Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Kerriann Peart. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dr. Kerriann, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

At Peart Consulting, LLC our mission is: “To empower and equip individuals in the workplace, to consistently tap into their authentic identity and become more than just an employee and truly the professional they seek to be.”

This mission is personal, and has been informed from my lived experience as a culturally divergent professional in the workplace, who had to learn how to navigate several imposed identities while adjusting to a culture that was not native to me. I also witnessed a number of my colleagues, struggle on the one hand with knowing who they are, and on the other hand refuting daily, the identities and stereotypes they were labelled with. It is no wonder that so many individuals of color in this social frame of the United States, feel utterly exhausted and frustrated with their work environments and have such hardships with inclusivity and equity, that impact their workplace performance throughout their careers.

Can you imagine being dissociated on a daily basis? Knowing that you are a professional, skilled and more than qualified yet being told in so many ways that you do not measure up, because others refuse to value you and instead default to biases and programmed social narratives about “people who look like you.”

And so, with our mission, we support professionals, particularly professionals of color, and culturally divergent professionals, to recall their authenticities and values, and build systems that provide safety, perspective and tools to stop playing small and grow and develop as they had envisioned for their professional life.

Some may say this sounds like a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative and I would have to say, it is certainly more than that. DEI in the American context has become known as a “black vs white” or “them vs us” issue. For Peart Consulting, there is so much more to DEI and the design and culture of workplaces that we address and support professionals with. We think critically about culture, meaning, sociopolitical influences and the intersections of identity that give weight to the experiences professionals are having day in and day out. It is this weight that we speak about in our mission and that we help professionals realize, is not a burden, but an asset of tools and nuanced perspectives that lend to the richness of the environments we traverse. It is like I have said, the deep work of things that promotes goodness and well-being for all. Hence our tagline:

“Leveraging the assets of culture, identity and well-being for empowered professional practice”.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Well! I have been living and working in the United States for over 22 years. My family moved us for the opportunity to expand on our educational pursuits, as I was entering college and my younger brother was finishing high school and preparing for college. My parents were of a mindset that you did not have to spend the rest of your life knowing just your hometown, when you should become a global citizen and so, travel we did and then eventually migrated from Montego Bay, Jamaica and set up home in Roswell, Georgia. Yes the transition was not only odd for a migrating Caribbean family as many are known to move to Florida or New York first, but it was also something that I had to treat like a bootcamp.

Throughout college I stuck with my love for science and graduated with a degree in Biology from Emory University. I did not want to pursue medicine but I wanted to serve in some capacity that was health related and with populations that were eclectic, given the environment I was born and raised in. It was what I knew and valued. So public health became the next pursuit and I completed my Master of Public Health with a focus on Global Health Communications from George Washington Milken Institute School of Public Health…what a mouth full! Lol. As I did my graduate studies I worked full time at the Children’s Hospital in Washington D.C. which really allowed me to further cultivate my love for child and adolescent health, so much so I went on to complete a Certificate in Child and Adolescent Psychology and then my doctorate in International Psychology both from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. So yes it would be safe to say I am a bit of a geek for learning.

Throughout my academic pursuits and maintaining full time jobs, I was exposed to a number of workplaces, leadership personalities, employee challenges, managerial frustrations and organizational design faux pas, if you will. My experiences coupled with my Organization and Systems focus within my doctoral studies, had me looking at things from a very expanded, global and junctional lens. Out of all of this and a number of uncomfortable work experiences and personal transitions, Peart Consulting, LLC was birthed in 2020. In this consulting practice, we offer tailored coaching for professionals navigating workplace upsets and discomforts (personal-professional performance), consulting for teams and organizations moving through organization culture and design shifts, facilitation of nuanced professional development workshops and opportunities for allied learning.

Through the delivery of our work, we are most proud of the level of vulnerability we exude and allow our clients to experience. We are able to say yes we fully understand your feelings and the thoughts you are sharing and help with moving our clients to a clarified space and process for alignment and performance; through well-being frameworks, environmental assessments, organization audits and self-accountability reviews just to name a few. We remind clients that safety at work is possible and that they deserve to be themselves at work; of course not the version that is in flip flops and eating a pint of ice cream on the sofa…but yes the put together professional who operates in their zone of genius and feels fulfilled with work efforts. It is absolutely possible and this is what we support our clients with.

People often ask how the coaching and consulting differ. And I am happy to be able to make the distinctions for them, as so often things can become conflated.

Our consulting practice focuses on serving teams and organizations. We work in those spaces to assess the dynamics of colleagues, communication structures, organization culture as it is described vs as it is experienced and then recommend approaches for strengthening and in some cases building systems. Once aligned in the next steps, workshops are developed, delivered and evaluated by Peart Consulting’s team, implement systems built in collaboration with organization staff and put into practice, also with opportunities for evaluation and necessary adjustments or refinements. This can be anywhere from 3 months to 2 years, given the organization’s intentions and commitment.

Our coaching service can absolutely be incorporated into our consulting delivery, but as a stand alone, we work with clients either one on one or in cohort format. Our one on one coaching also runs for a period of 3-6 months. This allows for close work with our client as they move through some of the painstaking experiences of their work place, as they define them. One on one coaching provides the opportunity to truly get to know the client for who they are and have a deep understanding of what is going on both personally and professionally and map the necessary steps, resources and tools for autonomy after our coaching engagement is complete. Clients are also welcomed to join the coaching cohort for sustained support and perspective from individuals going through similar encounters and are of similar backgrounds.

Coaching cohorts often run for a 8-12 week period and we move clients through a robust set of sessions, in which we explore very direct experiences, concepts and frameworks on a weekly basis; in support of professional well-being and performance. Cohorts are curated to be safe, as individuals share personal stories of discrimination, marginalization and gaslighting that can be very difficult. There is an application process for the coaching cohorts and we take privacy very seriously, as many individuals are concerned about things getting back to their workplace or other spaces. It is very important that those involved in the cohort are held to a high standard of confidence, as the work done in that space is truly vulnerable and requires deep grounded compassion.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A short enough story that I believe reflects my resilience, is essentially the story of my last year. 2023 started off with a lot of frustration given the work environment I was in at the time and what was transpiring with the departure of certain staff, given their experiences on the job. In late 2022, I was told about my pending lay off and was bracing for impact. So many things transpired in late 2022 caused me to recall stories of previous clients and aspects of previous jobs I had held, that reminded me, why it is necessary for me to do the work I do.

I spent several months in 2023, reeling from the new found reality of being unemployed, having had yet again another poor workplace experience and getting to a point where things started to feel far too overwhelming. As I managed the various emotions and fearful thoughts on a daily occurrence, I took the month of May in 2023 and did nothing. I could not do much, as the house was in jeopardy, bills could not be paid and I just had to essentially just allow. Sometimes I tell my clients to allow things to fall into place and so I became my own client and allowed things to fall apart, so they would later fall into place. And so they did. By August of 2023 I was moving for a new opportunity that brought me joy and gave me the perspective of Begin…Again. That is what I came back to my business with in 2024, the energy and willingness to Begin…Again. And so, our offerings this year are re-infused and re-informed, as it is clear, the workplaces are plagued with all sorts of upsets and aspects of inequality and inequity. With this in mind, I use my business to create and hold space for the things professionals and individuals are truly seeking…to safely be themselves.

I know it is uncomfortable in many aspects of our lives. However, despite the discomforts and the poor ways in which people treat each other, there is a better way to be and to be well in work and professional performance. After all, if I did not experience certain upsets and disappointments of my own, I would not be able to help others today. I essentially get to be who I needed, when I was struggling at work. That is truly resilient and I am honored to be able to serve in this way.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was thinking about this recently in a conversation with a colleague, the idea of pivoting in your career. In the conversation I shared that one of the pivots that I knew would have to be made, was the pivot from providing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) services. Given my own lived experiences as a Caribbean woman of color, living and working in the U.S., it was clear to me the DEI approach that was being taken, was not going to be sustainable. So said, so done. I started my pivot away from DEI practice in 2023 as I recognized a number of things not just brewing but that were clearly being said and done.

I did not have much “success” in the DEI space to begin with, as my approach was quite different from other practitioners in the space. I had a global angle to the work that was just different from how I was expected to do the work. This did not bother me much, I just got used to things not ever being completed or recommendations actually going anywhere. Since I have a background in behavioral sciences I decided to fall back into that and elevated aspects of my skillset in well-being, health and people/culture engagement to build out new pieces of work for my business and to revive previous aspects with a different perspective. Again, staying true…being well in my authenticity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.peartconsultingllc.org
• Instagram: @dr.kerri_p
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kerriannpeart

Image Credits
Matthew Palmer