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Shaunte Kinch

Empact Global

United States

Shaunté Kinch, CEO of Empact Global, is on a mission to change the world for the better. Motivated by challenges, she faces hard problems head-on, helping organizations reimagine and realize improved access, equity, and outcomes in health, education, and community. With over 20 years of experience designing and improving systems, services, and processes across multiple industries, she works at the intersection of public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors to advance humanity by leveraging a unique merger of strategic foresight, human-centered design, systems thinking and lean for social impact.
In addition to Empact Global’s current workshop facilitation and advising services, Shaunté will activate the Institute for a Better World (IFABW), a strategic division focused on education, innovation, and thought leadership. IFABW’s aim is to increase innovation capacity in BIPOC communities, gather ideas from diverse groups, as well as policy research and advocacy. She seeks the support of the WLW fellowship and network to prioritize, sequence and launch one of these focus areas.
On a personal note, Shaunté is eager to learn how others manage balancing professional ambitions with personal relationships, including the relationship with self, and discovering who she is beyond being a wife, mom, and world-changing professional.

Shaunte Kinch

About
Me.

What is your story?

What drives your work?

I grew up in rural Virginia, where my father was a science teacher, and my mother was the primary school secretary and ran her own interior design business. Before my 10th-grade year, I attended a summer program for girls excelling in math and science, where I met many women engineers. Inspired, I started saying that I might become an engineer. One day, someone responded, “people like you aren’t engineers.” That was the day I decided to become an engineer and realized how much I am motivated by challenges.

After earning my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, I was quickly promoted to lead an interdisciplinary team designing piping systems on aircraft carriers. While working in engineering and operations, I completed certificate programs in Lean practice, Six Sigma, systems engineering, and project management. I was then recruited to work as a Lean consultant for Boeing, traveling across the country to help departments improve their support service operations.

In the early 2000s, hospitals began recognizing the benefits of Lean but lacked healthcare employees trained in it, leading to a wave of hiring Lean practitioners from outside the industry. I was fortunate to be part of this transition, starting at UCLA Health System. When the COO at UCLA became the CEO at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, I followed him. After leading improvement for the Oncology and Cardiovascular service lines, I joined a consultancy to have the flexibility to live anywhere. I moved to North Carolina, where I currently live with my husband and three children. At this consultancy, which was later acquired by a financial services firm, I led the innovation of their Lean Healthcare Practice, was a member of their strategy team, managed multi-million-dollar client portfolios, and was on the path to partnership. Most importantly, I learned a lot and made a significant impact.

However, I desired more. I was disillusioned with performative diversity, equity, and inclusion practices and tired of feeling like the token Black employee. I wanted to use my experience to solve bigger challenges and not just design and improve processes but also services and systems. I had seen broken systems that largely serve marginalized communities hire companies with an odd and ineffective fit due to a lack of cultural understanding. I wanted to work for the communities I represent, using my varied background to reimagine and redesign health, education, and community services to improve equity, access, and outcomes, ultimately leading to less poverty.

In August 2022, I filed the paperwork to create Empact Global, LLC. I continued working for the Lean Healthcare consultancy until I secured a contract and publicly launched Empact Global on March 31, 2023, with NASA as my first client.

My work is driven by challenge and an unwavering desire to leave this world better than I found it. I rarely meet Black people with my skill set, and I know that Black, Native American, Latino, veterans, and people with mental health challenges have often been subjects of much experimentation and often lack trust. I believe I am called to help improve their lives with empathy.

Describe your biggest strength as a leader

• Vision, and getting a team to buy in and come along
• Seeing the big picture, identifying gaps, issues, and challenges
• Creating ways to bridge those gaps
• Initiating conversations with the right people
• Identifying what needs to be done
• Synthesizing and simplifying information
• Architecting new ways
• Tenacity
• Balancing heart and head

Describe your biggest challenge as a leader

• Entrepreneurship, no blueprint
• Chicken/egg challenge (I need to hire people to make money, but I need money to hire people)
• Operationalizing the details
• Organization
• Timid with self-promotion
• Uncomfortable with asks
• Closing deals
• Figuring out how to accomplish the "what"
• Integrating technology

About the
Organization
and the Project.

Sector

Social Enterprise

Vision & Mission

Mission:
Unlocking possibilities for a better world

Vision:
A transformed world where everyone is safe, valued and served

Year Founded

2022

No. of Employees

2

Years in the Organization

2

Annual Budget (USD)

$250.00

Geographical Area Served

Currently US, future global

Organizational /

Project Description

Develop a comprehensive strategy for scaling Empact Global. This includes:
•Exploring new impact streams and service offerings
•Identifying partnerships
•Designing the infrastructure
•Creating a roadmap for geographic or industry-specific growth

Objectives:
•Identify key hires needed
•Identify target partnerships
•Establish a timeline with milestones

Why is this project important and timely?

What is the target population of your project? 

My project focuses on developing a strategic growth plan to help Empact Global achieve its goal of positively impacting 5 million lives by 2030. I can’t do this alone—partnerships, people, and technology are essential. I have a bold vision, a bias for action, and leadership and operational experience. However, I’ve never grown an organization before, and with so many ideas, I'm challenged by how to sequence and prioritize them effectively.

This project is timely because while technology—both digital and knowledge—is advancing rapidly, BIPOC-serving organizations risk being left behind, and so do the communities they support. My goal is to help these organizations stay ahead of future challenges and opportunities, building resilience and ensuring our communities are not excluded.

Non-profits, community organizations, and children are often overlooked as large organizations benefit from advances in innovation methods. By being on the forefront of knowledge and technology, these organizations can better serve their communities and adapt to the fast-changing world. Consultants are often expensive and not reflective of the BIPOC communities I aim to uplift. To address this, I plan to hire individuals without college degrees and those impacted by the justice system, providing them with meaningful career opportunities while advancing the mission.
In the short term, I will target BIPOC communities in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern US, with plans to expand to the Caribbean and eventually reach global impact.



How will you know that you have achieved that impact? What data will you use to assess your impact?

•Hire at least two roles
•At least one formal partnership established
•Designed and documented future state infrastructure
•Near-term implementation plan created

How do you anticipate this unique leadership education impacting you personally? What new skills are you hoping too develop & grow through this experience?

I’m hoping to find my CEO voice. I want to speak with confidence and assertiveness and authentically feel that way at the same time. I want to become comfortable asking for what I want and saying what I need without overthinking how my comment will make someone else feel or how they may perceive me for asking.

I aim to develop skills in negotiation, persuasion, and capturing an audience whenever I speak.

Where would you like to see yourself professionally in the next 3 years?

• Leading a team of at least five people
• Organization with revenue of at least $3 million
• Highly sought after and growing with a full sales pipeline
• Multi-structure B Corp (for-profit consulting and digital product, non-profit)
• Identifying talent and hiring people from the populations I’m serving
• Delivering a popular TED talk
• Writing a highly anticipated book

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