As the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of New Disabled South, Kehsi Iman brings over 15 years of experience building and scaling mission driven orgs to the work of advancing disability justice across the south. Early in her career she worked at the intersection of social justice and educational equity and access at a range of colleges and universities, including the University of South Florida, City Colleges of Chicago, and Vanderbilt University, where she started the Office of Inclusion Initiatives and Cultural Competence (now the Student Center for Social Justice and Identity). She started her first company, Ntoso Nexus, a non-profit created to connect minorities pursuing post-secondary educational opportunities to mentors, in 2009.

After leaving higher ed in 2016, she shifted her focus to business operations and strategy for fully remote orgs, becoming the Chief Operating Officer for an online continuing education company. In 2018, she formally launched her own consultancy, High Quality Talent, where she helps individuals and organizations define and align their operations and values; provides executive coaching and thought partnership on large-scale strategy; and helps orgs build equity-centered HR policy. Most recently, she worked as the HR & Operations Director for Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund before serving as the HR Director for Stacey Abrams’ second gubernatorial run. She has a Bachelor of Science in Communications from the University of Florida, a Masters of Education from the University of South Florida, and is a certified Professional of Human Resources. She lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband and 6-year old son.