Ahmmad Brown

I’m Ahmmad Brown. I’m an organizational change scholar and practitioner. 

 

From a young age, I saw how race and class can impact opportunity. I grew up in a home that struggled to make ends meet, raised by parents who were both disabled. When I was of school age, my family moved from Oakland to Sacramento so I could attend better-performing schools.

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As a low-income Black kid in a mostly upper-middle-class white community, I got to engage with people of different backgrounds and discover different perspectives, but I also couldn’t ignore the disparities between my peers and me. This exposure helped me understand that societal and organizational structures can shape one’s sense of what is possible.

 

I then became the first person in my family to graduate from college, where, for the first time, I met a Black peer who was solidly upper-class. That led me to reflect more on my own identity through race and class. I also studied abroad in Japan, where I learned about the history of minority groups like the Burakumin and Korean-Japanese community. Their stories resonated deeply with me, as their experiences of inequality were similar to those of Black Americans.

 

This personal journey deepened my understanding of inequality, seeing it in a global context while also recognizing the unique local histories that shape each community. We each have agency, but agency can be limited by societal and organizational structures that leave people without full access to economic opportunity. Read more on my thoughts about DEI.

 

Now, I channel these reflections into my work. As a scholar, I research inequality in organizations and interventions to support marginalized people. As a practitioner, I put those concepts into practice by guiding organizations in creating more equitable and inclusive spaces.

 

I believe this dual approach is critical. Scholarly work provides a theoretical basis for DEI practice by providing empirical insights about what does and does not work to foster equity and inclusion. However, academic literature cannot explain everything encountered in practice. The future of DEI work will not be shaped only by studies and theory—it will be built through real-time engagement, acknowledging and owning failures, and a steadfast commitment to addressing inequality.

Make sure to check out my work and see what others are saying.