About SunShower Learning
SunShower Learning is known for creativity, collaboration and expertise. SunShower is committed to crafting learning experiences that inspire and challenge people to be more curious about their own habits and behaviors. We do this with impactful, award-winning DEI eLearning created by the world’s leading experts.
We teach skills and tools people can use to intentionally disrupt implicit biases before they influence decisions and interactions with others. As a global leader in high-impact Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training, many hundreds of thousands of learners have taken our award-winning courses. Clients include Liberty Mutual, AT&T, McDonald’s and Amazon.
What’s a sunshower, anyway?
In the realm of nature’s wonders, there is a captivating phenomenon known as a “sunshower.” It occurs when the sun shines while raindrops fall from the sky, creating a mesmerizing contrast. Scientists explain that a sunshower can happen when winds carry raindrops from a faraway rainstorm into an area where there are no clouds.
This fascinating meteorological display has captured imagination and inspired many songs and poems throughout history. And, in folklore, sunshowers have been attributed to various meanings and superstitions. Tales are centered around such things as the marriage of foxes or other animals, a wedding of a spirit to a human or the conversion of sunshine into liquid gold.
In contemplating the ethereal and unexpected beauty of a sunshower and the profound impact of diversity, equity and inclusion work, we discover a powerful analogy. Just as the sun radiates through a downpour, DEI work illuminates implicit bias and offers a ray of hope. It brings clarity, inspires perseverance and nourishes the growth of more healthy people and environments. Amidst a storm of inequity, SunShower Learning’s DEI work lights the way toward a brighter future where all individuals, organizations and communities can thrive.
Do you have a photo of a sunshower you’d like to share? Please email it to us!
About Joel Lesko
Deepak Chopra, Al Gore and … fish?
Joel Lesko began his filmmaking career producing documentary films. He worked with thought leaders like Deepak Chopra and Vice President Al Gore to shine a light on social impact issues. When a company hired Joel to produce a customer service training video, he researched the field and found FISH! This was a short video about the employees in the Seattle Public Market who throw fish, delight customers and enjoy their jobs. FISH! was the inspiration for Joel’s subsequent project titled SMILE!, the story of a Seattle bus driver who greeted and sang to his riders. SMILE! was a blockbuster hit and propelled SunShower Learning into the corporate training business. In essence, Joel founded SunShower Learning based on his passion for using film to tell stories that educate, inspire and ultimately make a positive difference.
A lifelong commitment to racial and social justice leads to transformative DEI training
Joel’s next project brought together his passion for filmmaking and his lifelong commitment to racial and social justice. Having grown up with parents who were active in the civil rights movement, Joel wanted to find a story to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Ouch! That Stereotype Hurts was filmed in New York City with an HBO documentary cinematographer, and it rocked the training world. It won multiple awards and was a groundbreaking training video – before DEI was even a focus at most organizations. The training combined emotional storytelling, thought-provoking ideas and practical tools – like 6 simple techniques to speak up. Hundreds of thousands of employees have learned how to speak up with Ouch!
Organizations come calling
SunShower Learning grew, and Joel’s work was adopted by large and small organizations across the country and beyond. The training helped create a more inclusive culture and improve performance for businesses like AT&T, UCLA, McDonalds, Microsoft and the US Justice Department. SunShower evolved to create custom corporate training based on client demand. Soon came a phone call from Liberty Mutual Insurance: “We love your work and want you to make a program for us.” This surprise call led to a multi-year project to create a series of video courses (Inclusion in Action: 9 Skills). They have since been used by more than 40,000 Liberty employees and tens of thousands more in organizations around the world.
A lasting impression
Joel’s work has been at the forefront of DEI training, setting a standard in both content and production. All along, Joel’s commitment has remained the same: to explore what gets in the way of diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces and to provide actionable skills to drive meaningful change.
Joel Lesko directing a scene in Defeating Unconscious Bias
Filming a scene for Inclusion in Action with world-class cinematographer, Daniel B. Gold.
Creating a powerful corporate communication with client.
About Gina Miller
Gina Miller is a native New Yorker who married into a Gullah family in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. (The Gullah people are descendants of Africans who were enslaved on the rice, indigo and cotton plantations on the Sea Islands and coastal plain of the lower Atlantic. Due to their geographical isolation and strong community life, the Gullah have been unique in their ability to preserve their African cultural heritage.) As a result of Gina’s family dynamic – and especially when she became a parent – her natural interest in culture, community and social justice evolved into a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and beyond. As an avid reader, prolific writer and community volunteer, she channels her thoughts and emotions into various forms of storytelling. This includes writing articles and developing content.
With a deep-rooted belief in the power of DEI training as a catalyst for progress, Gina has embarked on a remarkable journey to promote lasting change by capitalizing on her decades of marketing expertise. As SunShower’s Director of Marketing and Customer Experience, Gina helps steer the company’s branding, communication and outreach efforts to amplify our mission and connect with a wide-ranging audience.
A distinguished team of world-class DEI experts
Joel is pleased to share more about the team of authors, speakers and facilitators who have collaborated with us to create these important programs. The collective intelligence and experience are only outweighed by the passion these talented leaders bring to the work.
Leslie Aguilar
Founder, International Training and Development
Leslie wrote the book Ouch! That Stereotype Hurts and collaborated with Joel Lesko from SunShower Learning to produce the wildly popular and multi-award winning video, online course and eLearning. She also collaborated with Joel to create the follow-up program, Ouch! Your Silence Hurts. The Ouch! series has been enthusiastically used by tens of thousands of organizations around the world with significant personal and organizational results.
Leslie is an author, consultant and curriculum developer in the areas of DEIB, multicultural and multilingual competence and multicultural customer service. Watch the interview with Leslie here in which she offers valuable insights into the practical applications of Ouch! techniques.
Courses in the SunShower library
Hideko Akashi
Founder, Liberation Consulting
Hideko has over 20 years of experience in the educational sector, challenging individuals and institutions to think critically about issues of diversity, privilege, social justice, inclusion, and equity and to create healthy, meaningful work cultures.
Hideko has worked with SunShower to create learning experiences around the myths of the model minority and AAPI experience.
Courses in the SunShower library
Hideko is collaborating with SunShower on three new courses launching in early 2024:
Myths and Models: AAPI Inclusion
Expanding the Gender Binary
Pronouns
New products coming soon!
Mary Chlopecki, Esq.
Workplace Investigations, Training & Consulting, Senior Investigator and Counsel, Georgetown University
With 20+ years of diverse experience, and a Juris Doctor from George Mason University School of Law, Mary is a trusted legal advisor and EEO specialist, serving clients in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.
Mary has deep competency in conducting professional, end-to-end, confidential workplace investigations.
Mary is a seasoned trainer with a record of success developing and delivering an array of live and virtual programs, and she’s experienced in designing and performing work environment studies and climate assessments.
Courses in the SunShower library
Within Our Power: Preventing and Addressing Sexual Harassment Together
Tina Dyer
Founder, Grafted Together Consulting
Tina is a leader in the areas of global diversity and inclusion, a public speaker and an organization development professional with proven success in designing and implementing DEI strategies and initiatives, coaching senior leaders and enhancing employee engagement, retention and productivity.
Tina is a Somatic Abolitionist Practitioner with years of experience in coaching around Racial, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. She has collaborated with SunShower to conduct online live trainings across many industries.
Tina is developing a new course with SunShower that will help people build a capacity mentally, emotionally, and physically for staying present and engaging in conversations across dimensions of diversity, especially race.
Courses in the SunShower library
Self-Care and prepping for conversations of Racial, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
New product coming soon!
Greg Gale
Founder, Insight Out Consulting
For over 25 years, Greg has held DEI leadership positions in both Fortune 100 companies and non- profit organizations and has implemented DEI solutions throughout the US and globally.
Greg has high-level experience developing DEI strategy, coaching leaders to develop inclusion skills and creating insightful and actionable group learning experiences.
Greg has led workshops with SunShower in Inclusive Leadership and has worked with our clients to aid them in the Enterprise roll-out of our eLearning courses.
Courses in the SunShower Library
Greg is developing a new course with SunShower to help white male allies gain skills to be champions for inclusion and equity.
New product coming soon!
Robin Denise Johnson, Ph.D.
Founder, RDJ Training
Dr. Robin is a Harvard Business School trained Ph.D. and wrote an award-winning dissertation on diversity, work-life balance and empowerment.
Dr. Robin’s BA is in International Relations / World History from Brown University, and her Masters in Social Psychology is from Harvard. She was also faculty at Darden University of Virginia, Cal Poly Pomona and UCLA as well as a visiting professor at Ozyegin Business School in Istanbul, Turkey.
Dr. Robin has collaborated with SunShower on the series, Being a Kind Leader, which includes 3 modules - 6 Soft S.K.I.L.L.S., Developing Trust and Living Your Values (coming soon). The SKILLS and Trust courses have both won multiple awards.
Courses in the SunShower library
Be a Kind Leader: Six Soft S.K.I.L.L.S.
Being a Kind Leader: Developing Trust
Being a Kind Leader: Living Your Values
Debra L. Lacy, Ed.D.
Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion TeamHealth
Dr. Debra Lacy is the Director of DEI at TeamHealth. Previously, she was Director of DEI at Texas Children’s Hospital and Assistant Director of the DEI Office at Liberty Mutual Insurance.
Debra received her Doctor of Education in Learning and Organizational Change from Baylor University. Her thesis, published, was on the impact of inclusive leadership on organizational culture.
Courses in the SunShower library
Debra and Joel collaborated to create the Inclusion in Action eLearning course that was used internally at Liberty Mutual to train more than 35,000 employees. Then they created the commercial version of Inclusion in Action that is available for any organization to use.
Debra and Joel are collaborating to create a new eLearning course, De-Mythifying DEI.
New product coming soon!
Yolanda Lewis-Ragland, M.D.
Attending Physician , Children's National Health Center
Dr. Yolanda Lewis-Ragland is a double-board-certified physician in pediatrics and obesity medicine, owner and CEO of Family Fitness and Wellness for Community Health, and founder of Dr. Yolanda Cares Foundation, her nonprofit organization focusing on reducing health disparities in at-risk communities at home and abroad.
For 20 years, Dr. Lewis-Ragland has lived and practiced in one of the poorest and most traumatized communities in the nation’s capital, gaining the trust and respect of residents and, more recently, actively addressing heart disease in African Americans through her annual Heart-to-Heart Red Carpet Affair. She has published, Navigating a Triple Pandemic: Healthcare Workers of Color Confront Racism in America, Health Disparities in Medicine, and the Trauma of COVID-19.
Dr. Lewis-Ragland is collaborating with SunShower to work on a new program, Let’s Talk: Health Equity
New product coming soon!
Lisette Martinez, MBA
Chief Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Officer, National Audubon Society
As a fervent advocate for the transformative power of inclusion within enterprises, Lisette has launched and scaled award-winning DEI organizations and programs that align with the company's mission, vision and values. Throughout her career, she has successfully established, designed and led scalable, company-wide diversity models at renowned institutions such as Jefferson Health, Yale New Haven Health System and TriHealth, integrating DEI into their core infrastructures. Lisette has further demonstrated her commitment by creating supplier diversity, community partnership and leadership development initiatives aimed at increasing diverse spending and broadening organizational impact. Previously, she held the position of Executive Vice President and Chief DEI Officer at Jefferson Health, a 198-year-old legacy organization with 18 hospitals and 10 colleges with over 50,000 employees and students. Lisette was appointed by the National Audubon Society to spearhead efforts across the organization, integrating equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging (EDIB) practices seamlessly into the fabric of Audubon’s operations. Her role involves refining policies and procedures and championing data-driven change initiatives. Lisette collaborates closely with the Conservation and People and Culture teams to embed EDIB principles in Audubon’s conservation initiatives across the Western Hemisphere.
Courses in the SunShower library
Danita Oliver
VP, Global Diversity, Culture & Belonging
As a seasoned builder of holistic strategies, Danita looks to drive change while expanding opportunities. She has extensive experience building and developing teams, strategic planning, goal setting and implementing effective grassroots employee programs.
As a strategic thought leader and culture architect, Danita focuses on cultivating diverse workforce engagement and environments where employees can experience belonging.
Danita is partnering with SunShower to develop a course on growing culture by planting one seed at a time - Culturvate for success.
New product coming soon!
Steve L. Robbins, Ph.D.
Speaker, Author, Inclusion & Belonging Consultant, Founder SL Robbins & Assoc.
Dr. Steve Robbins is a master storyteller. He blends art and science to motivate people to be better humans. His style has been described as a mix of Bill Nye the Science Guy, The Big Bang Theory and Saturday Night Live.
Steve is well-known for his concept on Unintentional Intolerance which is featured in the SunShower course, Inclusion Insights. Our micro-learning course consists of 11 insight nuggets in which Steve tells stories and challenges our automatic assumptions.
Courses in the SunShower library
Marsha Ross-Jackson, Esq., MPA
Senior Lecturer, Associate Dean of DEI and University Ombudsperson at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Founder, BoldWorks
Marsha is the Senior Lecturer, Associate Dean of DEI and University Ombudsperson at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Marsha is also an experienced attorney, arbitrator, facilitator and consultant who provides training and advice on a variety of employee relations and leadership topics, including, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.
Marsha has delivered many live online trainings with SunShower in the areas of unconscious bias, microaggressions and inclusive hiring, consistently receiving rave reviews.
Derald Wing Sue, Ph.D.
Researcher, Author and Faculty,
Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Sue is a pioneer in the field of multicultural education and the psychology of racism and antiracism.
Dr. Sue is one of the leading researchers and authors on microaggressions. Dr. Sue’s books include Microaggressions in Everyday Life, and Microintervention Strategies.
Dr. Sue collaborated with SunShower to produce Disarming Microaggressions and the 21-Day Plan for Disarming Microaggressions.
Courses in the SunShower library
Disarming Microaggressions
21-Day Plan for Disarming Microaggressions
Sondra Thiederman, Ph.D.
Speaker, Author, Founder of Cross Cultural Consultants
Dr. Sondra Thiederman is one of the nation’s leading experts on unconscious bias and workplace inclusion issues.
Sondra is a researcher and speaker known for providing practical skills for defeating unconscious bias/implicit bias in the workplace.
Sondra collaborated with SunShower to create three powerful and award-winning courses that continue to be favorites today: Defeating Unconscious Bias, Diversity Dialogue Blunders, and Unconscious Bias in FOCUS.
Courses in the SunShower library
Connie Watson, Ed.D.
Lead Consultant Watson & Assoc.
Dr. Connie Watson excels at getting the people side of your business right from building leadership capacity to increasing team performance.
Dr. Watson is a researcher and author of assessments focusing on the area of well-being and mental health.
Connie has been a frequent collaborator with SunShower for workshops and webinars on inclusive leadership, psychological safety, Ouch! and other topics.
Topics
SunShower addresses these topics (and more) in our eLearning courses, Trainer’s Toolbox materials and Live Webinars with experts:
- Microaggressions and Psychological Safety
- Unconscious Bias
- Culture of Belonging: What gets in the way?
- How to lead a multicultural team
- Are your Hiring Practices Inclusive?
- Inclusive leadership: What’s needed now
- Stereotypes: How to speak up
- Disability and accessibility
- Preparing for DEI resistance
What sets us apart
Best-in-class eLearning
- Self-paced, asynchronous
- Interactive
- Activities
- Knowledge checks
- “What would you do?” scenarios
- Consistent training experience for each employee
- Scalable from 100 to 100,000
- Plug & play SCORM on your LMS or SunShower’s
- Adherence to highest standards of accessibility
- Personalized implementation support
- HRCI CE-certified programs
What people are saying
Our Recent Insights
Navigating Thanksgiving – Speak Up or Stay Silent?
Amidst the joy of the holiday—cherishing togetherness, celebrating with family and friends, and expressing gratitude— there’s a potential for discomfort as opinions are shared and points of view clash. As we gather around the table, the age-old dilemma surfaces: should I speak up or remain silent when confronted with derogatory remarks, offensive jokes, stereotypes, or divisive language?
Hidden Hurdles: How Racial Segregation and Discrimination Hinder Black Professional Networks
In the United States, racial segregation and discrimination have cast long and oppressive shadows over the lives of Black individuals. While we often discuss the many consequences of these systemic injustices, one aspect that deserves more attention is their impact on the ability of Black professionals to build robust networks within their respective fields. The […]
Confronting the Backlash: The DEI Imperative
“Three short years after their collective response to massive protests over the police murder of George Floyd, companies are reneging on their diversity pledges.”
Announcing the New SunShower App
After months of development, the new SunShower Learning learner app is now ready for prime time.
The Day I Remained Silent: Confronting Discrimination and Stereotypes
By Gina Miller ~ We all have moments in our lives that we look back on with regret, wishing we had acted differently. One such moment for me was the day I didn’t speak up in the face of discrimination and stereotypes. It’s a story I’ve carried with me, serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of standing up against injustice, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.