People are complicated.
That’s what makes leadership interesting.
Understanding culture and developing leaders go hand in hand.
Tara is an organizational anthropologist who brings the rigor of social science to leadership development. Leaders are constantly navigating dynamics no org chart captures: unwritten rules, informal hierarchies, and cultural patterns that shape how decisions actually get made. Tara helps organizations develop leaders who can read those dynamics, build influence, and lead with clarity and confidence.
Research rigor, real-world experience.
Tara earned her PhD in anthropology at the University of Chicago and taught there before putting her training to work in the business world. She led research teams at USAA and Meta and co-founded RedSquared Consulting, helping Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and city governments see their work through their customers’ eyes. Along the way, she learned what works when real people meet real organizations, and what doesn’t. Today, she brings all of it to the leadership programs she designs for organizations across the country.
Tara loves to teach. Most recently, as a Senior Lecturer at UT San Antonio, she designed and taught courses on leadership, design thinking, the future of work, and the anthropology of food (yum!).
She speaks and writes widely on the cultural barriers facing women in leadership, including a TEDx talk and pieces for the Chicago Tribune, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and Inside Higher Ed.
A passionate advocate for women in leadership
The leadership gap isn't a pipeline problem. It's a culture problem.
Tara found her voice in the conversation about women, work, and leadership the same way she finds clarity in every organizational challenge — through the lens of anthropology. That perspective reveals something most workplace diversity initiatives miss: the barriers holding women back aren't just structural. They're cultural. They're rooted in assumptions about work, productivity, and leadership that are so deeply embedded in American workplace culture that most organizations don't even know they're there.
Supporting the needs of working families isn't just the right thing to do. It's a strategic imperative for any organization serious about building a diverse, innovative, and adaptable workforce.
Tara brings this cultural analysis directly into her coaching and training work, helping organizations identify the hidden assumptions shaping their leadership culture — and helping women leaders navigate, challenge, and change them. It's not enough to tell women to lean in. The culture has to meet them there.
