CULTURE + STRATEGY = IMPACT
MEET THE APSARAS
At Apsara Projects, we design customized consulting teams to fit the specific needs and goals of our clients.
Our teams of Apsaras bring different skillsets, experiences, and backgrounds to their work in social impact and social justice. What the Apsaras all have in common is that they are the most strategic, effective, skilled, and emotionally intelligent consultants you will meet in the social impact space. All have a background in change management, communications, equity/culture, racial justice, and gender equity.
Juhu Thukral
Juhu Thukral is Founder and Principal of Apsara Projects, a social impact consultancy. She is a social justice lawyer and founder of social impact ventures focused on rights and opportunity for women and girls, LGBTQ+ people, and Black/Brown/Asian/immigrant communities.
Juhu is an advocacy, communications, and organizational leadership expert who helps social impact leaders and organizations strengthen their vision and values as they build resilience and navigate change.
Juhu has been a founder and on executive leadership teams for social impact organizations with both domestic and global focus, including: The Opportunity Agenda; Narrative Initiative; Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center; NY Anti-Trafficking Network; and the NYC Women’s Salon. She began her career at NARAL Pro-Choice Texas and with legal Fellowships at Equal Rights Advocates and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
JUHU’S FULL BIO
SPECIALTIES: Change Management, Communications Strategy, Building an Equity Mindset
Kat Kiyoko Amano
Kat Kiyoko Amano brings with her nearly 20 years of experience in project management, operations, and system administration. As the founder and principal of Clarity Forward Consulting, she provides coaching and consulting services to mission-driven organizations and specializes in team training, process improvement, and planning + implementing large-scale change efforts. Her leadership has helped organizations obtain and execute on more than $60 million in grants and contracts. Kat’s personal mission is to empower justice-minded teams to achieve and maintain clarity, grow in alignment with their values, and build a more inclusive, equitable world.
SPECIALTIES: Project Management, Change Management, Organizational Operations
Betsy Castro
Betsabe “Betsy” Castro (she/her) is a people strategist who partners with organizations to ensure financial sustainability, operational excellence, a healthy and inclusive work environment, and agile organizational growth. An accountant by trade, Betsy began her career in public accounting and auditing and continued her path in various corporate financial roles for major corporations such as McGraw-Hill and Villeroy & Boch. Being a first generation, immigrant Latina, in 2011 Betsy co-founded New World Preparatory Charter School - a charter school which provides a high quality education to English Language Learners. That experience paved the way for a future career in progressive, non-profit leadership roles for organizations such as Princeton University, Princeton-Blairstown Center, and The Center for Policing Equity - roles where she managed operating and capital budgets ranging from $1.1M to $3.2B and led teams ranging from one employee to over 20.
After spending over 15 years in nonprofit finance and operations, Betsy understands what truly drives and motivates people, with her main focus being effective change management, people operations, and financial sustainability. Her work in nonprofit leadership earned her the 2020 Harold L. Conover Leadership Award from her alma mater, Rider University, for exhibiting exemplary leadership qualities in a non-profit organization. Betsy holds an MBA in Finance and a B.S. in Accounting from Rider University. In her free time, she enjoys cooking for her friends and family, traveling the globe with her husband, enjoying delicious wine, reading jaw dropping novels, and caring for the numerous wild birds in her yard.
SPECIALTIES: Strategic Finance and Operations, Fractional CFO, Fractional COO
Crystal DeBoise, LCSW
Crystal DeBoise is a psychotherapist, a policy advocate, and organizational leader. Crystal founded the Human Trafficking Services Program at New York Association for New Americans in 2002, one of the first human trafficking service programs in the nation, receiving a United States federal grant to build and develop one of the first and largest human trafficking programs in the United States.
Following that, she was the Director of the Sex Workers Project (SWP) of the Urban Justice Center where she managed a team of lawyers and social workers. Crystal is currently the Co-Founder of Decriminalize Sex Work, an organization focused on legislative policy and advocacy changes to benefit sex workers, survivors of human trafficking, and related communities. She works as an expert witness in state and federal human trafficking criminal cases and has a private psychotherapy practice.
Crystal has been published in the New York Times and On the Issues Magazine. She has been a returning guest on NPR's The Brian Lehrer Show, Freakonomics radio show, and a number of other radio and television segments. She has been a guest lecturer at a variety of universities including Columbia University, Smith College, and Harvard School of Law. She has taught a class on Sex Work and the LGBT community at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City.
Crystal was born and raised in Northern Michigan and has been a New Yorker since 2000.
Crystal on NPR’s The Brian Lehrer show: LISTEN NOW
SPECIALTIES: Mental Health, Organizational Development, and Changing Laws and Mindsets
Ejim Dike
Ejim Dike is a human rights advocate and strategist with over 20 years of experience in the field. She has extensive experience building literacy in using human rights laws and mechanisms particularly at the United Nations for grassroots activists, and has worked with groups in the United States and globally. Ms. Dike consults work with organizations to advance human rights, in particular gender and racial justice in their management, operations, and programmatic work. In this capacity, she has worked with a range of organizations including the Ford Foundation, the Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity (AFRE), the Narrative Initiative, the Center for Policing Equity among others. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network, a national human rights organization with over 300 organizational members. She has designed accountability and legislative projects with the New York City Council, and worked with international organizations such as the Africa Union and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She teaches courses on using human rights mechanisms to advance racial, gender and economic justice including at Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College, and John Jay College. Ms. Dike is in a doctorate program at the Department of Political Science at Clark Atlanta University.
SPECIALTIES: Organizational Culture and Development, Change Management, Human Rights Program Design and Assessment
Dr. Melissa Hope Ditmore
Dr. Melissa Hope Ditmore is an expert on gender, development, health and human rights, particularly relating to marginalized populations such as sex workers, migrants, trafficked persons and people who use drugs. She has worked in Asia, Africa and the United States, for organizations including UNAIDS, the Asia Development Bank, the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations, and AIDS Fonds Nederland. She is a co-founder of the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center.
In addition to her consultancy work, she has written and edited a number of books, including Unbroken Chains: The Hidden Role of Human Trafficking in the American Economy, The Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work (Greenwood Press), Sex Work Matters (Zed Books), and Prostitution and Sex Work (Greenwood Press).
She has a PhD in Sociology from the City University of New York. and is completing a Master’s Degree in Population Health Informatics.
For more information, see her website at melissaditmore.com
SPECIALTIES: Research and Evaluation/Impact Analysis, Organizational Development and Governance, Public Health and Human Rights
Lucy Turley
Lucy Turley is a social scientist with extensive experience conducting applied research for nonprofits, foundations, community development funds, and brands. In her years working as an applied researcher, she has worked directly with Black, brown, indigenous, and other traditionally marginalized communities, to ensure their objectives and voices are centered in the development and execution of research projects.
Lucy is the founder and CEO of RBC Lab, a full service applied research firm, offering clients customized research and evaluation support to meet their organizational and programmatic needs. As a Black and women led research firm, RBC Lab puts justice and radical inclusion at the forefront of the research design process. Lucy holds a Ph.D. in Communications from American University and a Master’s from New York University in Africana Studies.
SPECIALTIES: Public Opinion/Messaging Research, Focus Group Facilitation, Convening Facilitation/Planning, Impact Evaluation
Lorissa Shepstone
Lorissa has been creating websites for over twenty-five years and is passionate about cohesive and visually striking designs that are sustainable, scalable, and focused on the user experience. Over the years she has worked with diverse clients on a range of design projects spanning brand strategy, print collateral, UI application design, and UX visual design. She is the co-founder of Being Wicked, a small design agency known in the publishing industry as the “go-to” design firm.
SPECIALTIES: Branding, UI/UX Design, Web Design
Bridget Whelan
Bridget Whelan (she/her) is a strategic communication and change management consultant. She is passionate about working with clients who are building a more just, equitable, and sustainable future. Bridget believes in a responsive, collaborative, and strategic approach to change, helping clients clarify their goals and lay out realistic plans to achieve them. She’s an Emmy Award-winning former journalist, nonprofit communications director, communications and media trainer, and organizational leader. She has worked with Apsara Projects since 2019, supporting a wide range of clients on organizational communications strategy, brand development, and navigating change. She is a skilled trainer and facilitator, an organized project manager, and models emotional intelligence, integrity, and empathy in her work.
When she’s not hard at work with Apsara, Bridget is wearing the hat of founder and principal at Green Willow Communications, where she offers freelance writing, copyediting, content strategy, and training expertise to a variety of clients. Bridget is temporarily based in Melbourne, Australia, but calls Raleigh, North Carolina home.
SPECIALTIES: Strategic Communications, Writing and Editing, Change Management
APSARA PROJECTS
Apsara Projects is a boutique social impact consultancy where culture meets strategy to make impact. We use a unique three-prong approach combining change management, communications strategy, and building an Equity Mindset to guide our clients. We partner with them to strengthen their vision and values as they embrace and navigate change.