Meet Andrew.

A bridge builder by nature and community organizer by training, I bring over a decade of experience in social justice education and organizational change. My consulting work and inter-related roles as a facilitator at Stanford University and barber at Dax Lee’s Barber & Apothecary are some of the current ways I’m weaving together practices that center my values of servant leadership and community building.

Throughout my career, I have supported students, community members, and organizational leaders to engage in intra/inter-group dialogue, move constructively through conflict, and cultivate more inclusive cultures. After organizing alongside students and families with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless throughout my four years in undergrad, I started my career as a Community Organizer with MOSES in Detroit, MI. In this role, I conducted hundreds of one-on-ones with community members, faith leaders, and union workers to align local organizing efforts with national campaigns aimed at accountability for charter school authorizers. I then turned my focus toward leadership development and civic education to more directly support folks like me - as a white Polish American man from a multi-racial, working-class family in Detroit and its suburbs - often feeling in between communities and earnestly engaging across social, cultural, and political lines of difference. 

After roles as a Program Coordinator at the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Baltimore, MD and Intergroup Dialogue Facilitator at the University of Maryland, I enrolled in graduate school to deepen my understanding of individual and institutional transformation, with an emphasis on white racial identity development and equitable organizational change. I joined Promise54 - a consulting non-profit focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion - and re-rooted in Oakland, CA where I began partnering with the SEEDS Community Resolution Center as a conflict mediator and coach. Later, I enrolled at Moler Barber College to credentialize years of cutting hair in friends’ homes by earning a barber license. I also started collaborating with organizations like Rollins Consulting and The Town Project to lend my skills and capacity as a co-facilitator, co-mediator, and learning designer. Now - guided by the question “How can we create the conditions for connection?” - I’m striving to build belonging from the boardroom to the barbershop.

I hold a B.A. in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago and an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where I was an Equity & Inclusion Fellow. I earned an Associated Certified Coach (ACC) credential from the International Coaching Federation in 2022, was selected as a Fellow in the Oakland Chapter of New Leaders Council in 2020, and was awarded the Tina Tchen Ally Award from the Harvard Black Graduation Committee in 2018. I currently live in Oakland, CA with my partner, Nimah.