In our work at Axis, we get to know incredible leaders across the impact sector, both as clients and candidates. Last month, we launched our “In Conversation” series. In addition to hosting candid affinity and community-centered conversations about the things that are top of mind and close to heart, we’re also sitting down, so to speak, with our closest partners. And we’re excited to bring their insights, perspectives, and wisdom to you.

For the second conversation in our series, Laura Donald and Nadia Khan from Axis spoke with Guersch Saint-Ange, NACSA’s COO, about what matters most to her in partnerships with consultants, and what makes our long-term partnership so effective. Just as so many org leaders are loaded with priorities, stretched with capacity, and often constrained with budget limitations, our impact sector has become saturated with consultants. For us, this landscape pushes reflection - about what matters most and how best to meet our objectives while conserving our limited time and energy. This includes finding and nurturing the right partnerships.

Our work with NACSA brings all of us joy. And best of all - the feeling is mutual. As such, we wanted to offer a window into what made the collaboration feel so successful, from our perspective and theirs.

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Laura: My dear Guersch — I wanted to have a dialogue with you about what an ideal partnership means to you, with consultants that support your work as an executive at a national nonprofit, and support your work as a Black leader in this space, too.

Guersch: What I’m looking for, number one: I’m usually coming to a consultant because there’s a specific need. I look for a vendor that does one, maybe two things, but does them really, really well. And then once I get into conversation, I’m very open about what my values are — because ultimately, the way you engage in your work comes from your value system. Whether you’ve identified those values or not, you’re always working from somewhere. So I try to engage values first. To see if there’s alignment about the way we think about culture, about how we treat people.

Laura: What are you looking to hear?

Guersch: I’m looking for vendors that are people-first. The transaction — the what of what you do — is only part of it. What makes the process good is that we focused on the people first. I want someone who has great, nuanced experience, but what’s at the center for them is how they engage people as they solve problems.

The other thing is intentionality. You know how they say trust takes time to build? I don’t know that I agree with that. You all are incredibly intentional about how you build trust quickly. From the very beginning, Nadia said: here’s what the next several weeks is going to look like. She gave us an overview, then took us through it bit by bit. Her process was reliable. And as we were going, she was narrating: this is where we are. Remember, we agreed to this. Oh, you’ve made a change — here’s how it’s going to impact the rest of the search. Increased reliability means increased trust.

Laura: People have so much choice now when selecting a search firm. What is the value for you of someone truly knowing you?

Guersch: Efficiency is one — we can speak in shorthand. There were things we didn’t have to re-explain in our most recent search because you’d already spent time with us. You could speak to candidates about NACSA not because I handed you a document, but because you know us.

Nadia: I have so much more inside language now to share with candidates before they even get to NACSA. I know Guersch. I can speak to her leadership style, her management approach — and I think that builds credibility for NACSA on their behalf. We become an extension of their organization.

And the other thing I’ve really learned: course correcting is so much easier when the trust is already there… Mistakes happen. But when something doesn’t quite fit, we catch it immediately and we fix it — because there’s trust in both directions. I found that to be so healing in the workspace, in many ways.

Guersch, what does that feel like from your side?

Guersch: The way you articulated it is exactly right. We’ve worked with other recruitment firms where the approach can be: I’m the recruiter, I know best what needs to happen here. Nadia flips that. She says: You know best the person you want to hire. We’re here to help you articulate what that is — but you’re the experts.

At critical moments where there was space for choice, we were given the choice. That made me feel like an equal partner. It made it easy to say, there was a misstep here — which with other dynamics is a much harder conversation. Nadia is so inviting of that feedback, so oriented toward co-creation, that it just happens naturally.

And I want to add something, because this piece can’t be missed: there are also critical junctures where Nadia says, we’re not doing it that way. She’ll name exactly how a decision is going to impact the process, the candidates, the equity of the search. She’s unafraid to be the expert when it matters. So it’s not wishy-washy. Co-creation doesn’t mean anything goes — it’s very intentional about where you can play in the sandbox so we can stay on track, keep candidates warm, and get it right. That’s why we’ve had three successful hires over the last year and a half.

Laura: That really is the art we’re going for: balancing expertise with advisement and collaboration. Less transactional. More human.

And speaking of that — Nadia, you’ve said there are elements of safety in this relationship. At Axis, we’ve always been concerned with creating safe spaces for Black women and women of color in leadership. I’d love to open that door, Guersch, if you’re willing — what you’re navigating as a Black woman in leadership, and how that informs the way you think about who you partner with.

Guersch: I’m going to say something that might be different from what you’d expect. What I find most powerful about these safe spaces, particularly with vendors, is that we can call a thing a thing. We’ll get off a call and Nadia and I will talk: Did you see that? Did you hear that? Did I respond appropriately? That’s incredibly validating. When she’s getting pushback and asks, did I say something wrong? — I can say: no, you didn’t. That was white supremacy at its finest.

But here’s the part I’ve found even more valuable than that. As a Black woman leader, I don’t always get it right — even in this work around equity and creating safe space. Nadia doesn’t call me out. She calls me in. She’ll say: we need to have a conversation — I want you to consider what the impact of that was. And we can have that conversation, because there’s trust and respect here. I feel like she’s earned the right to give me that feedback.

Sometimes, as Black women leaders — and I love us deeply — we can carry chips on our shoulders, thinking that because of the skin we’re in, we’re automatically expert in this work. We’re not. We’re all at different places in the equity journey. Having a partner who can say, you might have reached the edge of your current learning — let me push you toward a growth edge — that is such a valuable part of this partnership.

Laura: That is the highest praise, thank you. The other thing you’re talking about in an ideal partnership, that I want to say out loud too, is that we have each other’s backs. We’re holding each other, and we’re supporting each other, and it’s coming from a place of love. Making yourself better, making your organizations better - those are love actions, and it is so true of all of us. We’ve created this safe space together in Axis. We hope to bring it to our partners.

Nadia: I want to give a lot of credit to Guersch here. She’s one of the very few leaders we’ve worked with, in four or five years of doing this work, who brings no ego to the table. She pauses before she speaks. She listens before she gives feedback. Not just to me — to the entire committee, to everyone in every conversation I’ve been part of with her. That kindness and generosity she brings to how she relates to people is the biggest part of why this partnership works.

Yes, we bring the process, the systems, the expertise. But there has to be something reciprocal on the other end — and you are so open to that. That’s what makes it easier for me to bring the art we want to bring. So a lot of the credit goes to how you’re leading this partnership, and how we navigate it together.

Guersch: You can’t replicate this. It’s intentional. Every hiring engagement we’ve had since the first one, we haven’t talked to anybody else. We’ve only been with Axis. We’re about to hire again — and that’s my plan moving forward.

Laura: What a note to close on. Here’s to all of it — the mutual trust, the intentionality, the honest conversations, the holding each other. We all need that in our lives.

Guersch: Indeed we do. Thank you both.

Community,

We’ve got you on our minds right now. So much in the world around us feels out of our control. It can be hard to know what action to take or how to really make a difference. In the face of the extraordinary chaos and harm happening everywhere, when we’re desperate for a dose of hope and optimism, we turn toward our greatest source of inspiration, aspiration, and renewal: our community. And that is you!

Right now, we’re also thinking a lot about how to be more active community members and stewards, and how we more intentionally nurture, broaden, deepen, and serve our community. It feels more important than ever to double down on our values, and act upon our commitment to the work we do and the expanded community we do it with.

As we consider how to engage our people, all of you, in new ways that help us weather these challenging days together, we reflect on the different dimensions of our community that show up in our work and lives. How they are like three concentric circles - a ‘small c’ community inclusive of those most proximate to and intimate with us; a ‘middle c’ community representing friends of friends and peers of peers, who are just a degree or two removed; and a ‘big c’ community of those who may be least proximate to us individually but part of the larger ecosystem we navigate and hope to impact.

We think of our “small c” as each other - the women of this practice who hold and sustain us, who celebrate our wins and catch us when we stumble, who remind us why we do this work when it feels hard. We show up for each other with love, grace, and a hell of a lot of laughter.

Our “middle c” is humbling in its reach and impact, and we are grateful every day to be in such excellent company. It’s the candidates we engage, coach, and champion, including leaders navigating impossible loads and responsibilities, wrestling with decisions about whether to take that leap, whether they’re “ready,” whether they belong in rooms they’ve been told weren’t meant for them. It’s the hours spent on the phone helping someone see their own brilliance, or walking them through a difficult negotiation, or simply bearing witness to their journey. It’s also our inspiring peers and collaborators across the social impact space: the extraordinary constellation of search firms, consultants, coaches, and practitioners who share resources, swap insights, and hold each other accountable to doing this work with integrity, and support the work of making positive social impact every day, year after year. It’s the clients who become friends, the candidates who become colleagues, the coffee chats that turn into ongoing partnerships. This middle circle is where so much of the relationship-building, truth-telling, truly seeing, mutual resourcing, and sometimes healing happens. It’s where we learn from each other, challenge each other, and lift each other up to keep going.

And our “big c” community? For us, in our day to day work, that’s the organizations, agencies, and individuals doing the hard, necessary work of pushing back and fighting for justice and liberation. We’re fortunate to work with clients like the New York Immigration Coalition who are on the frontlines right now, defending immigrant communities when they’re under direct attack from our own government. Or Amnesty International USA taking on human rights injustices, domestically and around the world. When we place transformative leaders in organizations that are actively resisting harm and building toward liberation, we’re not just filling roles—we’re strengthening the infrastructure of resistance and hope.

This is why our work matters. This is why your work matters. The candidates we meet become the leaders who shape these organizations. The organizations we support become the movements that protect our communities. And the community we build with each other, across all three circles, becomes the foundation that keeps us going when everything else feels like it’s crumbling.

So for 2026, with our focus on community, we’ll be hosting a series of intimate conversations (join us for our first one on Feb 27) to make public the ongoing discussions that are top of mind and most close to heart. The kind of discussions that have kept us going all year, that center how we’re supporting each other, how we’re charting new paths, how we’re surviving, changing, resisting, healing, leading, preserving hope, and on our brightest days, how we’re thriving.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

All of us at Axis

Share in the comments:

1. Any of your favorite civilian action & mutual aid campaigns

2. Topics Suggestions for our Conversation Series

Leave a comment

P.S. Highlighting some of our favorite resources for civilian action & mutual aid below.

• NYIC NY 4 all Campaign

• Amnesty International: Act Campaign

• Immigrants Rising: Know Your Rights

• ACLU: Stop Ice Campaign

• National Immigration Law Center Campaign

• Mutual Aid Hub

• Minnesota Immigrant Defense Network

• Minneapolis Pet Food Drive

What a time, y’all. What. A. Time.
Let’s begin with a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. Whew! Okay.

Please allow us to introduce ourselves: Axis Talent Partners. We are a collection of women, women of color, immigrants, and daughters of immigrants, who - in our work lives - run an executive search firm. And if you know anything about us, you know Axis is not your typical executive search firm. Since our very beginning over a decade ago, we have intentionally focused on recruiting leaders of color and of identities that are often marginalized, seeking to correct for the way traditional hiring and executive search favors certain groups and excludes others. We seek to ensure our own and our clients’ interview processes are fair, reflect dignity and care, and actively disrupt the biases we all carry. We’ve always called this centering of equity and inclusion ‘just best practice for how you treat people. All people.’’

All of this puts us in touch with extraordinary leaders and social impact organizations all over the country, and gives us a unique perspective on the nonprofit and job-seeking landscape. It also gives us a front row seat to the backlash against DEI, the downsizing or elimination of organizations, programs and services that we know firsthand communities rely on. We also see daily the direct impact on the individual black women who make up the 320,000 and counting pushed out of the workforce.

We are also moms, friends, care providers and community members who, in this moment - maybe like you - are struggling to make meaning of the world around us. Our work is deeply personal to us, placing leaders in amazing organizations who have incredible impact on real lives around the country. We make it our business to build relationships - with candidates, with clients, with colleagues - that are authentic, deep, and long lasting. It is immensely painful to see so much damage being done, to so many, and on such a scale as it is right now. (Ugh. Maybe time for another inhale…… exhale.)

And so that is what brings us here. As we watch this destruction, wrestle with our grief and anger, we keep asking ourselves how we’ll sustain our work and ourselves - in this moment, and in the years to come. To cope, we keep coming back to a mantra of sorts. Community, connection, and joy as an antidote to chaos and pain. And yes, if you’re wondering, we’re thinking directly of Dr. King’s wisdom and his Beloved Community concept.

We see community, connection, and joy as pathways to our collective healing. (And Ooof! Our world is in dire need of some deep healing right now.) We see community, connection, and joy as a form of resistance and a demonstration of resilience. At a moment when the highest powers in our country seek to divide us, we seek instead to share the ways in which people are finding joy, creating connection and building community. Together, they are a message to those that destroy and divide, that we can still show up with love.

On that note, we get to see community, connection, and joy in action in leadership all around us. In fact, they are an essential part of the type of leadership we seek to elevate. The diverse humans we work to identify and support - across ethnicity, gender, background, and experience - don’t just lead with strategy and skill. They lead with humanity. They build the communities that sustain movements, forge the connections that bridge divides, and create the joy that makes lasting impact.

So we invite you to join us here, where we’ll share reflections, stories, resources, and inspiration as it comes our way in the practice. We’ll shine a light on the stories of survival, of starting over, of impact, and of thriving - that we have the joy of witnessing regularly in our work. We hope you’ll share with us as well. We can remind each other that our light is needed more than ever, and we’ll get through dark times together

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Axis Talent Partners is a boutique executive search and people strategy firm, led by women and founded by women of color. Our mission is to support social impact organizations in finding the right leaders increasing the diversity of the leadership of the sector and facilitating access to positions of authority for people of color and historically marginalized identities. We partner with mission-driven organizations of all sizes, stages and issue areas, and offer search and hiring solutions that are grounded in relationship-building and centered in inclusivity and racial equity.

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