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Lead Facilitators
Dr. Ruby Ababio-Fernandez
Author, Educator, and Expert in Systems Change and Leadership Development
Dr. Ruby Ababio-Fernandez is a transformational leader with more than two decades of experience in education, leadership development, and organizational change.
She has served in roles ranging from teacher and school leader to district leader and national consultant. Throughout her career, she has focused on helping leaders create meaningful change by understanding the deeper systems, histories, and patterns that shape organizations and communities.
Drawing from her work and the ideas in her book Shifting Self and System, Dr. Ruby co-developed the Five Pillars of Practice, a framework designed to help leaders navigate complexity, foster collaboration, and create more equitable outcomes.
Her work challenges leaders to move beyond surface-level solutions and address the root causes of the problems they are trying to solve.
Dr. Ruby has led leadership development across education, nonprofit, faith-based, and corporate sectors, including work with organizations such as National University, Wieden+Kennedy, Droga5, Tripadvisor, and others.
At CLI Ignite, Dr. Ruby helps participants strengthen their ability to lead systems change, build alignment, and create lasting impact.
Jason Greeen
President and Co-Founder, Yourway Learning
Jason Green is the bestselling co-author of Blended Learning in Action, President and Co-Founder of Yourway Learning, and Chairperson of the EdSafe AI Industry Council.
His career has been shaped by a commitment to helping schools and organizations reimagine learning and leadership. Inspired by his work in youth development and nonprofit leadership while attending Morehouse College, Jason has spent his career helping leaders navigate change, adopt innovation, and build stronger systems.
He has worked with thousands of schools and districts to design and implement next generation approaches to teaching and learning. Through research collaboration with the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, he has also developed AI-enabled learning tools designed to increase access and improve outcomes.
At CLI Ignite, Jason helps participants think differently about innovation, technology, and the future of leadership.
Dr. Kris DeFilippis
Clinical Professor and Program Director, Educational Leadership, NYU
Kris DeFilippis is an educator, researcher, and organizational leader whose work focuses on equity, organizational change, and strategic improvement.
As Clinical Professor and Program Director for Educational Leadership at New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, he prepares leaders to think critically about systems, culture, and institutional change.
Before joining NYU, Dr. DeFilippis served as an executive director and assistant superintendent in the New York City Department of Education, where he worked with school and district leaders to improve performance, address inequities, and guide organizational transformation.
What makes his perspective particularly valuable is the range of roles he has held throughout his career. He has served as a custodian, teacher’s aide, coach, teacher, department chairperson, and school leader. That experience gives him an unusually broad understanding of how organizations work and what it takes to create meaningful change at every level.
At CLI Ignite, Dr. DeFilippis helps participants strengthen their ability to lead change, improve culture, and create more equitable organizations.
Celeste Thompson
Founder and Chief People Officer, Tribe Human Resources Consulting
Celeste Thompson is a senior human resources leader with more than twenty years of experience helping organizations build stronger cultures, leadership teams, and people strategies.
As Founder and Chief People Officer of Tribe Human Resources Consulting, she works with CEOs, founders, and executive teams to build the systems and culture needed for organizations to grow successfully.
Celeste has served as a senior HR leader for organizations including SoulCycle, The Body Shop North America, Google, and EILEEN FISHER. She understands what it takes to lead people through growth, change, and complexity across both mission-driven and commercial organizations.
Her work is grounded in the belief that organizations are strongest when they intentionally build cultures of trust, inclusion, accountability, and excellence.
At CLI Ignite, Celeste helps participants strengthen their ability to lead people, build culture, and create organizations that can thrive through change.
Michael Ofosu Faakye
Leadership Scholar, Organizational Development Consultant, and Educator
Michael Ofosu-Faakye is a Ghanaian-American scholar and organizational development consultant with more than 25 years of experience spanning education, institutional leadership, and organizational development in Ghana and the United States. His work is anchored in a central question: how do individuals and organizations become what they are, and how can they intentionally evolve toward what they want to become?
He began his career as a teacher with the Ghana Education Service and progressed through academic administration, curriculum development, and institutional leadership. As a professionally trained Organizational Development consultant, he has helped establish and develop more than 20 TVET schools in Ghana and led capacity-building and institutional improvement initiatives across more than 30 institutions, including strategic planning for the Ghana National Theatre and the Ghana Heritage Conservation Trust.
Michael has served as an expert consultant and examiner with Ghana's Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET) and contributed to the development of Ghana's Harmonised Competency-Based Training curriculum, a national framework for strengthening competency-based education across the country's TVET system. His institutional leadership experience includes serving as Registrar at GH Schools and Director of Experiential Learning and Competency-Based Education at Southshore University College.
His doctoral research, Conceptualizing a Leadership Evolution Construct for the Identification of the Cause of Dysfunctional Leadership, examines how leadership personality develops over time. His emerging Leadership Personality Evolution Model explores how visioning, mentorship, emotional intelligence, and decision-making interact to shape functional or dysfunctional leadership outcomes, moving the field beyond what leaders do toward how leaders become who they are. In the United States, he is also researching how competency-based training principles can strengthen outcomes in Special Education, working directly in self-contained classrooms within the Elk Grove Unified School District.
He is the founder of the Kwahu Education Foundation and the Obooba Teachers' Excellence Awards, and creator of Mightier Sword, a thought-leadership platform exploring leadership, purpose, and personal development.
At CLI Ignite, Michael helps participants connect institutional strategy with practical, on-the-ground implementation.
Administrative and Program Support
Kakra B. Asante
Kakra B. Asante
Kakra B. Asante
Project Delivery and Development Professional
Kakra Benefo Asante has more than a decade of experience leading and coordinating complex projects across corporate, nonprofit, and community settings.
She holds an MBA in Project Management and has managed multi-million-dollar initiatives in partnership with governments, development organizations, and community stakeholders.
Her strength lies in helping complex programs move from planning to execution while ensuring that details, logistics, and people remain aligned.
At CLI Ignite, Kakra helps ensure that the participant experience is organized, seamless, and impactful.
Boakye Antwi
Kakra B. Asante
Kakra B. Asante
Program and Administrative Support
Boakye Antwi has spent years teaching creative design to young learners, focused not on helping them pass exams but on building the skills and mindset needed for today's work environment.
As a handball coach, he brings that same philosophy to his team, using the sport to push students toward their best and instill discipline that carries beyond the court. He is also the author of The Basics of Jewellery for Senior High Schools, a textbook reflecting his commitment to giving students practical, hands-on skills.
His strength lies in meticulous planning and a hands-on, technically inclined approach to logistics, making sure things work in practice, not just on paper.
At CLI Ignite, Boakye anchors the details that make each session possible, keeping plans on track and turning ideas into practical, working experiences for participants.