Meet Our Team
Aly Bryson, Co-Founder
Aly is a planning and strategy consultant, facilitator, and organizer who has worked with community, government, and academic stakeholders to develop and learn from collaborative community development initiatives in Latin America and the US. Her work has focused on supporting organizations to develop strategies driven or informed by community priorities, with an emphasis on racial and economic justice.
Before turning to consulting, Aly served in leadership roles at the MIT Community Innovators Lab (part of the Institute’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning), where she developed and oversaw capacity building and research projects with partners in Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the Bronx since 2011. As the organization’s Deputy Director from 2016-2018, she consolidated program development and strategy across CoLab’s work focused on democracy and shared wealth creation throughout the Americas.
From 2007-2010, Aly worked with the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Quito, Ecuador and Bogotá, Colombia on projects promoting women’s economic and civic participation in the Andean Region.
Aly holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT, and BA in Political Science and International Studies from Northwestern University. She contributes to local economic and racial justice campaigns in her home base of Seattle.
Taonga Leslie, Co-Founder
Taonga is an attorney and strategy consultant specializing in racial justice and civil rights. He has advised a diverse portfolio of clients, including nonprofits, foundations, arts organizations, asylum seekers, survivors of domestic violence, and police accountability groups.
Since 2023, Taonga has served as Director of Policy and Program for Racial Justice at the American Constitution Society, the nation’s largest progressive legal network. In this role, Taonga works to ensure that equity is reflect across the organization’s programming, including building more diverse pipelines to clerkships and the judiciary, convening advocates to develop legal strategies to advance racial justice, and shifting harmful narratives about race and the law.
From 2021 to 2023, Taonga managed strategy development projects as a Senior Consultant at Public Equity Group. Prior to this role, he investigated allegations of corporate misconduct as an Associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Earlier in his career, Taonga focused on criminal legal reform. This included working to mitigate youth involvement in the juvenile justice system at Impact Justice, and internships with the Equal Justice Initiative and the Southern Center for Human Rights.
Taonga holds a JD from Yale Law School and a BA in Sociology from Harvard University. He is based in Brooklyn, New York where he enjoys writing poetry and rock climbing in his free time.
Our Partners
As strategy consultants and facilitators, we collaborate with aligned firms and collaboratives on projects designed to support leaders and organizations to create the conditions for lasting change. You can learn about our awesome collaborators at the links below (more to come).
