Evolved Employer is a workplace consulting firm dedicated to improving workplace cultures and systems by working with leaders and change agents directly.We publish quarterly research around workplace topics and provide thought leadership via our homepage blog.

Ways to work with us:

• Use our consulting services for culture change management/ culture audits, talent and/or diversity strategy formation and support, employee performance/engagement issues
• Hire us to train your leaders, managers and change agents
• Thought leadership: sponsor our research so that we can continue to benchmark specific industry topics, e.g. how the L in LGBT feel about their workplace

Our team:

Nicki Gilmour, CEO

A Belfast native, Nicki Gilmour is a dedicated workplace game changer with over a decade of experience in the media industry.

One of the original team assembled by Angus MacDonald at the Financial News in London, Nicki relocated to the US in 2004 to run The Financial News Group’s online career sites (efinancialcareers.com and jobsinthemoney.com) as Managing Director. As a young female  Managing Director and  board member, she quickly saw some of the specific challenges that gender can bring, and began diversity advocacy work in 2005 by publishing a diversity careers guidebook.

Nicki recognized that companies spend a great deal of time and money trying to recruit diverse talent but saw that women and other diverse groups, once hired were not progressing at an equal pace up the ranks. After the successful sale of The Financial News Group, she founded Evolved People Media LLC in July 2007 with the flagship website theglasshammer.com to inform, inspire and empower women in the financial and professional services industry and in tandem launched evolvedemployer.com to work with business leaders and HR champions to create progressive workplaces with better talent management. Evolved Employer aims to help companies to understand the covert dynamics and micro-inequities at play that impede the effectiveness of talent strategies and reduce employee performance and engagement.

Nicki resides in NYC, Vermont and Spain and has an undergraduate business degree from the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK and a graduate degree in business from Universidad de Murcia in Spain which she completed in Spanish. Recently, in May 2012, Nicki earned her formal stripes as an industrial psychologist and workplace consultant with an Executive Masters in Change Leadership at Columbia University in New York.

Melissa Anderson, Editor and Head of Research

Melissa Anderson is interested in how engaging in networked communities can foster workplace equality, good corporate citizenship, and individual workplace satisfaction, all of which improve a company’s bottom line.

Melissa earned her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary and worked as a copywriter for several years before moving to New York City. Having completed her Master’s degree at NYU in Media, Culture, and Communication with a focus on technology and society, Melissa currently lives in Brooklyn. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, the outdoors, and learning new trivia.

Our Associates: 

Mekayla Castro, Intercultural Competence Special Projects Advisor

Mekayla leads our executive coaching work and small group learning around “Managing Diversity as a Leadership Competence”.

Mekayla is an Advanced Doctoral Student in Social-Organizational Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research and practice interest is multicultural organizational development, which uses applied behavioral science and social justice principles to increase organizational effectiveness through planned intervention at multiple organizational levels. She has worked with individuals through coaching, groups and teams through facilitation and training, and organizations through survey and action research to foster engagement and inclusion for diverse populations. Additionally, she is on the staff as a Graduate Assistant for the Executive Master’s Program in Change Leadership for the Office of Executive Education Programs in Consultation & Change at Teachers College, Columbia University, for which she has managed assessment data, facilitated small and large group discussions, and developed coaching and diversity curricula. Her curriculum development skills extend to her role as an Adjunct Professor at Teachers College, where she has co-taught a Master’s level course in Executive Coaching. Previous roles include Education Coordinator at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR), and Research Associate at Catalyst Inc., the leading nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to build inclusive work environments. In 2008, she received the Teachers College Fellowship for Teaching and Diversity to design and lead a conflict resolution curriculum audit to enhance diversity and multicultural course content and processes.

Mekayla received her M.A. in Organizational Psychology at Teachers College and B.A. in Psychology from Rhode Island College, in her hometown of Providence.

Our Strategic Partners:

Carol Frohlinger, Esq., Managing Director, Negotiating Women Inc.

Carol Frohlinger is a co-author of Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, September 2010) with Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams, and also co-author of Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It with Dr. Lois Frankel.

Carol has been a strategic partner of Evolved Employer and The Glass Hammer since 2008 and excels in creating and facilitating content driven women’s networks. She is also available as a speaker and gives talks to groups and organizations who understand that promoting and retaining talented women is a “win-win-win” — good for women, good for men, and good for the bottom line.

Carol is a former sales executive, commercial banker, and practicing attorney. She holds a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and is admitted to practice before New York State courts and the U.S. District Court for the Second Circuit. Among many other volunteer activities, Carol served on the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force for the Future of the Legal Profession and as chair of the Best Practices Sub-committee of its Committee on Women in the Profession.

Kathleen McQuiggan, President and founder of Catalina Leadership

Catalina Leadership provides strategic consulting to financial services firms looking to advance women employees by teaching communication and networking skills to enhance business relationships. Kathleen also develops focused sales strategies for firms looking to market to affluent high net worth women. She was formerly a vice-president at Goldman Sachs where she served as an Institutional Equity Franchise salesperson in Chicago and Boston. She has 22 years of experience with major investing firms, concentrating in sales.

Kathleen is a long-time activist for women’s issues in business, and is currently Co-President of the Boston Chapter of 85Broads; a supporter and spokesperson for the National Council for Research on Women, Women in Fund Management report; a member of Women Fighting Hunger GBFB Campaign; a member of the Boston Women’s Entrepreneurial Council; and is a member of the Simmons SOM Women’s Initiative Forum.

Kathleen has a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Towson University. Kathleen currently serves on the YWCA Boston Board of Directors, on the advisory Board of Invest In Girls (IIG,) and is an active supporter of the Dartmouth Natural Resource Trust. Kathleen resides in Boston and Dartmouth, MA.

Schéhérazade Zekkar, Managing Director, Al Wakil Global Talent Development (based in France)

Schéhérazade’s background includes 12 years of strategic and hands-on HR Management in 11 countries throughout Europe, the US, Middle East and APAC. As HR Director for global organizations, she gained valuable experience in global communication and change processes, strategic planning, managing and motivating people across borders and cultures. Her experience and international background provided a sound basis for her to move into the area of organizational transformation and integration of diversity in the workplace, with an emphasis on developing the capabilities & talents of individuals, teams and organisations by transforming mindsets and unlocking potential, thus allowing individuals, teams and organizations to be ahead of the game in global, multicultural and ever-evolving environments.

Schéhérazade has a double UK & French degree in Business Administration from Nottingham Trent University and Pierre Mendès France Université in Grenoble, a Masters in Personnel Development from Westminster University in London and an Executive Masters in Coaching and Change Management from Université Paul Cézanne, in Aix-en-Provence, France. She is also qualified to administer the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. She is fluent in French, English and Spanish and has a good working knowledge of Arabic.

Other information about Evolved Employer

Evolved Employer and theglasshammer.com are both registered trademarked brands and are part of Evolved People Media LLC which is a woman and LGBT owned business. We work with multicultural partners to bring a “think global, act local” perspective to our work. We live our values.