AVERY Staton (they/Them)
Co-Founder, Managing Partner

As a cofounder and one of the first managing partners at Reflex, Avery (Brooke) Staton was instrumental to RDC’s conception as a passion project in 2015 and its growth into a Social Equity Design consultancy through Spring of 2022. She cultivated the initial community of thought partnership around the question of what “Design Thinking for Social Justice '' could look like, contributing to RDC’s core theoretical framework and custom equity design tools and workshops. Avery co-led all of RDC’s client projects and professional relationships through this period, as well as represented the organization in its participation in the Nonprofit Democracy Network and its role as a founding member of the Equity Design Collaborative. She co-designed and presented RDC’s work at conferences including South X Southwest 2018, the Allied Media Conference (2016, 2018, 2020), the Contested Cities Conference, the Academy for Design Innovation Management, the Social Justice Symposium, and the Empowering Girls and Women of Color Conference. Avery also co-led the process of designing and building the first few iterations of RDC’s non-traditional internal infrastructure around the organization’s values.

Grounded in teachings from environmental justice leaders, community-based participatory research practitioners, and other activists lifting the need for procedural justice, Avery contributed to RDC’s thought leadership via working papers and strategic consulting, facilitation, and coaching provided to clients. She left the organization in 2022 to pursue an independent coaching practice for social justice leaders, creative writing, and other projects.

Below is Avery’s bio from her time at Reflex:

Avery Staton is an equity design innovator and facilitator. She draws on her background in city planning, public health, and participatory research to devise community-driven approaches to creative problem solving. Prior to Reflex, Avery worked at Human Impact Partners, a national leader in participatory research, and the San Francisco Department of City Planning. She is a multi-time author and has presented work both nationally and internationally. Avery holds dual masters degrees in city planning and public health from the University of California at Berkeley.