Praise for

the Adaway Group

Our Commitment

 

We are committed to holding a vision for people’s lives, workplaces, and communities until they can hold it for themselves. Our work is rooted in guiding you to create greater depth, meaning, and impact for your organization.

The DEI motivational
speaker your team needs

“Desiree Adaway is the DEI motivational speaker your team needs. She’s crisp, kind and clear about what teams need to do if they really believe in reform. She gives concrete examples for how to handle different scenarios, holds you accountable for the premise of your questions and left an incredible impression on our ~400 summit attendees at Google. We’ve already asked her to come back to coach our managers in smaller sessions throughout 2021.”

~ Tanuja Gupta, Google Program Manager,
Google Inc.

The Adaway Group has been instrumental in educating our team on the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Solidify your vision
for a new world

“Desiree’s teaching and mentorship have radically enhanced our leadership, focus and vision for our work at Be Nourished. Her wisdom and skillful presence has touched every layer of our business, imbuing each with a renewed depth of focus on equity and inclusion. Desiree leads with the kind of love that is fierce, true, and holds you to your wisest self. She embodies the kind of leadership that holds space for growth and depth of change. Working with Desiree will solidify your vision for a new world so you can stay in process with that vision for a lifetime.”

~ Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant,
Co-Creators of Body Trust®

Go deeper than just
checking the box

“The Adaway Group has been instrumental in educating our team on the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We partnered with Desiree Adaway and Jessica Fish in the later part of 2019 and received a clear roadmap of what our work with them would look like. They meet us where we are, and provide us guidance in a straight-forward manner without any guilt or shame. We wanted to go deeper than just “checking a box” or filling a quota, and appreciate Desiree’s approach, specifically in regards to her focus on racial equity. In October, our team received a Foundations Workshop led by Desiree and Jessica, and it was a great way to begin our journey in bringing awareness to our team on these tough subjects. We know this is a long process, and we look forward to continuing our work with The Adaway Group.”

~ Mae Redha, PHR, People & Culture Director,
Elizabeth Suzann

You want transformation?
Let’s do the work!

The Education We All
Should Have Received

“Desiree Adaway provides tools, knowledge and hard truths so we can do the personal and organizational work of inclusion. She is a powerful doula for this lifelong process of inquiry and praxis. Building on a firm grounding of history, theory, policy, and practice, Desiree allows her participant students to understand the origins of interwoven systems of oppression while also helping them to imagine and center the possibility of freedom.

Working with Desiree has allowed me to embark on my own journey of developing a social justice lens that informs my work, consumption, and hopes for the future. I am so thankful for the deep and expansive learning that she provides around what incision is and the knowledge that we have been denied for too long. Desiree and her team of co-conspirators take participants down a sometimes painful and always revelatory path towards a deeper and more personal understanding of freedom, inclusion, access, race, and equity.”

~ E. Liane Hernandez,
Tucson, AZ

Enhance Your Leadership & Communication Skills

“Desiree Adaway is a gifted coach and mentor. We’ve worked together extensively over the past few years and I have grown tremendously. Desiree has also served as a consultant for my organization.

I appreciate Desiree’s extensive wisdom, her direct, no-bullshit style of communication and her huge heart.

With her guidance, I have not only developed and enhanced my leadership and communication skills but I have been able to gracefully navigate my transition out of direct leadership of the organization I founded and move into an emerging new role related to that work.

Because of Desiree’s ongoing support, I have confidence that the path forward for me personally and in relation to the organization will continue to clarify.”

~ Amy Mandel, Founder and Funder,
Tzedek Social Justice Fund

I appreciate Desiree’s extensive wisdom, her direct, no-bullshit style of communication and her huge heart.

Start exactly
where you are

“Desiree Adaway meets clients where they’re at, and then she makes the impossible possible. Desiree brings compassionate rigor. She tells the truth about what she sees. In our organization, Desiree has provided a roadmap to shift our power structure to a collaborative and transformative model of leadership. Desiree challenges us to think deeply about what real equity looks like, and in the process, we live into our values and amplify our impact.”

~ Dr. Heather Laine Talley,
Co-Director of Organizational Strategy and Practice,
Tzedek Social Justice Fund

Move forward,
even as you learn

“The Adaway Group has been an enormously important resource for us at American Jewish World Service (AJWS). As an organization with a lot of energy behind DEI, but without much experience, the Adaway Group has helped us navigate several important junctures on our still emerging journey.

The Adaway Group is helping us move forward even while we are learning and developing the skills and confidence we need to do that. The Adaway Group has been able to partner with a diverse set of internal constituents (DEI Working Group, Executive Leadership Team, Board of Trustees, Human Resources, and individual employees) and served as an important and effective resource for all of these groups, who have very different needs, concerns, experiences and skills. I’m personally grateful to The Adaway Group for their coaching and mentoring of me as the senior leader responsible for DEI at AJWS. I’ve grown as a person and professional because of our partnership.”

~ Amy Pasquale, EVP/CEO,
American Jewish World Service