The Growth Constraint No One Is Measuring: A New Playbook for Inclusive Leadership

Join Kelly George and Carrie Torres for a practical workshop exploring how unclear expectations, unwritten rules, and instinctive judgments quietly constrain growth — a cost most leaders aren't measuring, because it never shows up on a dashboard. Fixing it is now core to how senior leaders operate, not optional. As AI and distributed teams strip away the tacit context work used to run on, and as neuroinclusion and universal design become defining features of the future of work, building for diverse minds from the start — not accommodating them after the fact — is becoming a core leadership skill.

Through coaching case studies with executives and emerging leaders, participants will see how neurodivergent talent gets overlooked and what to do about it, alongside the decisions that shape who advances.

Drawing from her book, The Audacity of Becoming: A 30-Day Practice in Purpose, Power, and Action, Carrie explores how purpose, boundaries, and the willingness to receive support help employees show up fully.

Participants will gain:

• Clarity as a daily practice: Share priorities and context to reduce unnecessary decoding.

• Adaptability for changing talent and technology: Make knowledge accessible across diverse, AI-enabled teams.
• A design mindset for neuroinclusion: Apply universal design so systems work for diverse minds from the start.
• A pause before judgment: Examine instinctive reactions to make fairer promotion and sponsorship decisions.

Meet the Facilitators: 

Kelly George (she/ella, they/elle) was born and raised in Brooklyn and continues to call Brooklyn — Lenape land — home. Kelly is an international speaker, workshop facilitator, leadership coach, neurodiversity specialist, and author of Her Stories, Our History. Kelly identifies as neurodivergent, queer, and Black-Latinx, born to immigrant parents from Panama and Trinidad. Kelly's work focuses on anti-oppressive approaches to mental health, psychological safety in the workplace, and neuroinclusion.

Kelly is the founder of Real Resilience Coaching & Consulting, which partners with leaders, organizations, and communities to design psychologically safer work environments built with the neurodivergent community in mind. As a leadership coach, Kelly works with individuals to help them recognize and step into their full professional potential, with a particular focus on supporting neurodivergent people of color in moving from isolation and chronic stress toward confidence, advancement, and sustainable well-being.

Kelly also serves as a leading member of Fireweed Collective, a grassroots mental health nonprofit led entirely by BIPOC, neurodivergent, queer, and disabled community members — including organizers, artists, facilitators, cultural workers, and educators — working at the intersection of disability justice and healing justice.

Carrie Torres is an award-winning public-sector executive, author, TEDx speaker, and sought-after voice on leadership, economic development, and institutional transformation. She currently serves as Chief Diversity Officer for a New York State public authority, where she advances equity in capital deployment and helps shape more inclusive systems, opportunities, and outcomes.

Carrie is the author of The Audacity of Becoming: A 30-Day Practice in Purpose, Power, and Action and delivered the TEDx talk “The Audacity of Becoming: How Leaders Are Made.” Drawing on a career spanning government, economic development, affordable housing, higher education, and community impact, she challenges leaders to stop shrinking, trust their voice, and lead from purpose rather than permission while creating workplaces where others are empowered to bravely do the same.

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