Speaker kit
Rhonna-RoseAkama-Makia
A Trauma Informed Legal Professional
Talks and workshops on trauma informed people systems, accountability without punishment, and the organizations we build for people doing hard work.
Signature talks
Each talk can be adapted as a keynote, workshop, or panel conversation, and tailored to HR and people leaders, nonprofit and advocacy organizations, or legal audiences.
-
What is this policy doing to the people it governs?
Keynote
Every policy shapes culture, whether anyone intends it to or not. This talk introduces a trauma informed lens for examining workplace systems (discipline, leave, investigations, performance) and asks what each one is actually teaching the people inside it.
Audiences leave with: A simple diagnostic question leaders can apply to any policy on Monday morning.
-
Accountability without punishment
Keynote or workshop
Traditionally punitive performance improvement plans often erode the trust they are meant to restore. Drawing on research in organizational justice and psychological safety, this session walks through an accountability model built on clear standards, consistent documentation, and harm repair.
Audiences leave with: A practical alternative to punitive discipline that still holds people to a real standard.
-
When the mission hurts the team
Keynote, panel, or workshop
People who do emotionally demanding work for a cause are often the least protected from its toll. This talk examines secondary traumatic stress in mission driven and advocacy organizations, and what organizations owe the people carrying the work.
Audiences leave with: Structural practices, not just self care, that protect staff and sustain the mission.
-
Burnout is a design problem
Workshop
Wellness programs rarely work when workloads, control, and fairness stay the same. This session reframes burnout as an organizational design issue and helps leaders identify the conditions that drive it.
Audiences leave with: A framework for finding the systemic causes of burnout in their own organizations.
Formats
- Keynote
- Workshop
- Panel
- Fireside conversation
Audiences
- HR and people leaders
- Nonprofit and advocacy organizations
- Legal professionals and law students
- Community and civic leaders
Based in
- Michigan
- Available for virtual and in person events
Bios
For programs, introductions, and event pages. Please use the version that fits your space.
Short bio
Rhonna-Rose Akama-Makia is a trauma informed legal professional with almost 20 years of experience in human resource management, employment compliance, and immigration advocacy. She helps organizations build systems that treat people with dignity at every step, and she is a JD candidate at Cooley Law School.
Medium bio
Rhonna-Rose Akama-Makia is a trauma informed legal professional with almost 20 years of experience in human resource management, employment compliance, and immigration advocacy. She has led multistate employment compliance, workplace investigations, and organizational development across the nonprofit, civic, and political sectors, building people systems grounded in safety, transparency, and accountability without punishment. Under attorney supervision, she also supports immigration casework. She is a JD candidate at Cooley Law School and holds the PHRi from the HR Certification Institute. Her work centers on one question: what is this policy doing to the people it governs?
Long bio
Rhonna-Rose Akama-Makia is a trauma informed legal professional with almost 20 years of experience in human resource management, employment compliance, and immigration advocacy. Her work centers on one question: what is this policy doing to the people it governs?
She has led multistate employment compliance, workplace investigations, and organizational development across the nonprofit, civic, and political sectors, replacing traditionally punitive practices with accountability grounded in procedural justice and harm repair. Under attorney supervision, she supports family based and humanitarian immigration casework, and she has completed removal defense training through the National Immigration Project. She is also the author of several original practitioner frameworks, including The Rooted Approach and The IMPACTS Framework.
She is a JD candidate at Cooley Law School and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Michigan, along with the PHRi from the HR Certification Institute. Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas to West African immigrant parents, she learned early that people's most fundamental drive is to provide for themselves and their families, an understanding that shapes everything she builds.
Past speaking
Invite Rhonna-Rose to speak
Share your event, audience, date, and format, and she will follow up to talk through fit.