Raven Woods
Founder & CEO
Raven Woods is a mom, dynamic leader, and dedicated visionary committed to bringing racial and ethnic diversity to leadership positions across the country. She brings in-depth experience in scaling startups with a specific focus on sustainable growth, performance management, and professional and organizational development.
Raven has an extensive track record of researching, recruiting, and supporting leaders from traditionally underrepresented populations. As a Human Resources (HR) and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) recruitment enthusiast, she has experience with small and large scale organizations, and reach into both national and international markets. Raven has worked with organizations across various public and private sectors, including K-12, nonprofits, and higher education.
Prior to founding Leveled Talent, Raven worked at The Broad Center overseeing the Broad Academy Recruitment and Selection team. She developed and executed the strategy, outreach, and recruitment process for The Academy's national fellowship program for system leaders, CEO’s and senior-level executives committed to driving diversity, equity and excellence in public K-12 education. Additionally she served as the Director of Recruitment and Retention at iMentor, where she recruited talented professionals, expanding the organizational impact to serve up to 20,000 students in big school districts across the country.
Tandia Elijio
Search & Talent Lead
Tandia Elijio is a mission-driven strategist whose approach to recruitment and selection is grounded in a deep belief in the power of diverse and inclusive leadership. A creative problem-solver, Tandia is adept at addressing barriers to meeting goals around talent acquisition, organizational culture, and leadership development head-on through transparency, collaboration, and accountability. She has significant experience utilizing project and system management to effectively lead cross-functional initiatives across all management levels of the organization.
Her experience ranges from working with leaders in K-12, education nonprofits, and higher education. In addition to serving in a consultant role at Leveled Talent, Tandia currently works as the Assistant Director for the Broad Center on their Launch team. In this role, she develops and implements career supports for internal staff, program participants, and an alumni network of over 850+ leaders. Before taking on this role, she was directly responsible for sourcing, recruiting, and assessing a diverse pipeline of leaders to participate in a national fellowship program for senior-level executives who are driving excellence and equity in urban school systems.
She has served as the Assistant Director of Programs for the Riordan Programs at UCLA Anderson School of Management, where she designed college preparatory curriculum and coordinated mentorship opportunities to expose first-generation college students to careers in business.
Sheena McCullers
Search & Talent Lead
Sheena is an energetic leader and super-connector who has spent her career hiring, coaching, and advocating for BIPOC professionals. She brings expertise in talent recruitment, relationship management, program development, and implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Sheena believes that magic happens when teams appreciate and leverage diverse perspectives and inclusive strategies to drive change.
Sheena uses her calm-in-the-storm approach in fast-paced and rapidly changing environments to clarify goals, set strategy, and empower teams to succeed. She has experience working in higher education, nonprofit organizations, and small for-profit women and minority-owned businesses.
In addition to serving in a consultant role at Leveled Talent, Sheena currently oversees a scholarship program at NYU Stern that offers professional development, mentoring, and leadership to first-generation program participants. Prior to this role, Sheena served as the Associate Director of Talent and Recruitment at iMentor where she simultaneously managed up to 10 searches across three US regions. Sheena’s goal is to build community, create spaces of belonging, and craft opportunities that increase the visibility and recognition of women and people of color.
Ryana Fisher
Special Projects Lead
Ryana’s relational approach to leadership values inclusion, empowerment, purposefulness, a deep commitment to ethics, and process orientation. With over 15 years of experience in higher education, including work with nonprofits and for-profit institutions, as well as the K-12 system; educational administration and leadership is where she thrives and works to improve systems and processes that create barriers for underserved students. Ryana comes with extensive experience in outreach, programmatic development and event planning, recruiting, hiring, and training of student leaders, financial and academic advising for students, as well as business operations in the for-profit sector.
In addition to serving in a consultant role at Leveled Talent, Ryana’s currently a tenured track faculty at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. As a first-generation college student, she understands the importance of leaders designing and implementing effective curricula, out-of-class learning experiences, and student support services that are equitable and can support the diverse body of students within the community college system. In addition, she is also the Faculty Tri-Chair for the Student Success and Equity Committee at her college.
In her spare time, Ryana can be found keeping busy with her husband and four children, attending sporting events, enjoying hikes and cooking and baking in the kitchen.