About
Tallawah Consulting("Tallawah") is committed to creating innovative impact solutions that enable the development of more equitable, resilient and inclusive communities. We do this by helping mission-driven brands maximize their social impact by using equity, innovation, and inclusion to drive their core strategy forward.
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We were born out of an earnest commitment to engage in work that is solutions-driven and impact-centric. Tallawah recognizes two primary needs of companies and organizations. The first need is for companies and organizations to be more socially responsible in a way that is more effectively aligned with their values, company priorities, and responsive to the emergent social needs of their customers or the communities in which they do business. Whether it is redesigning a corporate social responsibility strategy or designing a more innovative social impact program that leverages what the company does best for a greater social benefit, we combine our experiences in social policy, social innovation and program design to craft a more effective impact solution customized to your organization's particular needs.
The second need is for companies and organizations to operate in ways that embed equity and inclusion in the work they do, both internally and externally. Whether it is determining strategies and programs with executive leadership on nurturing a more inclusive environment for employees, advising companies on how to diversify their customer base, or deepen their commitment to championing social issues that can manifest a more fair and just world, we are prepared to meet these needs in a thoughtful and evidence-based way.
Founder
Marissa Davis is Founder & Principal of Tallawah Consulting, a social impact consultancy that helps companies maximize their impact by leveraging equity, innovation, and inclusion to drive their core strategy forward. She collaborates with these companies to help them design better products, programs, experiences, and communities that more equitably address critical needs of the most marginalized within their companies. She leverages her experiences working at the intersection of various sectors, including law, public policy, tech, social entrepreneurship and business to provide creative and meaningful solutions for her clients.
Her career began in impact program design for underrepresented communities, but over the last 15 years, she has built on that foundation, incorporating evidence-based methodologies to define, measure, and weave impact and inclusion into organizational priorities beyond the social sector. She has done so with companies including Etsy, the United Nations, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the Kauffman Foundation, Redesign Health, Codesmith, and WeWork.
Specifically, she has designed, conducted and led impact opportunity studies for companies, including facilitating one-on-one interviews, focus groups, synthesizing and delivering findings to inform corporate strategy. She has worked with organizations to evaluate the impact of their D&I initiatives on their employees, organizational behaviors on their communities of entrepreneurs and client companies. She has facilitated group dialogues on race, equity and inclusion within leadership as well as in cross-cultural global teams in the professional, academic and community spheres. She has also helped to design and facilitate flagship professional development programs to enable a stronger pipeline of leadership that better reflects the diversity of the US and beyond.
She serves as Global Advisory Council Member to global executive search firm Hedley May, and has previously served in an advisory role for business consulting firm for social entrepreneurs, Root Financial, and health innovation venture company, Redesign Health. She is also a professor in the field of social entrepreneurship and innovation, serving as an Adjunct Lecturer at City College’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership for students pursuing their Master's in Public Administration and Chairs the B Local NYC Board for B corps.
She received her Master in Public Policy(MPP) from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, graduated from Swarthmore College with honors in History and is the recipient of various awards, including Harvard's Public Service Fellowship, and the Cultural Bridge Fellowship from Harvard Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program.