Our Team
SUMONA DE GRAAF
Dr. Sumona De Graaf is an organizational psychologist specializing in motivation and what drives people. She has worked with founder-led businesses, family offices, venture capital and private equity companies, and boards and management teams across the public and private sector. Her work across clients has one commonality:
To unlock the potential of leaders to achieve their goals.
Most recently a public company Chief Human Resources Officer at Republic Services, she helped transform a culture to be more customer and human-centered, while also building durable talent practices that enabled the company to leverage its most critical asset - its people. Prior to this role, Sumona worked for ghSMART, Bloomberg LP, American Express and Goldman Sachs in a variety of leadership positions, always centered on helping human beings, of all backgrounds, to achieve their aspirations.
Sumona is called upon by Boards and C-level executives to help them navigate their most challenging human issues. As a social scientist, she uses data to draw insights, and as a career practitioner, guides her clients to redesign habits, processes and practices to create lasting impact.
Sumona is the founder and CEO of idealis. She spends her time helping clients navigate their most pressing leadership challenges, amplifying the stories of human-centered leaders, and most importantly, creating the conditions for her team of exceptional humans to thrive.
SUZANNE BERRY
Suzanne Berry is an entrepreneur and trained physical therapist. In her role at idealis, she excels in developing precise project plans and ensuring their successful execution for both idealis' internal initiatives and client projects.
Suzanne is a vital team member who truly believes we are all better when we work together.
KENDALL GREGORY
Kendall brings her passion for health and wellness to idealis, supporting companies, leaders, and employees as they rediscover and nurture their human-center. Kendall is committed to helping and inspiring current and future leaders as they navigate life in and outside of work.
At idealis, Kendall helps to make knowledge, resources, and content available to our community of human-centered leaders through marketing and promotional efforts. She is also critical to content planning, creation, and design of materials for our clients and solutions. Kendall supports a number of client projects, always bringing creativity and a human touch to the client experiences created by the team.
A recent graduate, Kendall holds a BA in Psychology and aspires to become an organizational psychologist in the future.
ALISSA MANOLESCU
As an organizational psychologist and executive coach with nearly two decades of experience, Alissa has had extraordinary human impact in both corporate and client-facing talent spaces. She advises clients on human-centered strategies that transform leaders and drive organizational impact and culture change.
At idealis, Alissa oversees the design and deployment of leadership solutions, helping leaders to become the best versions of themselves while lifting others among them.
ABBEY SALVAS
Dr. Abbey Salvas is an industrial-organizational psychologist and has been driven throughout their educational and professional career by the mission of making workplaces better for everyone. They have research and practical experience determining which aspects of work best create the conditions where individuals, regardless of who they are, can bring their most authentic selves to work and thrive.
At idealis, Abbey serves as a research lead and data expert, providing analytical support to the team to help answer our clients' most nuanced and challenging questions using best-in-class data tools and solutions. They apply human insight to hard data, answering the critical question of how to create human-centered environments that benefit everyone.
FRANCESCA VANERI
With a strong commitment to collaboration and content excellence, Francesca is dedicated to helping leaders articulate their vision and values through writing and inspire others to lead with authenticity and empathy.
At idealis, Francesca plays a role in content creation, research, and strategic communication, contributing to the firm’s mission of fostering human-centered leadership. She is deeply involved in the development of an upcoming book project at idealis that explores the impact of human-centered leadership at work, in the workplace and in the world. Francesca also supports idealis client projects by providing thorough research and analysis, contributing insights that inform both client work and the firm’s broader strategies.
Francesca holds a BA in International Development Studies and English from the University of California, Los Angeles. She currently resides in Amsterdam.
ALLISON WILLIAMS
An accomplished senior leader in higher education with 20+ years of strategic leadership and management responsibilities, Allison has implemented cutting edge individual and organizational leadership development initiatives with boards, executive leaders and complex organizations. She has built dynamic tools designed to ignite the leadership potential of individuals and teams to drive positive change at every level. She also teaches organizational leadership development at the graduate level and is a certified facilitator and trainer through the International Institute of Restorative Practices.
At idealis, Allison serves as our Chief Learning Officer and is guiding our growing higher education practice focused on developing current and future leaders of our world. With a deep passion for guiding others to repair culture, align vision and values, and bring forth the best in people, she couples theory and practice to offer new ways of thinking about today's most complex leadership challenges.
Our Board
Making us better.
Our advisory board is comprised of exceptional human beings who have committed their lives and careers to helping others unlock their fullest potential at work and in life. They ignite inspiration in us to keep going when it is hard.
As entrepreneurs, Board Members, C-level executives, and industry experts, they enhance our solutions to be relevant and necessary to the realities of today's world of work. They are parents, caregivers, community members, and diverse on a multitude of dimensions - representing the range of humanity who we work with and support.
They individually and collectively shed light on our opportunities and offer support when and where we need it most.
We are grateful to have their counsel and partnership as we grow our firm.
Our Board Members include:
- Bill Anderson
- Dr. Leah Brown
- Michael Psathas
- Sujata Mitra
- Diane Neal
- Gaston Vaneri
- Melinda Wolfe
- David Landman
Our Pledge
Over twenty years of applied research has revealed something to us about human-centered leadership:
What we learn, experience, and endure in our childhood shapes our human core.
That's why, from day one of our existence, we made a commitment to give back a percentage of every dollar we earn to helping children - the future leaders of our world.
We are proud to partner with The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement in their mission to develop character traits in children that will enable a future that is more human-centered for all.
By bringing more humanity to work and to how we work, and teaching our children to love themselves and one another, we believe we can prevent violence and enable well-being for future generations of leaders.
Want to join us?
We are always looking to meet incredible humans who are advocates for amplifying humanity at work. If you are interested in joining our global team, working with our company as a partner, or being part of our community, let us know. We'd love to hear from you.