As the only child of disabled parents, including a mother who grew up in the Pre-Civil Rights American South, Ahmmad Brown (he/him) has always been sensitive to issues of equity. As a young child, Ahmmad's family moved from Oakland to a suburb in California’s Central Valley, and later to Sacramento for access to stronger-performing public schools. This gave him firsthand experience seeing how race and class intersect to influence access to opportunity.
Ahmmad has worked with client-partners across sectors and industries. His approach to DEIJ integrates theoretical and methodological best practices from the academic literature, as well as narrative development and storytelling techniques. Prior to EBDI, Ahmmad served as the project manager for the development of a pre-orientation program providing sociocultural learning and community building for Black students at a private college. At The Bridgespan Group, he was the primary author of an internal document to integrate racial equity into its strategy work and case team processes. He also served as the Diversity Recruitment Director at Williams College, where he defined institutional priorities with the College’s senior administration, and led efforts for the recruitment of first-generation, low-income and student of color populations, accounting for roughly 45% of each enrolling class.
In addition to running EBDI and serving as a senior advisor to nationally recognized DEIJ consultancy Working IDEAL, Ahmmad is Assistant Professor at the Northwestern's Masters of Science in Learning and Organizational Change program where he leads the Leading Equity and Inclusion in Organizations Certificate (LEIOC) program. Ahmmad also serves on Merit America's board of directors.
Ahmmad received a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, where his work empirically examined the experiences of Black students in predominantly white institutions. He also holds an M.B.A. and M.A. in Education from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Sociology & Anthropology and Japanese from Swarthmore College.
