We’re pleased to announce the election of Safe Shores’ newest board members, who both bring incredible skills and knowledge and are ready to help advance Safe Shores’ mission. Please join us in welcoming:
- Liz Ott
- Timothy Hykes
- Julie Diaz-Asper
- Philip Wilson, JD
Liz, Timothy, Julie, and Philip, we are delighted to have you on board (see what we did there?) and can’t wait to work alongside you!
Please join us in saying a huge THANK YOU! to our outgoing board members. You can learn more about them and their incredible contributions to Safe Shores over the years at our farewell post.
Below, you can get to know the newest members of Safe Shores’ board of directors.
Timothy Hykes
(He/Him)
Tim Hykes is a prominent, Washington, D.C.-based User Experience (UX) Leader at Google, an enterprise entrepreneur, and a national advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion across the technology and design industries
Currently at Google, Tim focuses on ecosystem tools designed to empower creators and digital publishers, optimizing how content is surfaced and valued across Google Search. His broader body of work at Google includes leading interaction design for conversational, agentic user experiences in AI Mode (AIM) and contributing to the Google for Jobs initiative. Prior to joining Google, he honed his product strategy and web design expertise across enterprise organizations, including World Wide Technology, Wells Fargo Advisors, and Answers.com. In recognition of his industry impact, Adobe named him a national *2019 UX Designer to Watch.
As an entrepreneur and community architect, Tim is the CEO and Co-Founder of Design + Diversity LLC, where he served as Director of the acclaimed Design + Diversity Conference, advancing inclusive frameworks across creative industries. He is also the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Kinetic Social Group LLC, an event and engagement firm focused on creating tailored, culturally rich spaces. Under Kinetic Social Group, he launched Anime & Cocktails, a premier D.C.-area social experience providing a safe, vibrant space for Black anime enthusiasts and cosplayers to connect.
Deeply committed to equity and digital transformation, Tim serves as Director of Marketing & Communications for The Black Tech Collective. In this role, he led the end-to-end design and launch of the organization’s foundational digital platform—significantly expanding its brand equity, discoverability, and online presence to deliver actionable blueprints for Black technology professionals.
Beyond his corporate and venture leadership, Tim is an active media creator, keynote speaker, and industry thought leader. He hosts The Unconference Podcast, where he explores the intersections of design, public communication, equity, and inclusion. He also publishes educational video content and long-form design essays aimed at demystifying UX for rising tech talent.
A recognized governance voice in the creative industry, Tim served as President of both the AIGA St. Louis chapter and the AIGA Midwest District, and contributed nationally as a member of the National AIGA DEI Task Force.
Liz Ott
(SHE/HER)
Liz is the Chief Impact Officer and a member of the Executive Team at Mission Partners, a 100% women-owned Certified B Corporation and social impact communications firm. In her role, Liz holds the firm accountable to its B Corp standards and public commitments, leads the firm’s marketing and business development functions, and serves as a direct thought partner to the CEO.
Prior to joining Mission Partners, Liz spent more than 16 years at another Certified B Corp, including six years as President, leading a digital strategy agency serving national nonprofits, foundations, and cultural institutions, including UN Environment, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Planned Parenthood, and the U.S. Department of State. She built compensation and career structures that advanced pay equity across the organization. As President, she centered equity in how the agency operated, developed its people, and served its clients, building compensation and career structures, strengthening internal training and team development, and developing equitable hiring practices.
Liz serves on the leadership team of ComNet DC. She also serves as an advisor to Diversify by Design, a coalition working to address racial disparities across the design ecosystem. She is a former President of AIGA DC, and was instrumental in growing The Design Continuum Fund, where she continues to serve on the endowment committee.
With more than 20 years of experience spanning organizational leadership, client strategy, and communications, Liz brings a relational approach to leadership: building trust, navigating ambiguity, and helping teams move forward with confidence in complex and difficult situations. She creates clarity without rigidity, and accountability without eroding trust.
Liz holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with her daughter.
Philip Wilson, J.D.
(HE/HIM)
Phil Wilson is a senior policy professional with more than a decade of experience advancing economic development for communities, building coalitions across governments and communities, and equity-centered fiscal policy at the intersection of clean energy, labor, and environmental justice. He currently serves as Senior Sustainability Program Manager at ICLEI USA, where he continues his work building the connections between sustainability, equity, and economic opportunity.
Throughout his career, Philip has partnered with organized labor, workforce development boards, government agencies, and community organizations across the country to align federal and state investments with high-road labor standards. His experience spans the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, where he embedded impacted communities into community benefits agreements for multi-billion dollar clean energy projects; Metropolitan Group, where he advised union and government clients on workforce policy across a 33-state portfolio and led fundraising strategy that secured and distributed nearly $135 million in foundation and federal grant funding; and the Maryland Department of Transportation, where he authored the agency’s foundational Environmental Justice Policy and built apprenticeship pipelines tied to more than $50 million in infrastructure investment.
Philip holds a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, from South Carolina State University. He began his legal career with the Internal Revenue Service and as a legal intern with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Civil Rights.
A native of Fort Washington, Maryland, Philip brings a deep, personal commitment to Safe Shores’ mission. Having grown up in the community Safe Shores serves, he understands firsthand the importance of the organization’s work protecting families, and he is honored to share his policy, coalition-building, and fundraising expertise with the community.
Julie Diaz-Asper
(She/Her)
Julie is the founding partner of Social Lens Research (SLR), a digital insights agency that helps organizations better understand, reach, and engage their customers, employees, and suppliers. She is responsible for the firm’s overall strategy and day-to-day operations. SLR helps companies engage social media influencers in their product and marketing campaign development, powered by GigCoin, an influencer network of thousands of socially savvy content producers with deep expertise in their specialties—including education, food, fitness, personal finance, and green living.
Julie has spent more than two decades helping organizations understand consumer needs, innovate, and pursue new market opportunities. As a strategy consultant at Booz Allen and Coopers & Lybrand, she focused on leveraging new technologies to create market opportunities for telecom and media companies. She later spent nearly ten years at American Express, where she helped innovate how the company reached, serviced, and engaged its commercial card customer base through new technologies. Julie also worked with AARP on LifeTuner, a financial literacy 2.0 site that leverages community, interactive tools, and social media to help 20- and 30-year-olds better manage their finances.
Beyond American Express and AARP, Julie has worked with a wide range of organizations, including Google, Electronic Arts, Samsung, Univision, Share Our Strength, and Georgetown University’s Impact for Business Center.
Julie has deep experience optimizing Black American, Latinx/Hispanic, and other multicultural marketing research investments by engaging niche populations within those communities—including frontline employees, small business owners, high-net-worth individuals, SNAP/WIC recipients, LGBTQ individuals, influencers, parents, millennials, and Gen Xers. Her research methodology experience includes online focus groups, mobile ethnographic studies, co-creation sessions, competitive benchmarking, customer journey testing, and employee ideation sessions. She specializes in using immersive experiences, creative exercises, and culturally relevant imagery to deep insights and achieve breakthrough results.
