Why Provoc?

Raj Aggarwal

President, Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

Raj founded Provoc in 1999 and serves as President and Lead Strategist. Over twenty years of experience as a communications and technology strategist, he has worked with more than 400 nonprofits and socially responsible businesses on a variety of projects including internal and external branding, marketing and customer engagement. Raj keeps Provoc rooted in empathy-driven work by forging partnerships with values-aligned, visionary leaders and has led workshops and talks at dozens of national conferences. He serves on the boards of Think Local First, DC and Ben’s Chili Bowl Foundation, and recently shared his personal story on NPR.

Will Coyle

Co-CEO, Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

As Provoc’s CEO, Will takes great pride in the company’s mission and collaborative values. He enjoys providing sound company structure while also delivering beautiful design solutions for Provoc’s clients. With twenty years of creative strategy experience, Will has an especially strong background in brand development. His work balances functionality, intuitive content delivery, and visually compelling aesthetics.

Mimo Haile

Lead Strategist, Project Manager

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Maereg “Mimo” Haile has ten years of experience managing various projects such as violence and homelessness prevention in the Bay Area and HIV research & prevention in Africa  for a start-up, government, and large tech company in the social impact and public health sector. She received a Bachelor of Science in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior from UC Davis and a Masters in Public Health from the University of San Francisco. She is the co-founder of Coco Coalition, a nonprofit that focuses on providing safe space for Black Womxn by curating services geared towards mental, emotional, and holistic health. She is an advisor for Her Place is In, an org that uses art as a form of activism and a board member for Sol Sisters, a nonprofit that focuses on bringing mental health awareness to the community. She has a passion for finding alternative ways to solve problems, building strategic partnerships, and overcoming challenges with limited resources. Her creative outlet includes taking various dance classes, drawing, playing video games, watching anime, and spending time with her dog, Spice, and her life partner, Dario!

Melanie Marine

Project Manager

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Melanie has more than a decade of experience managing online/offline strategic communications projects, and she’s adept at crafting long-term impact with clients through open communication and team participation. She loves to streamline processes, figuring out ways to save both time and money, hence the love of project management! She has an MBA from George Washington University, and enjoys volunteering. She’s also an avid hiker.

Sierra Moses

Project Manager

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Sierra Moses is a certified Project Management Professional with experience managing complex communications, marketing, and branding projects. Sierra has led a variety of web, digital, and content marketing programs across multiple industries and has a proven track record of delivering highly specialized web and print content marketing campaigns, projects, and programs.

Cory Osborn

Senior Designer, Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

Cory has worked as a design strategist for Provoc for more than 11 years, and as a commercial illustrator and designer for over 20 years. His education includes traditional and digital art studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and graphic design at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. A resident of Washington, DC from 2002 until 2010, Cory now lives in Amsterdam, NL. Living in Europe gives him valuable perspective and insight on global social change and citizen engagement movements.

Erica Priggen Wright

Co-CEO, Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Erica brings change-making strategies to life. With more than a decade of experience creating powerful storytelling campaigns, Erica has perfected her ability to manage teams and generate high-level collaboration with a highly intuitive, creative process. Her impressive resume before joining the Provoc team most recently includes leading the entertainment department for almost a decade at Free Range Studios, producing the agency’s marquis video projects, as well as freelance consulting as an executive creative producer in the San Francisco Bay area. Prior to that, she worked in production on large-scale feature film, television and commercials. She has a Master’s in Consciousness Studies, her area of focus being integral theory and the use of storytelling for behavior change.

Kate Purcell

Senior Designer

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Kate’s background of progressive education, years of living abroad, a deep love of art and a passion for values-aligned work has fueled the creative work she has developed over the last ten years. After graduating from Marlboro College with majors in Visual Arts and Literature, Kate traveled to far-flung locations to work on issues touching on the environment and international development.

Kate designs strong, creative graphics supported by engaging, accessible text to ensure that organizations inspire their audiences. She has designed and led projects for large and small organizations, including Save the Children, the National Council of Churches and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Kate lives in Baltimore with her family. She teaches meditation and enjoys her urban farm complete with chickens, compost and goats.

Bettina Sferrino

Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Bettina’s purpose is to share her passion, skills, creativity and time to fight for justice. For 10 years, Bettina supported and led nonprofit communications teams, leveraging stories and connections to change hearts and minds for affordable housing, LGBTQIA+ equality, reproductive justice, and public land advocacy. Bettina intimately knows the challenges many nonprofit communications teams face — her broad understanding of internal operations and dynamics, experience collaborating with fund development and programs teams, and expertise in community building, brand strategy, and messaging all inform her approach to communications that are not only inclusive and accessible, but also build equity.

According to social media, Bettina is “super stylish,” a “cookie sorceress” and “generally awesome.” She lives in Oakland, California, with a cat named Lady Bird.

Carter Stowell

Data Scientist, Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

As a data science consultant and lead strategist at Provoc, Carter Stowell brings twenty years of experience to successfully managing distributed project teams. With a passion for data-driven strategy and predictive analytics, Carter can synthesize complex information into actionable insights and solutions. He creatively applies tools and methodologies that improve decision-making and drive effective and equitable communications strategies. He is fluent in data analytics and visualization, and grounded in best practices for user experience design and agile project management.

Carter holds an M.S. in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University, and a B.S.E. from Duke University. Prior certifications include Project Management Professional by PMI, and ScrumMaster by Scrum Alliance. Before bringing his talents to Provoc, Carter had built his foundations in high-traffic web work at Wired Digital, where he provided production and project management for Wired.com and Hotbot.com.

Paula M. Villegas Morera

Business Development Operations Manager

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Paula is a Costa Rican/American with more than nine years of experience in the field of international development and higher education. She joined PROVOC in 2019 as the Operations and Community Coordinator after living and working in Rabat, Morocco, for three years empowering women artisans in rural parts of the country. Prior to this, she worked with several non-profits in Washington D.C. dedicated to international development. Paula now has a new role at Provoc as the Business Development Operations Manager and in this capacity, she is responsible for developing functional processes and strategies to enable Provoc to reach its goals and targets and improve profitability. She enjoys traveling around the world and lives in VA with her husband and two boys.

K Watkins

Project Manager

PRONOUNS: any pronouns welcome

K Watkins began working with Provoc in 2016. Her career has included non-profit web development, aerospace engineering, construction, finance, higher education, and telecommunications; she has worked as a project manager, technical writer, editor, indexer, and business analyst. Whatever the field, whatever the job title, her specialty is productivity through knowledge infrastructure: what you need to know, when you need to know it, right where you can find it. K holds a Master’s Certificate in Project Management, and also a PhD in English…which probably explains why, when she’s not at work, you can usually find her playing with words.

Kela Lester

BRAND STRATEGIST

For brands, Kela is the person who gathers everyone around the bonfire to make s’mores and spark conversations. Creative and strategic, Kela is the welcomed bridge between the big picture and its moving parts. Kela focuses on the stories of people and brands who are building a better world. Come as you are if you dare to leave feeling more connected to yourself and others.

Neha Sharma

STRATEGIST

Neha is committed to tapping into collective insight and foresight, primarily through strategy, partnerships, and product creation. She has experience building diverse and equitable clean energy economies, energy efficiency and intelligence in the built environment, facilitation for group alignment, and bridge building between disparate networks & nodes.

Cesar Rodriguez

Visual Designer

Cesar is a visual designer and licensed architect with a history of working on a wide breadth of project types throughout his career. His educational foundation includes a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arizona as well as a Master in Design for Emergent Futures from ELISAVA, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. While home is both San Francisco and Arizona, Cesar currently resides in Barcelona, Spain, where in his free time he works on experimental food-design projects and enjoys hosting events at his collaborative design studio space.

Bonnie Coberly

BRAND STRATEGIST

Bonnie Coberly is a communications professional,  facilitator and strategist with 15+ years of experience supporting business and nonprofits to grow  their organizations. She has mastered the ability to sincerely listen, gather important insights and then turn those insights into strategies and content that inspire engagement and create results.

Keisha Igbazua

Director of Resource Operations

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Keisha is an Operations Professional with over 15 years of experience in non-profit management, administration, finance, and project management. She is also a proud wife, mother of 4 black sons, Reiki Master, Breastfeeding Peer Counselor, and Black Maternal Health Advocate. As Director of Resource Operations, she supports Provoc through the three pillars of our well-being – vision, operations, and finance – all rooted in racial equity. She works with the business development, project management, and executive leadership teams to innovate solutions that ensure Provoc walks the talk of “purpose, people, planet” rooted in equity while being a for-profit, service-for-hire company.

Tiffany Maqubela

Executive Assistant

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Tiffany has a professional background in organizational administration, rooted in the field of education. In supporting senior leadership and aiding team members across various departments, Tiffany specializes in providing the necessary continuity that allows organizations to run smoothly and efficiently. For the last few years, Tiffany has had the honor of being a stay-at-mom to her three young daughters, while also being a 200-hour certified yoga instructor, with additional certifications in restorative yoga and prenatal yoga. Tiffany teaches both virtually and in studios in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. As she truly has a passion for ensuring that personal wellness and self-care is something available to everyone, Tiffany leads many of her classes in marginalized communities that lack access to the practice of yoga. Tiffany holds a B.A. in History and a M.Ed. in Educational Administration and Policy from Howard University. She currently resides with her family in Maryland.