Thanks for reading a bit more about me and the LIberated Development (LD) story. I’m Danielle!
I launched LD in 2019, after I’d spent 16+ years steeped in a career of talent development, strategic planning, and training design and delivery in the education and nonprofit sectors. My roles and areas of impact consistently focused on organizational culture and development, with a unique concentration on the influence of identity, wellness, and race. I bring an active lens of formal training as well as lived experience to the work — both of which equally influence my approach, ethos, and theory of change.
After serving on numerous leadership and management teams that sought to "solve" for culture challenges -- like retention and morale -- through a predetermined and very limited lens, I began to see the most lasting and impactful results in spaces where we expanded our notions of leadership and took an approach that simultaneously centered individuals and liberation.
By illuminating barriers and boundaries in thinking, I began to create space for teams and leaders to think outside of the traditional boxes of how we’re “supposed” to lead and how a workplace team is “supposed” to operate, to see what’s possible.
What assumptions are implicit in how we lead? And how is that impacting our team and organizational culture?
How can we think outside of those assumptions to imagine something new?
From this space, I have seen leaders discover and live more deeply into their own definitions of leadership, and have seen organizations and teams create entirely new and dynamic cultures where the innovation and fulfillment is palpable!
When we develop ourselves and our teams, not from a fixed formula of what leadership and work “should” be, but from a place that makes room for the unique variables that each person brings, the result will always be belonging, inclusion and liberation. This is where innovation lives and where leaders grow and thrive!
Liberated Development has been a labor of love and community, which you can read more about in this Go Solo profile feature about growing the company. Go Solo profile feature
It has only been made possible thanks to the amazing experts who continue to contribute their brilliance to this work. Learn more about them!
Educational Background:
A proud Chicago native, Danielle’s educational background includes a master’s program at Moody Theological Seminary, a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University New Orleans, and a nonprofit leadership development certificate from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management's Center for Nonprofit Management.
In addition to numerous culture-building and leadership development strategies, Danielle has served as an independent consultant, as well as on regional, district and national teams. Danielle’s training includes:
- Google’s Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence Leadership Training (SIYLI)
- People’s Institution for Survival and Beyond’s Undoing Racism
- DePaul University School of New Learning’s Innovative Strategies for Facilitating Adult Learning
- Institute for Organizational Development’s Change Implementation: Organizational Development Process Consulting
- The Institute of Cultural Affairs’ ToP Facilitation Methods
Partnerships:
Danielle currently partners on race, equity, diversity and inclusion (REDI) work with The Equity Lab and serves as a leadership coach and co-creator with b*free. She is based in the Washington, DC area.