Bart Bailey, MBA (he/him/his)

A highly trained and certified executive, business and leadership coach, Bart leverages his impressive corporate experience of creating success with his ability to connect to the heart of the matter to ignite change with individuals, teams, and communities. His commitment to empowering people to fully step into their passion and purpose is at the heart of his success.

He combines his 25 years of corporate experience leading diverse functions including Cross-functional Service teams (Engineering, Operations, Customer Service, Customer Accounting, and Planning) and all aspects of manufacturing from managing raw goods to delivery of the finished product, utilizing LEAN thinking and proven practices to support his teams to achieve high-value results.

His work has consistently improved engagement, employee satisfaction, safety, and customer satisfaction. Courage to Care is committed to leveraging Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to foster Belonging and minimize Othering.

Shawna Knipper, (she/her/hers)

By way of personal experience, Shawna Knipper entered into organizing, facilitating, and educating around substance use/abuse awareness, disability advocacy, and women’s rights over 18 years ago. Her deeply personal journey has taken her into political and social justice arenas, lobbying for meaningful structural change in governance as well as the minds and hearts of communities. Shawna‘s experience has earned her opportunities to provide education to diverse groups of youth entering the medical field, coordinate DEI education and planning of structural change for large networks and co-facilitate environmental justice groups in base building and striving for more profound views on equity and justice. Her electoral experience ranges from leading field campaigns for winning United States Representative seats, to leading a virtual field program that contacted over 5 million women in one weekend and 20 million women in the course of the electoral season in order to register and move women to the polls, creating a surge of women voters. She holds a degree in Business Administration and currently sits on the board of Women’s March, a national women and family rights advocacy organization. Knipper has been involved in organizing with Women’s March, who is responsible for 3 of the 5 largest protests in United States History, as a founding member since 2016.

Samantha Truman

Samantha Truman is a JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Consultant who works with various health care institutions, nonprofits, and private businesses. Her Jamaican-Ukrainian background lends itself to her appreciation of inclusion and diversity in social and professional spaces. She has facilitated over five-hundred sessions in unconscious bias, race dynamics, micro-behaviors, medical ethics, inclusive leadership, and organizational development.
Cultural awareness and acculturation are among the primary keynotes she addresses when facilitating. She works simultaneously in training and development, creating programs that enable organizations to maintain corporate inclusivity. Her work with medical institutions is focused on health equity, bridging the gap between historical disparities while transitioning into the future. She connects with her participants in the empathetic space she cultivates and focuses on identifying and fortifying elements of one’s identity in a world with a multitude of stimuli.
As part of her endeavors, Samantha analyzes organizational data (ie. assessments and equity audits) and implements institutional change. She has an educational background in Organizational Leadership, focusing on D&I. She is also certified in IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory), a theory-based intercultural competence assessment that can provide individual or organizational profile results. In addition, she is a psychological safety practitioner and deeply rooted in Somatic Abolitionist Coaching practices. Her friends and family rave about her Oxtail, and she makes a mean seafood risotto.

Sharmalee Butler

Sharmalee brings almost a decade of front-facing financial data experience in corporate spaces to this work. She has consistently broken barriers and excelled in leadership roles. An unwavering passion for inclusiveness in the workplace, and life experience as a Black, immigrant woman, move this work to the forefront for her. Sharmalee migrated to the US from Jamaica at the age of 14, facing significant adversities, which motivate her drive for Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in all areas of life. She believes that transparency, advocacy, and empathy are key drivers in her ability to impact change in the workplace and society.