Movement Tapestries & Sheryl Petty, Ed.D.
CEO & Founder of Movement Tapestries, Sheryl Petty supports the efforts of practitioners, organizations and community members to heal ourselves and our social systems, unleash our joy and creativity, and improve our collective life. I’ve worked in systems change, education, leadership, equity, network weaving, field building, and organizational development for 30 years, supporting individuals, nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, school systems, government agencies, colleges and universities. For nearly 30 years, I’ve also been a priest in an indigenous African-based tradition, have practiced and am ordained in yogic (non-monastic) Vajrayana Buddhism, and am also authorized to share practices based in Bön Buddhist Dzogchen (from the Indigenous tradition of Tibet). I also have a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, a master’s degree in Systematic & Philosophical Theology, and a doctorate in Leadership & Change. I teach and share practices from all of these systems, and am also a certified yoga asana teacher.
Movement Tapestries focuses nationally and internationally on weaving personal transformation & social systems change™. I work independently and in collaboration. My consulting practice focuses on organizations with significant capacity to transform and heal our collective condition. I was a Principal Associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, was a fellow at Stanford University's Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and am currently a Fellow with the Mind & Life Institute. I was also Adjunct Faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, and was recruited to help build out Change Elemental’s equity practice. (*Please see the “Services” pages for sample work and partnerships.)
I have been an executive director, program manager, high school teacher, and board member in addition to consulting. My work includes: equity-driven visioning; change process design and facilitation; cross-sector field-building; strategy development; leadership coaching; team capacity building; alliance and network development; learning and reflection system design; multi-year deep equity institutional transformation; and professional, spiritual and life coaching. I support people and organizations in: catalytic institutional equity assessment; groundbreaking reckoning and alignment; developing new visions and strategies that integrate efforts across an organization or field; planning the multi-year next steps to operationalize the new, transformative visions and strategies; and building the inner capacities and stamina to make the vision and next steps deep and sustainable.
