EQT Team Members
Annette Miller
Founder + CEO | For the People Engineer + Consultant on Equity, Engagement, Policy, Planning, Community & Wellbeing
Annette Miller has lived in Madison since 1989 with her life partner, Mike, and three children they have raised together. Annette’s career spans decision-making roles across state and local government and as an executive in the private sector. She brings 25 years of strong professional policy and analytic skills, and a wide network of community, government, and business relationships, especially with Dane County’s racial, ethnic, cultural and intersectionality identity of diverse populations.
Annette launched EQT By Design to focus on developing diverse, inclusive, sustainable strategies in public engagement, equitable community development projects, and organizational cultural change management.
As CEO and founder of EQT By Design, Miller’s passion is ensuring that structural equity, inclusion and community voice and engagement are front and center in the work. She is a self proclaimed and admitted equity, people + policy engineer at heart! Who is committed to the deconstruction of processes and practices that create inequity within organizations and systems. She seeks to listen, learn, and engage diverse voices within and outside of systems and structures in order to co-create, build, bridge and sustain economic, financial and social wellbeing for those most historical and presently marginalized. With a focus and intention of co-creation, power sharing, and people centered voicing and design.
Annette obtained her Bachelor of Arts from UW- Madison in 1992, and her Masters in Social Innovation & Sustainability Leadership in 2017 from Edgewood College. She is also certified in International Association of Public Participation (IA P2) and a certificate by Anima Deep Diversity.
Mathias Lemos
Community Engagement + Project Management Consultant
Mathias Lemos Castillo is originally from the country of Uruguay and has resided in Madison, Wisconsin for the majority of his life. A longtime community member, Mathias has worked with numerous organizations alongside the Local Voices Network as their Partner Engagement Manager & Spanish Conversation Lead to amplify marginalized voices on a national level. Mathias has a strong passion for group facilitation, social justice, community service and activism. Mathias brings a strong community oriented background to his work and has knowledge on how to engage people, communities, and entities both locally and nationally. Mathias prides himself in making sure key players are well aligned in his work. Mathias is contracted with EQT By Design in addition to his other professional endeavors.
Stephan Hiroshi Gilchrist
Organizational and Strategic Systems Change
Stephan was born in Japan and grew up in a bi-racial and bi-cultural home. His previous roles include chief diversity officer, faculty of Social Innovation and Sustainability Leadership, founder of the Center for Inclusive and Engaged Leadership, and co-founder of the Institute for Collective Wellbeing and Collective Wellbeing Stories, each of which provides hands-on experience in engaging collaborative systems change. Through relationship building, the understanding of self and others, and engaging powerful processes, Stephan sees that together, we can create equitable organizations and communities, and heal the divides that separate us.
Matthew Braunginn
Communications + Policy Consultant
Matthew Braunginn is native Madisonian. He is an experienced policy and community development analyst with a demonstrated history of working in the “Think Tank” industry. He has strong professional skills in policy research and writing, and is knowledgeable in racial and economic equity, climate change, and city infrastructure. Matthew is also an experienced communications consultant well versed in distilling complex problems and solutions and presenting them in easy to understand packages. He has strong skills in policy memos, press releases, and op-eds. Matthew is a graduate of Purdue University with a BA in Political Science. Matthew is contracted with EQT By Design in addition to his other professional endeavors.
Naman Siad
Project Coordinator Consultant
Naman Siad is a longtime Madison resident and community member. She was a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Law School and received her L.L.M Human Rights, Conflict, and Justice from SOAS University of London. Her research focused on transformational justice in post-conflict societies around the world. Naman has worked in various practice areas from immigration and civil rights to non-profit compliance work. Additionally, Naman served as a consultant with Empathy 4 Equity, specializing in diversity, equity, and empathy training for organizations and businesses. Naman is passionate about social justice, equity, community engagement, and uplifting marginalized voices. She is contracted with EQT by Design along with her other professional engagements.
​​​​
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
-
Contracted with EQT in a project coordinator role, conducting theming, report compilation, and other behind-the-scenes roles
-
Active and Multifaceted Community Member
-
Passionate about social justice through an empathetic lens
Jennifer Smith
Social Media Consultant
Jennifer Smith is an accomplished professional with a depth and breadth of diverse communication, technology, and project management skills. She has a proven ability to research, assimilate and clearly communicate information. Jennifer is contracted with EQT By Design in addition to her other professional endeavors.
Catherine Barrance
EQT logistics
Since 2019, we have been partnering with Catherine Barrance at Rescue Desk Virtual Assistant Services to help make our to-do lists more manageable. Catherine oversees and manages operational procedures, checklists, and protocols and makes managing our calendars and timelines so much more effective and our workflow run smoothly. She and others on the Rescue Desk team also provide design support for several of our marketing pieces and report designs.
Catherine has been a project manager for more than a decade, and finds great purpose in providing support to the impactful work that Annette and the EQT team provides in helping organizations build cultures of equity and inclusion.
Sarah Zepnick
Data Marketing + CX Advisor
Sarah Zepnick is an accomplished professional with a depth and breadth of experience from Corporate Customer Experience (CX) Strategy, Customer Journey Mapping, Voice of Customer Analysis, and more. All backed with a Mathematics degree to ensure metrics, measurement, and informed decision-making!
​
Her passion and pleasure is to create real connections between the work of clients and the data they capture to tell the most impactful stories.
I'm serious about what I do but love to add a little laughter to life when I can.
