Why me
I have spent nearly four decades in process, application, and facilitation work — inside engineering companies, in business, and in educational settings, nationally and internationally. Long enough to learn how work actually moves through an organization rather than how the org chart says it does.
Then I worked both sides of the desk. In Saudi Arabia, at the University of Business and Technology, I wrote the standard — I authored the accreditation framework for the university’s preparation program under a British international accrediting body, and then assessed programs against it. In Washington State I served as Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Accreditation Administrator for the City of Bellevue from 2022 to 2024, and I administered federally funded workforce programs — WIOA and the Trade Act — for the Washington State Employment Security Department in Everett, carrying programs through local, state, and federal monitoring with satisfactory results.
So I know what a reviewer asks for, and I know what it costs to answer. I have sat in both chairs.
Much of that work was done standing in front of a room during periods of change, and keeping that room steady.
I have now watched five technology waves arrive. Each was going to replace everyone. What happened instead, every time, is that the organizations that governed the change came through stronger, and the organizations that let it happen to them spent years recovering.
I use AI every day in my own practice. I am not afraid of it, and I am not selling it. My work is to make certain this wave moves your organization forward without leaving any part of your workforce behind.
— Saliymah Jones, Principal, ArabesQ Advisory