About us
Consultants who share your commitment to justice, integrity, and a better world for all. Meet the principals and associate consultants. Contact us to schedule a conversation.
Ora Grodsky
Ora Grodsky is co-founder of Just Works Consulting, with over 25 years of experience as an organizational development consultant supporting organizations working for social justice. Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to racial, social, environmental, and economic justice, as well as individual and collective healing.
Ora’s early work as an acupuncturist, Academic Dean at the New England School of Acupuncture, and co-founder of the AIDS Care Project taught her that organizations, like the human body, are living systems with interdependent parts that require care and attention.
These experiences led her to a guiding question that still shapes her work: How can we create a more just and sustainable world while working in ways that nourish and sustain the lives and spirits of those doing the work? That question brought her to the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has grounded her work as an organizational development consultant ever since.
She is the author of Justice, Love, and Organizational Healing: A Guide to Transformational Consulting, a practical and heartfelt resource for consultants, facilitators, and leaders. Drawing on her decades of experience, the book offers stories, frameworks, and tools for doing the inner and systemic work needed to create more just, effective, and humane organizations.
Ora lives in the Boston area with her husband Jonathan Rosenthal. Â
Contact Ora at info@just-works.com
Jonathan Rosenthal
Jonathan Rosenthal has spent over 30 years working to convert the destructive aspects of business into a positive force for people and the environment.
THE EARLY DAYS OF FAIR TRADE
In 1985, Jonathan Rosenthal, Rink Dickinson and Michael Rozyne crafted a vision for a business that would reconnect people to their food in an ethical and just manner. That vision evolved into Equal Exchange, the pioneering worker-owned fair trade company that he cofounded and led. He collaborated again with Rink and Michael and AgroFair in 2005 to cofound and lead the first US fair trade fruit company, Oké USA. Jonathan now consults on fair trade issues.
FROM CONCEPTS TO REALITY
Jonathan frequently works with visionaries and leaders who are at an early stage in project or organizational development, helping them to translate concepts into full-fledged operations. He acts as a listener, supporter, collaborator or innovator, according to the needs of the client. His services include business plans, concept papers and branding projects for startups and expansions, creative capital-raising strategies, research and feasibilities studies, and guidance for new and existing cooperatives.
CONTRIBUTING TO THE MOVEMENT
The author of numerous articles and a book contributor, Jonathan has been a frequent speaker at colleges and fair trade events. He is on the board of directors of the Coffee Trust. In addition, he’s an emeritus board member of Root Capital.
Jonathan is married to Ora Grodsky. They live near Boston, Massachusetts (USA) and have two daughters.
Associates
We are so grateful to collaborate with exceptional consultants who join us on various projects. These trusted partners bring invaluable wisdom, extensive experience, and genuine care to every aspect of the work, elevating our impact and outcomes.
Joyce Shabazz
Joyce Shabazz is an accomplished social justice entrepreneur, mediator, facilitator, educator, and coach with over five decades of experience. Ms. Shabazz is the founder of Evolution LLC a consulting practice that works with individuals and organizations addressing challenges to the relational dynamics in organizations and leadership. She works to reframe relationships, based in humanity and empathy. Through her consulting practice, Ms. Shabazz has provided coaching and strategic planning support to organizations and community/business leaders in the United States, Canada, England. Switzerland, South Africa and Brazil. Ms. Shabazz’s work on racialization is acclaimed for its inclusion of all identity groups.
She credits culture, life experience and ancestral connection as key to the foundation of her knowledge. As an Adjunct Professor at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts she has taught coursework for the Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a Specialty in Conflict Resolution. She believes in the partnership of conflict resolution principals and systems constructs analysis as critical to creating and sustaining human value as a life practice.
One of the streams of Joyce’s approach focuses on the impact of affinity group relationships as critical to coalition building. She has designed and presented leadership development institutes for leaders for more than 3 decades.
As a keynote speaker, she has shared her insights with educational conferences, colleges and institutions. In partnership with a municipal department for Human Services she supports the elimination of the barriers of racialization to successful leadership and programs.
Joyce is a spouse, mother and grandmother, which is where her heart gets its deep passion for her work for social justice.
Melinda Barbosa
Melinda Barbosa is a facilitator and trainer for mission-driven organizations.
She is a storyteller and facilitator who believes our narratives are the pathway to healing and social change. She carries her belief that each individual is capable of achieving the impossible into her coaching and facilitation practice.
In 2009, she began her career as a youth worker, while also building an international online following presence as a body-positive lifestyle blogger and consultant to plus-size fashion brands.
Using her story as a catalyst, she wrote stories to empower women to apply consumer pressure to the clothing industry to be more size-inclusive.
She brings ten years of experience managing and developing program cultures that encourage youth-owned ideas and projects supported by staff members trained to nurture growth and who encourage youth to imagine inconceivable possibilities for themselves. Melinda regularly presents her work in curiosity and courage, positive youth development, and professional development of staff at local and national conferences.
Melinda brings her Youth Worker approach to help clients develop pathways through self-discovery and a strengths-based approach to solve their problems and confront their challenges with confidence and a sense of power. Melinda attended Bryn Mawr College and was a Posse Foundation Scholar where she committed herself to equity and transforming systems.
Daniel Michaud Weinstock
Daniel (he • him) Michaud Weinstock is the founder and principal of dmw360 consulting.
He is an organizational development consultant, facilitator, and coach deeply committed to racial justice and liberation. He partners with mission-driven organizations and systems to enhance leadership and advance clarity, alignment, and impact.
He has over 30 years of experience working in and with community partners, staff, managers, boards, funders, and other key constituents across the social sector. He started his professional career in youth development and education, and has developed and managed programs, initiatives, and networks, and served in board leadership positions with various nonprofit organizations.
He received his MBA from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He is a proud spouse and father of two teenagers, and can often be found on adventures with their dog or in the kitchen cooking with and for family and community.
Jeremy Phillips
Jeremy is an organizational change and racial equity consultant who works in partnership with his clients to bring the best of themselves and their work forward to advance their vital social justice missions. Jeremy is a cis-gendered white male, who brings a focus on racial justice and small “d” democratic commitment to his organizational change work.
Jeremy has been a facilitator and trainer for social change organizations locally, nationally, and internationally for over twenty years. Jeremy
He has over 30 years of experience working in and with community partners, staff, managers, boards, funders, and other key constituents across the social sector. He started his professional career in youth development and education, and has developed and managed programs, initiatives, and networks, and served in board leadership positions with various nonprofit organizations.
is a co-founder and co-leader of the Humble Leadership Project for White men in leadership looking to be more just and to move in equity; and Pathways to Transformational Consulting, a project that seeks to support leaders of color to engage in organizational development consulting in justice and movement building spaces. He is on the board of the Haymarket People’s Fund and th Neighborhood School, J.P. Jeremy came to organizational change consulting after 15 years working with young people in a variety of settings: from schools, to alternative placements, to out-of-school time.
