus was on guiding the establishment and improvement of enterprise IT systems to meet the operational demands of business apps, departmental IT needs, utilization needs, and demand. This foundational work set the stage for my later role as Chief Enterprise Architect, where I took on a more strategic focus, aligning business apps and enterprise systems with departmental and citywide business strategies.

As the Manager of Middleware & eGov Applications at the City of Philadelphia, I led a transformative merger of the enterprise app team with the enterprise web and creative services team. My role was centered on managing and providing solution architecture for the City's enterprise web and software development teams, delivering and managing both enterprise and departmental solutions.Responsibilities:• Team Management and Consistency: Managed the web and creative services team as well as the application development and support team. Ensured that solutions were designed and implemented with a consistent architecture, user experience, and common "voice."• Architecture and Standards: Provided and enforced solution architecture and standards for both employee and public-facing applications. This improved the supportability, maintainability, and agility of solutions and platforms.• Operational Oversight: Oversaw the operation and maintenance of several key business solutions, including Phila.gov, various e-commerce applications, and other online services. This role was crucial in stabilizing and enhancing the availability and performance of high-value and revenue-generating services.• Best Practices and Skillsets: Provided guidance to both enterprise and department-specific web and application development teams. Encouraged the use of best practices and established consistency in user interfaces and content, thereby collectively increasing the City's available skillsets.• Social Media Management: Established and maintained social media accounts for the City of Philadelphia and several departments and agencies, reaching customers via their preferred channels.

As the first Enterprise Architect for the City of Philadelphia, I shaped the IT architecture for the City's central IT agency. I was instrumental in defining and fostering standard technologies and enterprise building blocks to meet the operational demands of business apps, departmental IT needs, utilization needs, and demand.Responsibilities:• Standardization: Defined and promoted standard technologies across the enterprise, ensuring a unified and efficient IT landscape.• Enterprise Building Blocks: Identified and implemented enterprise building blocks to serve as the foundational elements for various IT systems and applications.• Operational Alignment: Focused on aligning enterprise IT systems to meet the operational demands of business apps, departmental IT needs, and utilization requirements.• Demand Management: Assessed and managed the demand for IT resources, ensuring that the architecture was scalable and could adapt to changing needs.• Technology Roadmapping: Created roadmaps for the adoption of new technologies and the phasing out of obsolete ones, aligning with both short-term and long-term organizational goals.

As the Senior GIS Programmer for the City of Philadelphia's Enterprise IT Department, I served as a GIS segment architect, aiding every department in architecting, designing, and implementing GIS data, tools, services, and applications to meet core business needs. This role was pivotal in expanding my GIS expertise beyond data and data modeling to have a transformative impact on business through workflow enablement and automation.Responsibilities:• GIS Segment Architecture: Acted as the GIS segment architect, assisting various departments in designing and implementing GIS applications tailored to their core business needs.• Workflow Enablement and Automation: Leveraged GIS services to enable and automate critical business workflows, enhancing operational efficiency and effectiveness.• Enterprise Web Services: Designed and implemented the City's first-ever enterprise web services/API, marking a significant milestone in the City's technological advancement.• Enterprise GIS Platform and Toolkit: Established the City's first enterprise GIS application hosting platform and GIS application development toolkit. This made it easier for departments to build and deploy GIS applications on a robust GIS server farm.• Vendor Management: Hired a GIS firm to implement and maintain the newly designed web services as my role evolved towards becoming more of an enterprise GIS architect.• Geospatial Application Development: Fostered the use and development of geospatial applications, contributing to the City's GIS capabilities and business impact.

As the first Geodatabase Administrator for the City of Philadelphia, I was at the forefront of the city's pioneering efforts in GIS technology. My role was instrumental in establishing the city's first enterprise GIS platform, a spatial data warehouse. This platform brought together a wide array of geospatial data from multiple departments, setting the stage for citywide data-driven decision-making.Responsibilities:• Enterprise GIS Platform: Established the City's first enterprise GIS platform, a spatial data warehouse that centralized geospatial data from various departments.• Data Standardization: Created rules for metadata and property data standardization, ensuring consistency and reliability across the city's GIS data.• Interdepartmental Collaboration: Facilitated more accessible data analysis and tool creation for all city agencies by centralizing data, enabling insights from cross-departmental data.• Innovative Application Development: Developed an application that consolidated data from property-focused departments and departmental operations, providing a single view of each property in the city. This was a groundbreaking achievement at the time, overcoming challenges related to addressing data discrepancies.• System and Database Administration: Managed system administration, database administration, and data curation for the City's first centralized geospatial data repository.• Impact on Lives: It was in this role that I first grasped the profound impact of geospatial data on improving lives, setting the foundation for my future endeavors in GIS.

As a Data Systems User Support Specialist for the Highways Division of the Streets Department, my role was multifaceted. I served as a business analyst, translating core business needs into technological capabilities. Additionally, I developed training programs and taught Highways employees how to use various software to meet the needs of their teams. I utilized Microsoft Office and Microsoft Access to create reports, databases, and business applications that have had a lasting impact on the Streets Department's operations.Responsibilities:• Business Analysis: Served as a business analyst, translating core business needs into technological capabilities and often supporting departmental application development initiatives.• Training and Education: Developed training programs and taught Highways employees how to effectively use various software tools to meet the needs of their teams.• Software Utilization: Assisted employees in leveraging Microsoft Office and Microsoft Access to create valuable reports, databases, and business applications.Long-lasting Impact: Developed solutions that have continued to aid the Streets Department in managing operations for over a decade after my departure.• Object Library Creation: Created one of the first object libraries to encapsulate common City business functions and calculations. This library leveraged data about street segments in ways that better met our operational needs compared to existing GIS software.• Introduction to GIS: It was in this role that I was first introduced to GIS, setting the stage for my future career and contributions in the field of geospatial technology.