antonio@leadershipanddesign.org

Antonio Viva (he/him) is a Partner at L+D. Previously, he served as the Executive Director of Artisans Asylum, one of the oldest and largest makerspaces in the United States. Prior to his role at Artisans, Antonio spent 12 years as the Head of School at Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, MA. During his tenure, he implemented transformative programs and oversaw the expansion of artistic facilities. Antonio's most recent achievement includes co-designing and founding The Boston Ballet School Professional Division at Walnut Hill, the nation's leading all-inclusive professional ballet academy. A child of immigrants and a first-generation college student, Antonio has dedicated his life to promoting diversity and inclusion. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Union College in English and Teaching respectively.

He is a sought-after speaker where he addresses topics such as understanding global risks, fostering creativity, design, and effective leadership. Antonio has been featured by numerous regional independent school associations across the United States and works as an executive coach and advisor. Antonio resides in the Boston suburbs with his family and two cats and maintains his personal art studio at Artisans Asylum.

carla@leadershipanddesign.org

Carla Silver (she/her) is the Executive Director and Co-Founder. She is an experienced independent school educator, school administrator, and experience designer. She holds a B.A. in English from Emory University and a M.A. in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from The University of San Diego.

Carla partners with schools on strategic design and enhancing the work of leadership teams and boards, and she designs experiential learning experiences for leaders in schools at all points in their careers. She also leads workshops for faculty, administrative teams and boards on Design Thinking, Futurist Thinking, Collaboration and Group Life, and Leadership Development. She has presented regularly at the NAIS annual conference as well as other regional and local seminars, workshops and conferences. She currently serves on the board of the Urban School of San Francisco. As a lifelong learner, Carla has recently pursued her interests in design thinking, creativity, improvisation and education innovation. She lives in Los Gatos, California with her husband, three children, and two King Charles Cavaliers.

chandani@leadershipanddesign.org

Dr. Chandani Patel (she/her) is a Leader in Residence for the 2023-2024 school year. She is currently Director of Equity and Inclusion at Rowland Hall, an independent prek-12 school in Salt Lake City. Chandani focuses particularly on creating inclusive teaching and learning environments and is committed to advancing more equitable educational opportunities and experiences for all students. She is also an educational consultant and coach who has presented and facilitated numerous workshops and talks and has provided strategic guidance to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in multiple educational contexts. Prior to joining Rowland Hall, Chandani was Director for Global Diversity Education at NYU. She also serves as the co-chair for the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)'s Academic Council.

Chandani holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, with a particular focus on South Asian and African literatures, from the University of Chicago as well as a B.A. in Comparative Literature and an M.A. in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU. She lives in Salt Lake City, where she spends as much time as possible outdoors with her husband, daughter, and dog.

Crystal Land (she/her) is a Partner at L+D. Crystal has spent her career as a leader in independent schools and as a facilitator with schools and teams. Prior to joining L+D, Crystal served as Head of School at The Head-Royce School in Oakland, where she also served in a variety of roles from Assistant Head of School and Admissions Director to English teacher over her 30+ year career. Over the past two decades, Crystal has designed and facilitated workshops for school leaders in the Bay Area and nationwide on topics including strategic planning, developing capacity in leadership teams, school governance, writing and meditation and women in leadership. She writes articles and thought pieces for various publications and has presented locally and nationally on effective school leadership.

Crystal has served on the Boards of the Global OnLine Academy, the Seven Hills School, the CAIS Secondary School Accreditation panel, Vincent Academy, and the California Teacher Development Collaborative (CATDC); she is currently a trustee at Marin Primary and Middle School. She holds a M.A. in English from Middlebury College, a M.A. in Education from Stanford University and a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in English and Political Science. She appreciates big messy problems and truly enjoys helping leaders and schools find ways to successfully navigate them. She and her husband live in Oakland CA and are the parents of two adult children and one beloved dog.

Felicia McCrary has a heart for kids and the communities and organizations that serve them. With 25+ years of experience working in independent schools as a classroom teacher and administrator, Felicia currently serves as the Upper Learning Principal at The Galloway School. Principal is her official title but she has affectionately named her role Chief Adolescent Strategist. Beyond the classroom, Felicia has consulted for or led workshops related to her passions around growing leaders of color, organizational culture, and lifelong learning at several schools, nonprofits and conferences including The College Board, Kate’s Club, BOLD Summit and the NAIS POCC Leadership Institute to name a few. She is an HBDI Certified Practitioner and an Intercultural Development Inventory Qualified Administrator.

Felicia earned a BA in Psychology and an MaED from Wake Forest University. A proud Demon Deacon, she is willing to support other teams in the ACC only if there is a championship title up for grabs. A rare Atlanta native, Felicia still calls Atlanta home, cherishes the word y’all and has strong opinions about peach cobbler. In her spare time you can find her traveling or trying new restaurants.

greg@leadershipanddesign.org

Greg Bamford (he/him) is a Co-Founder and Partner at L+D. Prior to this, Greg was Associate Head of School for Strategy and Innovation at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma, Washington, and Head of School at the innovative Watershed School in Boulder, Colorado. During his time at Watershed, the young school grew to full enrollment and achieved ACIS accreditation for the first time. He is currently on the Board of Trustees for his alma mater, The Overlake School in Redmond, Washington, and the Advisory Board for The Hatch School, a new, independent girls' high school that opened in Seattle, Washington in 2022.

With his experience in school leadership, Greg brings a strategic lens to leadership development, innovation, and change management for Leadership+Design clients. He is particularly passionate about building leadership capacity and the cultural muscle to enact needed change. Greg has been a featured speaker at education conferences nationally and his writing has appeared in publications like Independent School, Net Assets, and The Yield. Greg lives in Tacoma, Washington with his wife and two children.

Joe Romano (he/him) is an L+D Collaborator and L+Doers Unite Coordinator. He is also an educator, experience designer, and facilitator from Tacoma, WA, where he currently serves as the Director of Innovation at Charles Wright Academy. With more than 20 years in schools, Joe has taught in community colleges, artist residencies, and independent schools. He's transformed empty parking lots into classrooms for designing and building tinyhomes, and he has facilitated the redesign of libraries, community spaces, and fabrication labs. As a school administrator and consultant, Joe has helped launch new school campuses and signature programs, and he has facilitated groups to develop new school values and strategic initiatives. In addition to his work with Charles Wright, Joe collaborates with Leadership+Design on the UnMastered online unlearning experience, the L+D United membership program, as well as facilitated sessions on Futurist Thinking, Design Thinking, and Portrait of a Graduate. Outside of his work in schools, Joe enjoys trail running, gardening, and spending time with his wife and two daughters in the Pacific Northwest.

ryan@leadershipanddesign.org

Ryan Burke (he/him) is a Co-Founder and Partner at L+D. After 20 years working as a Teacher, Learning Specialist, Dean of Students, and Principal/Division Head in public and independent school, Ryan has joined L+D full-time as a senior partner. With a Master's Degree in Applied Behavioral Science and experience in family therapy and systems thinking, Ryan's approach to working with school leaders and teams is unique and brings both a clinical lens as well as practical school leadership experience.

Ryan is currently working with schools and organizational leaders as a coach as well as on strategic planning, schedule re-design, communication and feedback and other messy and ambiguous school challenges. Ryan has presented at NAIS, the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE), as well as keynoted on topics like Critical Conversations, Communication and Conflict Resolution. Ryan lives in Carmel, Indiana with his wife and three children.

shahana@leadershipanddesign.org

Shahana Sarkar, a Leader in Residence for the 2023-2024 school year, a believes in the power of data with story. She knows that we learn best by doing and that schools are places of joy - in failure and success, and that as a school leader, she thrives when we use the data and stories to see patterns, that we try new things, and that we experience the joy that comes from learning from those trials.

She has been at the Head-Royce school in Oakland, CA for over 20 years, serving as scheduler, Math Department Chair, co-director of the Institute for Applied Learning, and currently, K-12 Dean of Academics.

Outside of Head-Royce, Shahana serves on the boardd of the People of Color in Independent Schools of Northern California (POCIS Nor Cal), and the Field Semester, a new program that we are building, which will offer a transformative semester of living, working, and learning on the land.

Shahana is the mother of two kids. Besides parenting, teaching, and learning, she is an avid hiker-with-friends, lover of Bullet Journaling/ Visual Note-taking / fancy pens, a novice but diligent tennis player, and curse-er of Peloton instructors.

shushu@leadershipanddesign.org

Shu Shu Costa (she/her) is a Partner at L+D. She has been a teacher, a mentor, a division director, an assistant head of school, an enrollment director, a strategist, and a board member. Shu Shu has also been a city newspaper beat reporter, the managing editor at a glossy magazine, and her two books have been published by Simon & Schuster and Putnam. What joins all those experiences together is her love of people, organizations, and their remarkable stories, both the ones we tell to ourselves and the ones we use to create journeys and relationships with others.

In addition to passionately working with schools on strategic plans and other human-centered design projects, she facilitates a number of leadership cohorts, including L+D’s Wonder Women, the Institute for Engaging Leadership, and SPARC – Spirited Practice and Renewed Courage – a program for educators which explores the conversations between our inner selves and our professional lives. Shu Shu has presented workshops for NAIS, NJAIS, and ISAS and serves as Treasurer on the board of the Friends Council on Education. She is a graduate of Cornell University and is currently working on a MA in Social Justice at Union Theological School in New York City.

tara@leadershipanddesign.org

Tara Curry-Jahn (she/her) is a Partner at L+D. She is an experienced human-centered design facilitator and coach, strategic partner, and experience designer. She holds a Master's degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Colorado and a bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont. She has been formally trained in design thinking at the Stanford's d.school (School Retool), The Design Gym, and the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME- creator of Action Collab).

Tara partners with schools, districts, and organizations to think creatively and systematically to become more user-centered and strategic in teacher and leadership development, resource allocation (time, money, people), and the student experience. She also serves on the board of the Jeffco Schools Foundation. Tara lives in Arvada, Colorado with her wife and two children.