Team Bios
Tracy Morgan
Managing Partner
Tracy is an experienced strategy consultant with nearly three decades guiding organizations through complex challenges. Since 1996, she has worked with hundreds of clients locally and globally, developing and authoring over 40 strategic and business plans. Her clients range from nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurial startups to Fortune 500 corporations. In recent years, Tracy has focused on transformative initiatives that leverage innovative technology to facilitate meaningful dialogue with minimal time investment. Before becoming a consultant, Tracy held leadership roles in strategy, sales, marketing, and global product and brand management at DuPont, Procter & Gamble, and GE. Her expertise in these areas informs her ability to effectively help organizations navigate growth, change, and market dynamics.
Beyond her professional work, Tracy is deeply committed to social justice. She is a certified YWCA facilitator for the Social and Racial Justice Dialogue to Action program and the producer of The Stain, a play designed as a catalyst for community discussions on race, fostering greater understanding and respect for diverse experiences. Additionally, she has been a leader in the Harvard Business School of Philadelphia’s Social Enterprise Initiative, organizing conferences and scholarships to support nonprofit leaders.
Tracy is also an accomplished author. Her first book, “How to Conduct an Effective Strategic Planning Process with Minimal Effort”, became an Amazon bestseller for nonprofit organizations in 2013. Her second book focused on change management, drawing from her extensive experience in strategic planning and community engagement within faith-based organizations.
She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University.
Carrie Gray
Consultant and Coach
Carrie Gray has more than 25 years of executive leadership experience in the nonprofit, higher education, and home care sectors. She brings a unique perspective to every client partnership. Her approach combines strategic insight with hands-on experience, helping leaders bridge the gap between their current challenges and future opportunities. With a holistic, 30,000-foot view of clients’ organizational structures, our team creates tailored strategies that drive meaningful growth.
Beyond her consulting work, she has been a dedicated community leader, proudly serving on dozens of nonprofit boards and community committees. Her current service includes: Delaware Theatre Company (Past President), Rotary Club of Wilmington (Past President), Rotary District 7630 (Area Governor & Innovative Club Advocate), and The Forum of Executive Women Delaware (Past President).
Teresa Avery
Consultant and Facilitator
Teresa Avery is a mission-based business professional with a strong and broad background, who excels at bringing people from different backgrounds and viewpoints together to tackle big challenges. She is a born communicator who is comfortable whether engaging in one-on-one conversations with stakeholders, speaking to a television interviewer or standing in front of an audience to give a persuasive presentation. With an MBA, an education in agriculture and experience in the social services, education and environmental spaces, she believes in the power of business as a force for good and is dedicated to using strong business practices to advance the causes for which she works.
Fundamentally, she is an operator who thrives on getting the work done and achieving the mission. She plans and implements strategy, leads teams, builds and manages budgets, hires and supports great people, raises money, and scales businesses to meet their purposes.
Madeleine Bayard
Consultant and Facilitator
Madeleine Bayard is a public-sector strategy consultant and education policy leader with more than 20 years of state and national experience. Her work has advanced policy change in early childhood access, literacy, diverse educator pipelines, career pathways, advanced coursework, and equitable school funding. She has worked with governors, legislators, state agencies, nonprofits, youth-led organizations, philanthropy, and business leaders to translate policy goals into practical strategies and coalitions.
Madeleine most recently led policy, advocacy, government affairs, communications, partnership development, and external relations at Rodel. Her work included partnering with EdTrust, developing policy positions and advocacy strategies, engaging stakeholders, and cultivating local and national philanthropic support. She helped Rodel transition from an endowment-based model to an organization raising more than $7 million annually. Earlier, as a Senior Policy Analyst with the National Governors Association, she provided technical assistance and strategic planning to governors’ policy offices and served on the leadership team for a multi-million-dollar project spanning ten states.
Her strategic-planning experience includes leadership in the development of two ten-year education plans for Delaware, Student Success 2025 and Student Equity and Excellence 2035, as well as statewide early childhood plans. She serves on the Executive Board and Steering Committee of the Education Commission of the States and its Future Issues Committee. Madeleine participated in the Alliance for Early Success Operationalizing Equity Cohort and as an organizational leader to develop and integrate Rodel’s Equity and Trust Frameworks.
She holds a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University and a BA in History from Wake Forest University.
Dr. Shelley S. Rouser
Consultant and Facilitator
Dr. Shelley Rouser is an education leader with more than 30 years of experience across K–12 schools, district administration, state government, and higher education. She has led large-scale curriculum, instruction, professional development, educator preparation, and organizational change initiatives. Her work has consistently focused on building more equitable systems, preparing culturally responsive educators, and developing the organizational capacity required for adaptive change.
At the Delaware Department of Education, Shelley served as Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development and as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Education. She led statewide implementation and convening for college- and career-ready standards, advanced adoption of high-quality instructional materials, chaired the agency’s equity team, and initiated Courageous Conversations about Race learning communities for agency leaders. She later served as Chair and tenured Associate Professor in the Education Department at Delaware State University, overseeing undergraduate and graduate education programs, faculty and staff, an early childhood laboratory school, and the Early Childhood Innovation Center.
Shelley’s work applies equity frameworks to organizational strategy and practice. She has used the Culturally and Historically Responsive Education HILL model to assess and redesign teacher-preparation curricula and has integrated racial-literacy and critical self-reflection approaches into educator preparation. She has led stakeholder engagement and needs assessment for strategic planning, designed DEIB coaching and training structures, and worked across community, policy, funding, K–12, and higher-education environments.
She holds a PhD in Educational Administration with an emphasis in performance improvement, an MA in Curriculum and Instruction, and certifications from Cornell University in project management, project leadership, change management, and performance leadership.
Adam Morgan
Fundraising Consultant
Having worked with small volunteer-led nonprofits to some of the largest nonprofits in the world – and everything in between, Adam brings a wide range of experience to his work. In his 20 years of nonprofit experience, Adam has worked in veterans services, higher education, cancer research, human services, and environmental education and conservation.
Adam has a Masters in Philanthropic Studies from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy where he was a member of the Nu Lambda Mu honors society. He has helped found several small nonprofits in Delaware and currently serves on the boards of The Pilot School and the Spur Impact Association.
He has been a Director and has led major gifts, annual fund, campaigns, special events and membership programs for the American Cancer Society, Freedom Alliance, The Salvation Army, Phi Kappa Psi Foundation, and Delaware Nature Society.
Additional Consultants and Team Members
Dorothy Dillard Ph.D.
Dr. Dorothy Dillard is sociologist and consultant with expertise in substance abuse treatment, disparities in the juvenile and criminal justice systems, and offender programming. Dr. Dillard has over 30 years researching, evaluating, and teaching and is currently transition from the Chair of the Sociology and Criminal Justice Department to the Center for Neighborhood Revitalization and Research at Delaware State University. She has served as Co-Principal Investigator on several large NIDA funded research grants, including an effectiveness study of a prison based therapeutic community continuum of treatment (Key-Crest). In 1994, after leaving the University of Delaware’s Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies as the Associate Director she initiated a consulting business working with federal and state governments as well as nonprofit agencies. Over 15 years, she leveraged over $12 million in federal funds to assist Delaware social service providers improve and expand programs. More recently her consulting has focused on organizational development, including guiding agencies and government divisions in developing quality improvement programs, key performance indicators, and dashboards. Recently, Dr. Dillard completed a project with the Delaware Division of Youth Rehabilitative Services inventory and assess process and outcome measures and to develop a Division dashboard. In this project, effectively integrated her research and service program evaluation skills with her organizational management skills and experiences to produce a sustainable and flexible accountability systems that allow for data-driven decision-making.
Currently, Dr. Dillard is the project manager for a two-year $170,000 project assisting the Court Supervision and Offender Services Agency in Washington, DC assess and realign business practices at its residential program. As her references will attest, she is proficient in developing and managing data bases, accessing data from shared databases, and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data.
Dr. Dillard has 30 years of experience working with the Delaware Department of Correction in a number of capacities, including assisting with the development of several behavioral and medical health services RFPs and facilitating proposal reviews and provider selection.
Dr. Dillard has published numerous articles and has a national reputation as an expert in social service program evaluation, minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice systems, integrated behavioral health services, and TC development and assessment.
Illysa Izenberg
Illysa is a professional-development educator and business strategist, conducting culture audits and needs analyses, devising strategies and action plans, and facilitating diversity, harassment prevention, implementing change, coaching employees, leadership and management, and inter-group communication workshops. Ms. Izenberg works with clients to better understand their employees, customers, and other constituents for a more productive and profitable future.
She has consulted to corporations, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations in the U.S. and Canada. She has presented to or trained over 10,000 employees — from front-line production workers to highly-educated professionals — managers/supervisors, and executives in a broad range of industries including technology, health care, financial services, and retail and is a frequently sought speaker and writer on business issues. She serves as President Elect and Programs Chair for the Howard County Human Resources Society (HoCo HRS), an affiliate of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).
Ms. Izenberg has over 15 years experience in strategic planning and implementation. She is trained and certified by the Minds At Work Immunity to Change Institute, A World of Difference, and the National Conference Dismantling Racism Project as a workshop facilitator.
Ms. Izenberg draws upon her MBA education and management experience, including profit-and-loss responsibility with a Fortune 500 multinational firm, to understand corporate perspectives and business needs. Additionally, she has assisted several government organizations to work toward greater inclusion—both as a citizen selected to a city government task force that tackled community-wide ethnic diversity challenges a well as a paid consultant and workshop facilitator.
Out of the combination of business education and experience comes her belief that utilizing and valuing the great diversity of the employee and customer base is part of a sound organizational development strategy.
Illysa teaches Management, Communication and Leadership and Leadership and Team Building at the University of Maryland. She has a B.A., English & American Literature, from Brandeis University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Business.
Kate Rusch
Kate is a graduate of Hampshire College with a B.A. in Biochemistry and Middle Eastern Studies. She is also a graduate of Cab Calloway School of the Arts where she majored in technical theater and visual arts. Kate is an graphic designer for North Star Strategies and has been doing volunteer and professional graphic design for over ten years. She is also an Emergency Medical Technician.
Kate designs logos, banners, cover art, and report layouts.
Charlotte Shreve
Charlotte Shreve is a graduate of the University of Delaware with a B.A. in Sociology and Linguistics. She is also a graduate from Cab Calloway School of the Arts with a major in communication arts and a concentration in creative writing. Charlotte is a research and communications specialist for North Star Strategies.