THE VERTICAL WORKS TEAM
People Centered at our Core
Nathaniel H. Benjamin
President and CEO
Nathaniel H. Benjamin is the President and CEO of Vertical Works, a people development consulting firm serving private industry, nonprofits, educational institutions, and local/state agencies through executive coaching, strategic consulting, fractional CHRO services, and speaking.
Nate has spent 25 years at the intersection of strategy and people. He has advised Chairmen, CEOs, and executive teams, led enterprise-wide human capital and culture transformations, and built workforce strategies for organizations operating under some of the highest levels of public scrutiny and accountability in the country. He knows what it takes to lead in complex environments, and he knows what it costs when organizations get the people side of strategy wrong.
His foundation was built in the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a noncommissioned officer and developed the leadership instincts that have carried through every chapter of his career since. He has gone on to build a body of work spanning human capital strategy, executive coaching, organization development, and speaking, earning recognition for results that go well beyond the transactional.
At Vertical Works, Nathaniel works with mission-driven leaders and organizations who understand that their people are their strategy. His coaching is direct, his consulting is practical, and his commitment to the leaders he serves is genuine.
Nathaniel is also an alumnus of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the University of Baltimore, and Johns Hopkins University.
Angela D. Benjamin
Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Angela D. Benjamin serves as the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Vertical Works, where she ensures the firm's mission of developing people and bettering the world is reflected in every operational decision.
Angela brings over twenty years of experience as an educator, facilitator, and coach, and that background informs everything about how she leads. A defining thread throughout her career has been her work with students who have learning disabilities and learning differences, where her ability to meet learners where they are and build toward what is possible has produced real, measurable results. Her experience spans early childhood development, elementary education, adult learning, and parent coaching. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched Next Level Academy, a home-based homeschooling program that grew beyond her own family to serve additional students, with outcomes reflected in Virginia's academic testing standards.
At Vertical Works, Angela keeps the firm running with the same care and intentionality she brings to every learner she has served. She is a certified professional coach with specializations in parent coaching and neuro-coaching, and her combination of people development expertise and operational leadership makes her a cornerstone of what Vertical Works is building.
Angela holds a degree from North Carolina Wesleyan University.
Christina Carrere
Executive Coach
Christina Swoope Carrere serves as an Executive Coach at Vertical Works, where she helps leaders and organizations navigate complexity, build high-performing teams, and turn bold vision into measurable results.
Christina has spent her career doing work that matters at scale. She has shaped policy affecting tens of millions of Americans, managed multi-billion-dollar program portfolios, and advised senior leaders through some of the most consequential decisions in public life. She knows what it takes to move large, complex organizations forward and how to bring people along in the process. Beyond her policy work, Christina has led organizational transformation efforts in healthcare, partnered with nonprofit boards to drive record-setting community engagement, and built a reputation as a sought-after speaker who lands complex ideas with clarity and conviction.
At Vertical Works, Christina works with executives and teams who are ready to grow. Her approach is strategic, human-centered, and grounded in the belief that the best organizations are built by leaders who never stop learning.
Christina holds a Master of Science in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Georgia, and is an ICF-accredited coach.
Rody Damis
Executive Coach
Rody Damis, Esq. serves as an Executive Coach at Vertical Works, where he partners with senior leaders and organizations to set and achieve ambitious, measurable goals.
Rody brings more than 16 years of leadership experience to every engagement. He has led high-stakes negotiations, advanced consequential legislation, and built consensus among diverse stakeholders across the public and private sectors. That work has given him a practical understanding of how organizations operate, where leaders get stuck, and what it actually takes to move forward. As an ICF-accredited coach, he works with senior executives and emerging leaders alike, helping high-performing professionals overcome the barriers that keep good leaders from reaching their next level. He has also served as a Visiting Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the undergraduate, graduate, and law school levels, mentoring hundreds of students who have gone on to leadership roles across a wide range of industries.
At Vertical Works, Rody brings that same investment in people to every leader he serves.
Rody holds a Master of Public Policy from Princeton University, a Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from the University at Buffalo, and a Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Psychology from CUNY John Jay College. He is an ICF-accredited executive coach.
Tanisha Edmonds
Legal Counsel and Senior HR Consultant
Tanisha Cole Edmonds serves as Legal Counsel and Senior HR Consultant at Vertical Works, where she brings a rare combination of legal expertise and executive people leadership to organizations navigating complex workplace challenges.
Tanisha has spent more than 20 years advising senior leaders on the issues that sit at the intersection of law, culture, and organizational health. She has led enterprise-wide organizational culture initiatives impacting thousands of employees, overseen workplace investigations, guided organizations through periods of significant workforce change, and partnered with executive teams on everything from misconduct prevention to leadership effectiveness. As a licensed labor and employment attorney, she has represented and counseled clients on employment disputes, compliance issues, and employee rights in some of the most regulated environments in the country. That legal foundation is not just a credential. It shapes how she thinks, how she advises, and how she helps organizations make decisions that are both sound and sustainable.
At Vertical Works, Tanisha works with leaders and organizations who need more than a consultant. They need someone who can see the full picture, the legal exposure, the cultural dynamics, and the human cost, and help them move forward with clarity and confidence.
Tanisha holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Juris Doctor, both from Washington University in St. Louis. She is licensed to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia.
J. Camille Hambey
Senior Strategist & Instructional Designer
J. Camille Hambey is a Senior Strategist and Instructional Designer for Vertical Works.
With over 25 years of experience, Camille is regarded as a compassionate, pragmatic, and goal-oriented leader who specializes in linking strategy to people. She partners with senior leaders to translate organizational vision into individual ownership, teaching clients to lead themselves,
lead others, and deliver outcomes. Camille is a builder. She designs what doesn't yet exist — leadership programs, training academies, communication strategies, coaching practices — and builds them to last.
Earlier in her career, Camille served sixteen years in the U.S. Air Force and went on to lead workforce development, leadership curriculum design, and stakeholder engagement strategies across federal organizations. As an entrepreneur, she has logged more than 3,000 hours of executive coaching and serves as a fractional Chief Learning Officer for organizations building out talent development and training capabilities. Her client base spans the nonprofit,
government, and corporate sectors, including a 1,100-employee automotive group across ten dealerships.
Camille is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) currently pursuing her Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential, a Gallup-Certified CliftonStrengths Coach, a Leadership Circle 360-certified practitioner, and a LUMA-certified Human-Centered Design Thinking Practitioner. She is also an alumna of the University of Arizona and Norwich University.
Kevin Johnson
Senior Strategist & HR Consultant
Kevin W. Johnson, II serves as a Senior Strategist and HR Consultant at Vertical Works, partnering with organizations and their leaders to build cultures worth working in.
Kevin is an organizational development practitioner in the truest sense. Over 15 years, he has worked inside and alongside some of the country's most demanding institutions, helping them rethink how they develop people, manage change, and build teams that perform well beyond a single initiative. At a nationally recognized nonprofit focused on public sector leadership development, he led and facilitated more than 50 custom leadership development programs for mid- and senior-level professionals. He also expanded one signature program by 300 percent, growing participation from 60 to 200 annually while generating over a million dollars in new revenue. He has also worked closely with organizations on workforce effectiveness, culture strategy, and organizational design, always with the same goal in mind: equipping leaders to do their best work.
What sets Kevin apart is the range he brings to every engagement. He is a certified change management practitioner, a Crucial Conversations facilitator, and an experienced HR strategist. He has coached educators at one of the nation's top independent schools, consulted with C-suite leaders on talent strategy, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana. That breadth is not incidental. It shapes how he listens, how he coaches, and how he meets people where they are.
At Vertical Works, Kevin works with teams and leaders who are ready to invest in their growth and build something that lasts.
Kevin holds a Master of Human Resource Management and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, both from The Ohio State University, and certifications including SHRM-SCP and Prosci Change Management.
Brian Whitaker
Innovation Technologist and Leadership Coach
Brian Whittaker serves as the Innovation Technologist at Vertical Works, where he helps mission-driven organizations harness technology, design thinking, and human-centered strategy to navigate transformation and build for what's next.
Brian spent the better part of his career doing one thing exceptionally well: building. At a nationally recognized federal consulting program, he stood up a $50M initiative modernizing organizations across AI, cloud adoption, customer experience, data analytics, and IT infrastructure. He later led a 45-person team of product managers, designers, and developers responsible for all of an agency's digital products and services. Most recently, he drove enterprise-wide AI adoption at a major financial regulatory body, launching a program that reduced document review time from ten minutes to four seconds.
At Vertical Works, Brian works alongside leaders and organizations ready to innovate. He understands that the best technology strategies are really people strategies, and he brings the same builder's mindset to every engagement — helping executives think through digital strategy, equipping teams to work smarter, and designing solutions that did not exist before.
Brian holds an MBA from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology.