Who am I?

Here are some key facts.

I’m an HR consultant with a passion for racial justice. A Certified PHR (Professional in Human Resources) through HRCI with over 20 years of nonprofit experience across the full spectrum of HR and People Operations functions, I specialize in working with small to medium sized non-profit organizations, who want to approach human resources from a people-first perspective.

Before I started White Hodge HR,  I served as the HR Director for the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) and led several organization-wide efforts to support the fully remote, national staff and helped them thrive through a period of rapid growth during the uprisings in defense of Black life and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to my time at NNAF, for six years I was Director of HR & Operations at New Moms in Chicago, IL. Awarded the Bamboo Hero award for Onboarding, I was asked to be an ambassador for BambooHR.

I am also a member of several professional organizations.

5% of all White Hodge HR profits support organizations that are led by and are in service of Black and trans people. The ones I’m currently supporting are The Embodiment Institute and West Side Giving Circle.

Why do I do what I do?

Here’s my  story.

In my early years I was surrounded by people . . . lots of people: family, multiple foreign exchange students, friends, my sibling’s college friends, church members, and community members. Everywhere I went, people were always around.

Those people were almost exclusively white.

One summer in high school, I went to an event only about 15 miles away, where I discovered a whole new world. It was a world of people from another culture and a different lived experience.

It was one of those life-shifting moments. A moment in which my eyes were opened a little wider and everything I thought I knew and understood about myself, my family, my country and the world was suddenly called into question.

At that moment I decided I wanted to learn more about other people outside of my little circle – about lives not exactly like my own. And the more I learned the more my eyes were opened to the inequities that I was perpetuating.

So, I dedicated myself to undoing my old ways of thinking and being in the world, the ways I’d been taught were right and true. I committed myself to becoming a welcome home for all people.

While I started out in a career doing direct service with young people, I soon began exploring other ways of serving people – ALL people. I discovered that my deepest calling was in developing systems and processes that helped people, and simultaneously worked for justice.

As I’ve built my own HR practice, I’ve done so with a passionate commitment to making it one that’s rooted in justice – particularly racial justice. Every protocol and system I set up is developed through a lens that centers equity: for BIPOC women in particular.

My deepest longing is to leave a more just world for my BIPOC family members & friends. My core belief is that we cannot be loving without working for justice.

A few other things you might want to know about me.

My strengths include relentless follow-through, compassion, organizing, honesty, and being very clear about what my strengths are not. And yes, I have a sense of humor. And sometimes wild hair.

I’m also a bit of bad ass who’s not afraid of the color pink.

I believe in unending pet snuggles, stand-up comedy, early morning coffee, action movies, a good book, and watching our chickens forage for food.

I am a friend, a business owner, a daughter, a mother, an aunt, a godmother, a wife, a god-grandmother, a tennis player & an avid salsa dancer.

I invest steadily at undoing the white supremacy that lives inside of me and my people. I am currently practicing both spiritual direction and somatics in service of becoming a welcome home for all people.