About Us
We are a small yet impactful global team, with real world experience of building businesses founded upon diversity of all kinds and equality for all.
Our Core Values
Equality – We are committed to achieving equality for everyone. Everyone.
Do No Harm – This informs ALL of our work, personally and professionally.
Integrity – We DO what we say we’re going to do. Even when no-one’s looking.
Freedom – We value the freedom and safety to choose. For everyone.
Empowerment – We are committed to empowering others. To empower themselves.
Transparency – We are committed to transparency and openness. Even when it’s hard.
Mission Equality Team
In the spirit of our leadership ethos at Mission Equality, we are ALL leaders and have a flat organisational structure. Additionally, we have intentionally chosen not to use typical C-suite job titles.
Corporate team
Lea, a former management consultant at Accenture, has almost two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, remote COO and business owner, leading fully remote teams of diverse employees and contractors around the globe. She was an early pioneer of the digital nomad movement as the founder of the world-renowned blog, Location Independent, and has helped thousands of people create the freedom to work from anywhere.
Lea was most recently the co-founder and COO of another EdTech company based in the USA. Under Lea’s leadership, the company was built as an explicitly anti-racist company fully committed to diversity, equity and belonging to create a safe working environment for Black, Brown and other deliberately disadvantaged communities…until Lea resigned after ongoing racism from her co-founder & CEO!
She now leads Mission Equality as the Strategy & Vision Lead, committed to building the company differently with a foundation of equity, equality and a true ‘people first’ approach.
“My two favourite things about working with Lea:
- She is an extraordinary mentor. Lea always, always has an eye to scaffolding in opportunities for growth and is extremely generous with her time and expertise. She intentionally builds capacity within the team and sees her colleagues as whole people.
- She thinks and communicates in a clear, coherent, and direct manner. I cannot overstate how much of a joy it is to work with someone who is committed to clarity!”
– Laura Ajayi
“I love working with Lea because we share an unwavering commitment to anti-racism and equality. In addition, Lea is a strategic visionary, an excellent mentor and fun to be around.“
– Sharon Hurley Hall
“Lea has an unwavering belief in everyone’s abilities that is inspiring and motivating, she also backs that up with a tremendous amount of useful and practical support.
She has an amazing work ethic and is able to produce unparalleled quality work at great speed whilst also maintaining a healthy work-life balance which she models. She exudes an attitude of ‘everything is possible’ (and it’s often achieved moments later!!).
She is always fair and measured and it matters to her to be in integrity and cause no harm. Lea is a visionary genius but she is also a team player, ensuring everyone’s opinions are heard and that the end results are always a team effort“
– Becky Jovy-Ford
Sharon Hurley Hall is an educator, writer and anti-racism activist. She is a co-founder and Equality Lead at Mission Equality, committed to building the company on a foundation of equality, anti-racism and humanity. She previously led the Diversity, Equity and Belonging team at a disruptive Ed Tech startup, where she was instrumental in operationalising a progressive approach to anti-racism across the business.
Sharon is the Founder and Curator-in-Chief of Sharon’s Anti-Racism Newsletter, a twice-weekly online publication sharing global experiences of racism and guidance on better allyship. She is also the author of anti-racism essay collection “I’m Tired of Racism”, and “Exploring Shadeism”, which deals with colourism.
A certified diversity and belonging facilitator and culture assessor, Sharon has facilitated numerous groups empowering participants to work towards anti-racism and equality. Sharon is also a public speaker covering racism, anti-racism and diversity topics.
“I have learned a LOT from Sharon both personally and professionally. She is not only an expert in her field, but also incredibly thoughtful, gracious and fun. I always look forward to our collaborations and come away motivated to dig in further!”
– Laura Ajayi
“From Sharon I get generous resources and support on my anti-racism journey as well as support, humour and the occasional nudge more generally. Sharon has a vast knowledge, a dedicated work ethic and a steadfast commitment to equality of ALL kinds. She is efficient, thoughtful and kind, has an excellent turn of phrase and brings a lot of joy to the team. Sharon frequently makes me want to do and be better.“
– Becky Jovy-Ford
“Sharon is THE consummate professional; I can rely on her to deliver anything that is asked, on time, with excellent quality and no fuss, no nonsense and no drama. She is a trusted sounding board and a clear-headed and steady influence to everyone around her. I would have Sharon on every team I build.”
– Lea Jovy-Ford
Equaliversity Team & Faculty
Laura has worked for over a decade in outside-the-box education modalities, applying progressive education principles to facilitate growth for learners from pre-K through to adulthood. Her on-the-ground teaching experience includes time both in and out of ‘the system.’
She was formally trained as an educator at the University of Toronto and has taught in a range of institutions from public schools to Nunavut Arctic College, while also creating community programming ‘around the edges,’ particularly geared toward the arts and Disabled youth.
Both a creative and a systematic thinker, Laura taps into her affinity for blending structured frameworks with engaging visuals to create high quality educational experiences from behind a computer screen rather than in front of a classroom. Most recently, she led a team developing progressive education resources for a global audience at a disruptive EdTech company, with a strong emphasis on learner empowerment, diverse representation, and cross-disciplinary learning.
Laura’s passion areas include Neurodiversity justice, issues impacting the LGBTQ+ community, and all paths toward authentic, holistic, accessible and diverse education for every learner at every life stage.
She lives in Canada with her partner and children as they work and learn alongside one another at home.
From Laura: Mission Equality is the magical workplace environment:
- Fantastic, supportive colleagues.
- A flexible, neurodiversity-affirming remote work set-up.
- A method and a mission that resonate deeply and support my personal growth and the communities I care about.
I could literally not ask for a better place to be!
“Working with Laura is a joy because we both love research and learning and integrating what we’ve learned into an excellent product, plus we laugh a lot.”
– Sharon Hurley Hall
“From Laura I get a solidity of knowledge, an ever thoughtful approach to ensure things are done well and with care. Laura has great integrity, a wry sense of humour and a useful desire for clarity. She has a passionate knowledge of neurodiversity that she graciously shares. I appreciate Laura’s no-nonsense approach to things that is coupled with a deep care and concern for people and her ability and desire to have real and genuine relationships.”
– Becky Jovy-Ford
“I trust Laura to bring a balanced, nuanced and truly thoughful approach to all her work; this gives me confidence that any decision we make as a team has been examined from multiple angles and perspectives which is a valuable thing to bring to the table. Laura is full of integrity and a pleasure to work with.“
– Lea Jovy-Ford
AJ is a mathematician and neuroscientist with almost 15 years’ experience in People & Culture, having built and scaled the People functions within tech start-ups many times over.
They are a passionate educator and activist, calling on their lived experience as a brown, autistic genderfluid person as well as their academic and professional background to create compassionate, inclusive, humanity-centred working environments, learning and development programmes, leadership development and organisational design.
Stacey Alvarez de la Campa is an environmental activist, and the founder of the organisation, Worldwide Sustainability Warriors, a movement which strives to empower those who wish to positively contribute to sustainable living, and focus on the collective impact of individual efforts. She continues to seek to improve the representation of Indigenous and marginalised voices in discussions about the effects of climate change.
She has successfully completed Climate Leadership Training with the Climate Reality Project, and is jointly certified in Climate Law and Governance by The University of Cambridge, The Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, and the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law.
Stacey has been invited to speak at numerous panel discussions and webinars, including the Expert Roundtable Session on Climate Justice held on Climate Law and Governance Day at COP26. She was the lead presenter for two panel discussions on the role of experiential learning and ocean literacy during the 2022 European Geosciences Union conference. Stacey also provided crucial insights into the effects on climate change on human rights in the Caribbean during consultations with UN Special Rapporteur, David Boyd.
Stacey’s passion for the environment has led to other significant career roles. She has collaborated with the University of Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance as an educational consultant with the Ocean Explorers Programme. Stacey was also an Environmental Education Expert with a progressive EdTech company, and was a member of the 2021-2022 cohort of the Anant Fellowship for Climate Action.
Stacey is also a legal and educational consultant, with two decades of experience in the field of education. Her recent work in the legal profession focused on analysing anti-money laundering legislation.
Special Advisory Board
Louise Ware (UK)
Special Advisor, People & Ops
Louise’s +20 years experience has been in people and project roles, as a Programme Director, Head of People and COO. Having worked in various industries, from start ups to big corporations she’s been responsible for transformation projects, HR, recruitment, talent retention, operations, and company strategy.
Louise has worked in the UK, Americas, Europe and Asia for office based and remote first companies and brings an international people perspective to Diverse Leaders Group. She has an inherent desire to make a positive impact and like the rest of the team, is committed to making a more inclusive world and moving the equality dial forward.
She lives in the UK, loves to be near the sea and spends her free time travelling and doing various sports. She’s been a trustee and advisor for +6 years.