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!

Ehmonie Hainey

Director of Strategic Partnerships

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Ehmonie Hainey is a seasoned marketing, communications, and public relations professional with over 16 years of experience in the financial services, entertainment (cable TV, radio and film), tech, and nonprofit sectors. Her experience runs the gamut from consulting on internal communications and media relations, to executive speechwriting, editorial and blog content creation, web copywriting, and development of strategic communications and marketing campaigns.

Ehmonie has an MBA in marketing & entrepreneurship, and an MS in media management from Syracuse University. She also holds a BS in natural science from the University of Pittsburgh. Ehmonie sits on the board of Washington Improv Theater (WIT) and co-chairs the marketing committee and racial justice task force. In her spare time, she regularly performs comedic improv and standup comedy throughout the DMV area.

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.

Tamika McCormack

Project Manager

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Tamika McCormack is a dynamic Project Manager with over 12 years of experience across multiple industries. Her project experience ranges from global strategic initiative implementation, all the way to on-site operational process improvement.  Tamika pays close attention to detail and is passionate about structure and organization, yet agile enough to get ahead of risks and mitigate issues when they arise.

With a B.B.A. from Howard University and an M.S. from Full Sail University, Tamika has taken her education and matched it with her natural creativity to become a thought-provoking leader that is committed to innovative and strategic thinking, to provide the most efficient solutions to her clients and partners.

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.

Lane Trisko

Lead Strategist

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

Lane joined the Provoc team with over ten years of experience in data architecture and strategy, analytics, and database development. He has served both higher education and non-profits as a consultant and takes pride in offering his technical expertise to organizations that are changing the world. Lane’s varied and unique skillset ranges from big picture digital and data strategy/product development, to the technical nuts and bolts of database development, to analytics and data consumption. This puts him in a unique position to serve non-profits in ways effective, efficient and far-ranging as a ‘jack of all trades’ in all things data.

Paula M. Villegas Morera

Operations and Community Coordinator

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

Paula is a Costa Rican/American with more than seven years of experience in the field of international development and higher education. She joins PROVOC after living and working in Rabat, Morocco, for the last 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. In her role as an Operations and Community Coordinator she works directly with the president, and supports the staff members to ensure that they have what they need as to put them in a position to succeed. She enjoys traveling and cooking, and lives in VA with her husband and five year old son.

K Watkins

Project Manager

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

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.