Join us for a conversation with Adrianna Flax, founder and owner of AM Flax Consulting. Adrianna is a DEI educator, executive coach, keynote speaker, and DEI strategy consultant. Her work is informed by her deep subject matter expertise and by her personal journey living with a facial difference—her birthmark. As a Jewish Latina in the LGBTQ+ community, her highly intersectional identity often goes unseen. Her primary difference that is highly visible is her birthmark. Moving through the world with this facial difference, a type of diversity that is often overlooked, has shaped her lens and resulted in unique lived experiences.
We put people in categories and form a sense of what “normal” means in the context of those different identities. Over time, as we buy into those categories, we develop a level of comfort interacting with those expected or familiar differences like race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, and so on. When we come across unexpected differences, we may not know how to categorize them in our heads—leading to discomfort, awkwardness, or simply additional mental work that may be fatiguing. Adrianna urges us to talk about these points of diversity that are unexpected and acknowledge our biases and assumptions as the first step toward disruption.
Adrianna will be joining us to talk about building awareness around our perceptions of difference, acknowledging the difficulty we may have navigating moments where we encounter unexpected differences, and working to disrupt our biases and shift our reactions. We hope you join the conversation!
Learning Objectives:
Etienne Consulting
Diversity & Inclusion Consultant, Speaker & Trainer
[email protected]
(301) 778-5510
Jina is a consultant and speaker on diversity, inclusion, culture, and belonging. She creates training programs and workshops to help clients move forward in their D&I journey. She is a storyteller and speaks candidly about her experiences, hard lessons, and ‘aha’ moments that helped her understand the importance of individuality, the value of curiosity, and the courage it takes to “just” be yourself. Often described as “approachable” and “relatable” by her clients, she works with purpose and the intention of being engaging, practical, and immediately applicable to real-world situations. Jina draws from her unique background and mix of work experiences to offer examples and share insights designed to benefit everyone across the workplace ecosystem – executives, management, employees, and customers.
Previously, she was Principal Consultant at EtiennePartners (EP), a boutique consulting firm that offered a unique strategy development, workshops & coaching to leaders, executives and entrepreneurs. Co-founded with her husband, EP was a full-time partnership in both work and life. Although in different professions, their work often intersected around the importance of self-awareness in leadership and navigating conflict within teams. Combining their experiences, backgrounds, and work led to the development of their unique approach to D&I, which she continues to use in her practice today.
AM Flax Consulting
Founder & Owner
[email protected]
Adrianna Flax is the Founder and owner of AM Flax Consulting, a DEI Consulting firm that helps clients use diversity as their differentiator in the market. She is an experienced DEI leader who infuses her work with her unique identity, passion, and humor. As a speaker, trainer, executive coach, and DEI strategy consultant Adrianna has worked with clients such as Amazon, Comcast, and Bridgestone Americas. Along with Fortune 500 clients, she has worked with leaders in tech, healthcare, retail, public relations, public media, education, and nonprofits. Adrianna has built a strong understanding of the experiences of underrepresented communities through her career in DEI leadership and nonprofit management, developing a keen awareness of the social dynamics that create and perpetuate marginalization. Adrianna uses these experiences and her own intersectional identity to inform her practice as she trains, speaks to a broad array of audiences, provides transformative DEI executive coaching, and builds winning DEI strategies.
Adrianna has created curricula that build a foundation for DEI understanding in today’s workplace. She has developed cutting-edge content focused on revolutionizing how we think about and navigate conflict. Leveraging her social justice background, Adrianna challenges the concept of conflict resolution, instead asking listeners to consider conflict revolution. She encourages audiences to consider their workplaces as communities, creating shared responsibility for addressing harms and learning new strategies for navigating conflict. As a DEI executive coach, Adrianna builds a strong rapport with clients, supporting them as they navigate a journey of understanding, growth, and leadership development. Her personalized approach creates a safe space for executives to unpack highly charged issues, set goals for personal development, and build core competencies for impactful leadership. In her consulting practice, Adrianna provides DEI Assessments and strategy consulting to help clients leverage DEI as their differentiator in the competition for top talent, mindshare, and market share.
Adrianna is a Jewish, Latina, and proudly part of the LGBTQ+ community. She holds a Master of Professional Studies in arts and cultural management from Pratt Institute in New York, NY, and is certified in DEI in the Workplace through the University of South Florida Muma College of Business. Adrianna serves as the Co-Vice President of the TN Pride Chamber of Commerce and is the founder of the DEI Consultants Cohort, a DEI consultants brain trust.