Lakaya Renfrow,
Principal Consultant
Lakaya Renfrow,
Principal Consultant
Lakaya Renfrow is the Principal Consultant and Founder of The Proximity Collective. She believes true cultural understanding, vulnerability, and a willingness to get uncomfortable, are foundational in shifting how diversity initiatives are executed in the workplace.
Lakaya is a passionate diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist who has experience in conducting anti-racist awareness workshops and conversations, identity development workshops, implicit bias training, and leading dialogues that focus on dismantling systems of oppression centered around race and gender.
She received her BA from Michigan State University, where she focused on Title IX and Gender Equity in Sports. From there, she moved to Washington, D.C., and obtained her Masters from Georgetown University. At Georgetown, Lakaya focused on International Relations and how communities reconcile and heal from post-racial violence and trauma.
Kristina Smith
Strategic D&I Partner
Kristina Smith
Strategic D&I Partner
Kristina Smith, CDP (she, her) has spent the bulk of her career in training and development. This laid the foundation to develop performance improvement strategies for corporations. She has been successful at helping organizations build stronger teams through specific team development activities, strategic planning with leaders, and designing programs to develop bench strength in companies. Coaching C-Suite and mid-level managers were a large part of her success ensuring businesses met their goals and objectives.
Kristina has worked with corporations, government, and non-profits. Her greatest strength is her ability to communicate with all stakeholders. She facilitates conversations between frontline team members and management. These conversations make it possible to find solutions to some of the organization’s toughest challenges.
Kristina believes diversity training is not the answer to solving a workplace dilemma. Facilitating a structured conversation is what allows teams to express where an organization may be missing an opportunity to use the employees’ talents and strengths. By tapping into this unused potential organizations are often amazed at how this benefits their company.
