our awesome Team
Bernadette Smith (she/her)
FOUNDER, CEO
Bernadette Smith is founder and CEO of Equality Institute and award-winning author of four books, including the latest, the bestseller Inclusive 360: Proven Solutions for an Equitable Organization.
Bernadette has presented to enthusiastic audiences of CEOs, associations, leadership teams, sales professionals, HR leaders, and more. Her expertise has been sought after by the New York Times, Forbes, the Washington Post, and Fast Company, among many others, and she’s appeared on the Today Show, the BBC, National Public Radio, and CNN.
Bernadette has been named one of Chicago’s Notable LGBTQ Executives by Crain’s Chicago Business. She loves sharing on LinkedIn and each week writes about good vibes in DEI in her newsletter, 5 Things and talks about those stories on her podcast, 5 Things in 15 Minutes. When she’s not speaking and writing, you can likely find her on a local pickleball court! She’s a passionate pickler and loves the way it brings diverse people together.
Rita Mays (she/her)
BUSINESS MANAGER
Rita Mays may be the first person you encounter when you reach out to us. She’s responsible for managing our accounts and the logistics of all of our programs. She’s been with the firm for 4+ years and is indispensable! Our clients rave about Rita’s warmth, responsiveness, and organizational skills. She brings her exceptional customer service, administrative, and on-/off-site event management expertise to us and keeps our ships running smoothly. Rita’s experience as an administrative professional in education, healthcare, management, technology and other industries helps us better understand our clients.
Patti Flynn (she/her)
SENIOR CONSULTANT AND FACILITATOR
Patti Flynn leads with her heart and mindfulness and brings 25+ years of process improvement and change management experience in manufacturing, distribution, and sales/service operations to Equality Institute. She leads with equality and diversity both professionally and in her personal life. Making a difference in an ever-changing world, she helps others that are also trying to grow and improve themselves. As a trans woman who wasn’t able to be herself until recently, she understands how important it is for LGBTQ people to be able to see themselves out in the world. For fun, she likes to run across mountains and ride her bike all over the Midwest.
Darnell Adams (she/her)
COACH AND FACILITATOR
Darnell Adams is a dynamic coach, trainer and consultant, who has over two decades of experience with non-profit, for profit and cooperative businesses. Her experiences as a director, teacher, mentor and small business owner have allowed her to make a difference in the social, economic and business communities in which she has worked.
Darnell has been personally recognized in "Bold Thinkers Who Are Shaping Our City" by Boston Magazine's Power of Ideas and as a Social Innovator by the Social Innovation Forum accelerator program. Darnell has presented to large and small groups within industry, city and state government, universities and media outlets. She holds a Master of Education from Harvard University.
Daniel Downer (he/him)
SENIOR FACILITATOR
Daniel J. Downer is a dynamic community activist with a profound legacy in Central Florida’s LGBTQ+ movement. Over the past decade, he has seamlessly blended his lived experiences as a Black Queer man with a rich educational and professional background, championing movements in Central Florida focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Throughout his career, Daniel has consistently prioritized coalition building, meaningful connections, and mutual learning as essential tools for societal transformation. Daniel's impactful work has been recognized by GLAAD in 2018 with the Rising Star Award, Watermark's Most Remarkable Person in Central Florida in 2020, and an Honorable Mention in OUT Magazine's 2023 OUT100.
Erma Ishara (they/he)
ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT AND FACILITATOR
Erma Ishara (they/he) is a trans non-binary artist, writer, facilitator, and community organizer. They are the creator of a trans non-binary multimedia company creating affirming, entertaining, and educational content centering the lives of BIPOC creators. Ishara’s work focuses on creating content and community spaces centering diverse queer experiences.
Ishara has facilitated gender education workshops for nationwide brands as well as consulting and coaching. They have worked in operations with Affinity Community Services, a Chicago-based Black LGBTQ+ organization, a a Black youth political education organization, and the State of Illinois.
Kelvin Goss (he/him)
ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT AND FACILITATOR
Kelvin Goss is a former Chief Diversity Officer with expertise in advising and guiding senior leaders on enhancing employee engagement, evaluating performance trends, and implementing enterprise-wide talent solutions to achieve the organization’s vision and objectives. Kelvin was awarded the honor of 2023 SHRM DEI Leader of the Year and selected as the Top 100 Chief Diversity Officers in the Nation by the National Diversity Council.
Kelvin designed, orchestrated, and implemented a DEI roadmap that led his former employer to being recognized as best in class, based on ISO standards from the Human Resource Standard Institute for DEI Culture.
Seema Jain (she/her)
FACILITATOR
Seema Jain brings years of experience helping companies become more culturally competent when engaging with people from different backgrounds. In her past role as Senior Director, Multicultural Affairs at Marriott International, Seema developed tools and resources for Marriott associates and properties to enhance cultural competencies to better serve the company’s broad diversity of guests and customers.
She is also a co-founder of two non-profit organizations – Supporting Excellence in Education Foundation (SEED), which awards scholarships to high school students and the Young Jains of America (YJA) a national youth organization created to share Jain heritage and culture where she is currently a Board of Trustee member.
Maui Jones (he/him)
FACILITATOR
Maui Jones is a TEDx speaker, facilitator, actor, writer, director, and podcaster. In addition to his facilitation work with corporations, he’s the founder and Artistic Director of the Echo Theater Collective, the CEO of Reflect Media, and one of the founding members of Forest Park Against Racism. After realizing the transformative power of sharing our stories, Maui committed himself to social change through art, music, and storytelling.
Maui is also author of the children’s book, Everyday with Ella, and is producing additional content around Ella and an early childhood conceptualized world for kids of color.
Erika Latines (she/her/ella)
FACILITATOR
Erika Latines, also known as Erika with a “K”, is a queer Latine poet, humanitarian, and activist. Her background spans from corporate finance and international business to more recently, a non-profit focused on violence prevention. She has 10 years of experience as a facilitator and trainer in areas such as equity, diversity and inclusion, queer rights, civil rights, and team building. She is the daughter of immigrants.
Erika was born and raised on the southside of Chicago, IL and lived in Mexico as an adult for 10 years. She has traveled all over the country sharing her poetry and story in English and Spanish to educate, empower and encourage youth and adults to be leaders of change.
Dr. Laura Quiros (she/her)
COACH AND FACILITATOR
Dr. Laura Quiros is a Latina and Jewish woman of color, a former associate dean, and an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University. Her passion is in advancing inclusion within executive leadership, and connecting leadership to missions and agendas of diversity, equity and inclusion. She uses relationship building skills as a way to foster inclusion by helping to increase awareness and move towards action.
Laura deepens the conversation around diversity and inclusion by supporting and nurturing leaders to develop a reflective consciousness that is strength-based, critically nurturing and ultimately transformational.
Dagyi Rivera (she/her/ella)
SENIOR FACILITATOR
Dagyi Rivera is Mexico City-based and conducts Equality Institute consulting and trainings throughout Latin America. She has a Bachelors Degree in Management and a Masters Degree in marketing for small business with expertise in advertising, marketing, PR, event and event planning.
As a business coach and facilitator, Dagyi helps companies more effectively serve their diverse employees and clients.
Vanessa Sheridan (she/her)
ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT AND FACILITATOR
Vanessa Sheridan is an expert business consultant, a respected author, a highly skilled transgender inclusion/awareness trainer, an in-demand speaker on transgender workplace issues, and a leading national voice for transgender equality and gender authenticity.
She is the author of The Complete Guide to Transgender in The Workplace--the first hardcover, full-length volume on this leading-edge topic ever released by a mainstream publisher.
Camelú Millan Vargas (she/her/ella)
SENIOR FACILITATOR
Camelú Millan Vargas is Mexico City-based specializing in consulting and creating special events and trainings throughout Latin America and the United States. With a focus of business entrepreneurship, Camelu has taught classes at several institutions of high learning including CESSA Universidad, TEC de Monterrey, Universidad Latina and Universidad Iberoamericana.
As a business consultant, she helps companies effectively create outstanding events designed for their employees and clients.