Faith Addicott

I started out in public service and have a master's in Public Administration and Nonprofit Management. I had a professor in my Master's in Public Administration program who was really into organization development, really intentional design, and social process, and she made me read a lot of books. When I started working at the state level, I was just really aware in a different way of how much talent, passion, and energy was being wasted because of some of the processes and hierarchical systems that are in place that really keep most people dormant from being able to contribute all of the talents and skills they have. I worked in state government for just like a year, and I was like, this is horrible.

I need to do something different. So I went back and got a second master's degree in organization development and change management, and then I immediately started consulting for government. I'm doing the government work that I wanted to do, but I'm doing it from a perspective where it's easier to be heard. As a woman, it's very hard to be heard from the inside, and part of the reason that consulting is a good path for particularly women with experience is that we've been hired to be there. When we get into the room, we're there on purpose, and it's a lot easier to communicate ideas, to be seen and heard and respected in a way that's just really difficult internally sometimes, particularly in government systems which do tend to have more of that kind of staid, bureaucratic lens.