Who We Are
About Us
Mission Statement
Building Leaders across Communities (BLaC)
Building Leaders across Communities (BLaC) Strategies specializes in providing diverse communities with leadership development training and strategies through the lens of racial equity and gender justice.
BLaC Strategies offers businesses and individuals with diversity, equity, and inclusion training to increase organizational efficacy, ensure community partners, and center staff relations on respect and equal access.
BLaC Strategies also provides industry best practices and strategic planning consultation for those who wish to work with and in communities of color. Our approach puts people of color at the center and holds space to keep us there.
Team Member
Meet our leadership
Erika K. Wesley
writer and storyteller
Erika K. Wesley is a nonprofit leader with over ten years of experience in constituency building, relationship management, program development, strategic planning, leadership development, teaching & curriculum development. As a scholar, she is researching Organizational Leadership through the lens of Positive Organizational Scholarship to understand better how youth leadership and voice can become organizational levers of change.
At heart, Erika is a writer and storyteller committed to unearthing the experiences of Black people in CT and raising them up in poem or prose. She is the author of the book For the People to Drink and the creator and host of the Show of Hands podcast.
Erika is an educator in higher education with teaching experience in Business Writing and Creative Writing. She is the Chairperson of BLaC Strategies, Building Leaders and Communities, an emerging nonprofit in CT focused on cross-community leadership development and community messaging.
Kirk A. Wesley
political strategist
Kirk A. Wesley is a seasoned community organizer and campaign strategist with over 10 years experience of local, state, and national political and community organizing. After starting out as a volunteer Field Organizer on Congressman Jim Himes’ first re-election campaign, Kirk has gone on to organize and manage political campaigns in multiple states across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. As a political strategist, Kirk has provided guidance to the winning campaigns of Atlantic City, New Jersey Mayor Marty Small, Sr., and Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marlin Mosby.
In 2018, Kirk oversaw the statewide field operation for all the cities in the state of Connecticut, which led to a historic turnout across the state to secure the win for Governor Ned Lamont’s gubernatorial campaign. Currently, Kirk is an Organizing Consultant with Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut (CONECT) a collective of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and civic organizations from New Haven and Fairfield Counties. He is the Co-Founder of Building Leaders and Communities (BLaC) Strategies, INC. an emerging nonprofit in CT focused on cross-community leadership development and community messaging.
Kirk is an avid reader and writer and is the author of the book “Youthful Offender,” a memoir about his coming of age as a youth in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Philippe Lerebours
BS in Finance
With a BS in Finance from Wagner College and an array of experience in marketing, communications, and brand development, Philippe Lerebours offers dynamic and thoughtful perspective to any team.
His passion for community, creative expression, spaces, and inclusion drives his commitment to continue exploring the intersection of people and the space they inhabit.
Philippe makes it a priority to take long drives with loud music often, most of which end at the beach.
After spending a decade working in electoral politics and community organizing, I recognize that there is a severe gap in leadership development and training for the diverse leaders of the 21st century. BLaC Strategies, INC. was founded on the principle that leadership is not monolithic; in order to successfully build leaders and communities, we need strategies that are not one size fits all but tailored to different leaders and leadership styles.
My decade-long journey through the nonprofit ecosystem in CT proved how wide and deep the gaps between diverse communities and leadership opportunities currently are. Equitable solutions to the challenges facing residents in CT and beyond require a collective approach that intentionally brings people from diverse backgrounds together to propose and advance inclusion solutions. BLaC Strategies Inc. exists to fill a void that has existed for far too long. We offer strategies to complex problems that create an inclusive pathway forward based on intentional partnerships, collective impact, and accessible access to decision-making tables for all people through a community-centric approach.