Mission
Tap.Partners works with teams to maximize their potential for increased employee engagement and retention. We mentor employees to practice integrity, embrace diversity, and implement sustainable processes for ongoing returns.
Overview
Tap.Partners teams with employers faced with industry demands of saving money, increasing productivity, and growing market awareness, but who see the need to connect these goals with inclusivity and diversity at all levels of their organization – workforce, programming, culture, and customers. We have our own standard criteria to assess your organization and make recommendations on how best to evolve on a win-win path, but mostly we want to collaborate with you to determine how an intentionally inclusive culture can address your unique challenges and achieve your specific goals.
Tap.Partners is a consultative training service that will work with employers to increase diversity, loyalty, and promotion within all levels of their staff in a way that connects to the overarching business success goals. The goal is to help employers maximize the benefit of an inclusive workforce across all forms of diversity and at all levels of the organization.
Tap.Partners Leadership
Ann Brownell, Ph.D.
Nothing is too big to learn; nothing is too small to do. I am a natural leader, educator, and mentor with years of hands-on experience. I am organized and analytical with a deep appreciation for the big picture as well as the details. I am personable and sincere and also process and system oriented.
I love getting immersed in my work, engrossed in projects, and working closely with a team. I specialize in personnel, program, process, project, and product development. I enjoy training and empowering teams to increase quality, efficiency, productivity, and pride. Everything that contributes to the success of a project and the success of our customers is everyone’s job.
My education is in education – how we process information, how we learn, how we develop. I’ve worked with children, juveniles, young – middle – older – elder adults, professionals, prisoners, foreigners, homeless, helpless, hopeless. I’ve been called a bleeding heart because I know and respect the custodian staff. I’ve also been called a bitch because I’m not afraid to ask (or answer) difficult questions – especially and entirely in the interest of others.
My work has been threaded in technology and weaved in humanity. I started my career analyzing people as a therapist. In higher education, I analyzed programs to ensure they met requirements and also fit the abilities and needs of the students following them. In software development, I analyzed designs, functionality, and usability (including accessibility). In management, I analyze the systems and processes that impact the employees.
I’m a wee bit preoccupied with equity and justice (… and organization, order, cleanliness, comfortable clothing, good food, smells, trees, the number 12, and other things).
Susan Emery
As an information management specialist and technologist, I have worked at software companies ranging in size from a one-room startup to a 350,000 employee global technology company with over 20 years experience in software development and services delivery. With a passion for problem solving and the ability to navigate between long-term strategic goals and near-term objectives, I enjoy working as a team to define, chart and achieve a vision. The experience of being a woman and a leader in a technology field has provided many opportunities to advocate and speak out for equality and representation within the workplace and the community at large. I feel strongly that diversity strengthens creativity, process, and end product when the team and leadership work to properly include, empower, and guide their employees.
My philosophy is that any single role is much larger than the job description and each individual must have a connection to the larger corporate vision, the product, the customer, and their team in order to contribute fully and participate in the process of constantly improving the culture, the effectiveness, and the overall experience of being a customer and being an employee. “Don’t walk by a problem” applies across the board and is as important in software and services delivery as it is in all manufacturing. And it is important to maintain an environment that supports the identification, prioritization, and resolution of issues to keep the team as effective as possible and to maximize the productivity of the organization.
My formal education is in writing, communications, and digital art, but my independent interests and studies are varied from physical movement to music, making (sewing, woodworking, paper construction), and baking. I like to balance my digital work with hands-on experiences. I started my career doing web development and graphic design, but navigated to a place where my unique combination of communication and technical skills can best be flexed.
I’m passionate about helping organizations avoid the pitfalls of boxing in their employees and oversimplifying the complex nature of the ongoing disciplined work needed to maintain a productive and respectful team. Critical work that becomes even more important as companies shift to increased reliance on asynchronous collaboration tools and remote work.