Antonio A. Saunders

Entrepreneur, Educator, & Speaker

Antonio never asked for permission to change inequitable systems. As a teenager, he became financially independent and the patriarch of his family, navigating through racial systems in Birmingham, Alabama.

For more than 15 years, Antonio has advised organizations across multiple sectors on race and equity to drive systems change. He works with chief executives and leadership teams in education, tech, and healthcare to apply a DEI lens on a range of issues that include strategy, innovation, and change management.

With deep expertise leading complex systems during uncertain or pivotal moments, Antonio developed an equity change process that has transformed organizational operating models, services, and performance by centering on the experiences of the global majority. Amid the pandemic, Antonio leveraged his insights on generational trends and the future of work to help organizations across diverse industries and geographies digitize their user experience by scaling new technology and platforms for thousands of educators and front-line workers.

Antonio hosts The Promised Land podcast and uses storyteller traditions passed down from his grandmother to galvanize audiences on topics that expand our collective consciousness and imagination. Antonio plans to use the IFE Fellowship to launch an organization that curates reclamation journeys for Black people to experience their full humanity, freedom, and dreams.

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