The Facilitators
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COMMUNICATION EXPERTS
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Ernest Anemone, Esq.
Lead Facilitator
Ernest Anemone is a professional facilitator and executive coach with over 15 years of experience working with audiences large and small. Using his diverse background as an attorney, filmmaker, and actor, he helps individuals and teams improve communication and navigate challenges with confidence and joy.
Ernest began his career as a trial attorney, where he honed his skills in strategic thinking, problem-solving, and storytelling. After training as an actor, he began using elements of theater education to help organizations build high-performing teams and create cultures of inclusivity. He has since worked with doctors, scientists, engineers, bankers, lawyers, and Fortune 100 executives from across the world. He has also acted as a story consultant on major motion pictures and written award-winning stories of his own.
Ernest has a deep understanding of the challenges that leaders face in today’s fast-moving world and is able to provide both valuable insights and practical guidance for managing any situation. He has a reputation for getting results using both empathy and humor, and his clients consistently report measurable improvements in performance management and beyond.
Tali de Assis
Lead Facilitator
Tali de Assis is a Training Facilitator and Coach with a passion for continual development and learning. Her background as a people manager and project manager, and having earned a Green Belt in Lean Management, gives her a particular insight into the experience of those she works with. Her experience as an actor helps bring engagement and humor into her work with participants, bringing content to life.
Tali has worked with a range of organizations from non-profit to Fortune 500 companies, with clients across a wide variety of sectors including law, pharma, tech, finance, government agencies, and aerospace.
Tali excels in working with small group trainings, large scale seminars, and one-on-one coaching. Whether working with entry-level individual contributors or senior leadership, she emphasizes the value of individual approaches and experiences, engaging with participants with transparency and humor.
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Joti Patel
Lead Facilitator
Joti is a British psychology post-graduate and Executive Coach with a multi-faceted
career in business and the arts as an Actress, Presenter/Host and Voice Artist. Joti’s strength is connecting to diverse audiences through a lens of cultural nuance to create authenticity in leadership. Joti’s solid Learning & Development background serve as an ideal foundation for providing high value communication for global organizations as a Facilitator, Coach, Trainer, Presenter and Corporate Role Player in forum theatre, 1:1 and group workshops, training films, live events, and conferences.
Drawing on her expertise as a Speech Coach and professional Match Maker, Joti also coaches in overcoming anxiety, social skills and the art of conversation. Through
personalized coaching, content and care, clients can expect an experience aligned to a high-performance culture and business strategy for growth and transformation.
Joti has acted in theater, TV and some independent films before moving to the US with recent credits on Uncoupled and an upcoming role for NBC.
Andrew Fallaize
Lead Facilitator
Andrew is a British, NYC based actor, voice over artist, facilitator and communications coach. He read chemistry at Cambridge University and then completed a diploma in Management Sciences at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. He then worked in investment banking as a telecoms equity analyst for Deutsche Bank. His transition into theatre came 2 years later when he went to Drama Studio London and completed a post graduate course in acting. He has been a working actor ever since.
In 2005 he began working in the corporate sector and where he combined his corporate and analytical background with the skills of the actor and theatre and applied them to skills training in the business world. Since then he has worked globally (based out of London and New York) with the whole gamut of sectors both public and private. He has worked with people at all levels of organisations, from people starting their careers to board level executives. He has helped design, created and deliver a wide range of programmes, involving forum theatre, facilitating workshops, role-playing, individual and group coaching and giving feedback. Specialist areas include impact and presentation, negotiation, performance management, leadership and creativity and holding difficult conversations.
His theatrical work has involved working with many of the leading companies in the UK and US including the National Theatre, RSC, Sheffield Crucible, as well as performing Off-Broadway and Regionally in the US he has also made frequent appearances in drama and readings on BBC Radio and audiobooks and voice-over. His most recent TV appearance was on GOTHAM
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Kathy-Ann Hart
Lead Facilitator
Kathy-Ann is part of a multi-ethnic, multinational, deeply layered, and complicated family. Since she was a small child she’s understood and been working on bridging cross-cultural divides.
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She was once a consultant/facilitator working for Verna Myers (who is now the VP of Inclusion Strategy at Netflix) and presently she’s an actor / improvisor / facilitator with Power Play Interactive Development.
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With Power Play, she goes to colleges and universities around the world (sometimes in person or via Zoom) acting out and improvising ‘trigger’ scenarios that encapsulate all areas of diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Mairi McHaffie
Lead Facilitator
Working with emerging and senior leaders for over 15 years, Mairi designs and delivers bespoke people development and talent initiatives globally across the sectors.
She is founder of the Women into Leadership programme for the UK Houses of Parliament and specialises in Behavioural Change and Inclusion and Equality career development initiatives across the diversity strands.
Building on her classroom and conference work, she has delivered a multitude of virtual, global, interactive learning events, enabling cross cultural clients to manage change, support their people and customers and effectively evolve behaviours.
Expertise includes: Influencing Skills, Presenting with Impact, Unconscious Bias Awareness, Respectful Behaviours, Building Effectives Teams, Managing Change, Managing Crucial Conversations, Supporting Colleague Mental Health, Physical Intelligence and Coaching Skills for Managers amongst others.
Mairi uses her deep understanding of social psychology and skills-practise to enable behavioural change in individuals to influence successful organisational culture.
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Mairi trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has had a successful career as a BBC TV Presenter and theatre, TV and film actor.
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She has been a regular judge for the WeAreTheCity.Com Rising Stars Awards for pipeline female talent across industries and a judge on the BBC Apprentice Finals. She is the mother of two young boys and occasionally dabbles in stand-up comedy.
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The Counselors
02
MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
01
Ajita Shah, MA, LPC, NCC, ACS
Founder/Program Director at Innerspace Counseling, LLC
Ajita has been dedicated to creating and enhancing mental health and counseling programs across New Jersey for the last two decades. Her commitment to ensuring high quality care for all led her to opening Innerspace Counseling in 2014. Her goal in opening Innerspace was to create an environment that allowed clients to feel safe, empowered and heard; as well as to break the stigma regarding mental health and provide an increased awareness of both mental health and the supports available within the community.
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As a Licensed Professional Counselor, she has treated hundreds of clients in a variety of settings (inpatient and outpatient) from ages 8 years all the way thru adult hood and across the life span utilizing a behavioral and trauma informed approach. As an Approved Clinical Supervisor, Ajita believes that education, training, and proper supervision are key to ensuring that clients receive the highest quality of care. In addition to her responsibilities overseeing the programs she also conducts training and education for mental health and school personnel.
As a female and a person of color, Ajita has experienced firsthand the challenges that many face in their ability to acknowledge their mental health and gain access to the appropriate treatment and supports within the current mental health system. To that end, Ajita has created a strong DBT-based curriculum for each of the Innerspace Counseling programs. This curriculum, along with the system’s-based approach, ensures that clients are learning concrete and usable skills that can be translated into any area of a client’s life regardless of who they are and where they come from.
Recent Awards:
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Innerspace Counseling, LLC:
2016, 2017, and 2020 Best of Old Bridge Award in Mental Health Counseling
Personal Award:
2017 Women of Distinction Award Recipient
Melissa Maranzano, MA
Director of Program Development & Quality Assurance at Innerspace Counseling, LLC
Melissa has 20 years of experience in nonprofit and mental health. Her work and life experiences have led to a commitment to building strong community relationships to promote positive health and well-being and improving outcomes for children and families affected by abuse, mental health, and poverty.
Melissa utilizes her experience to train both professionals and community members. Her expertise in program planning, quality assurance and evaluation assist in the improvement of systems and programs that benefit clients and the community. She believes in arming parents, youth, teachers, and community members with resources and knowledge to better support themselves and one another. Utilizing a trauma informed lens to educate, she works to create protective factors in our homes, schools, and neighborhoods.
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