QConsul LLC — a certified Oregon Benefit Company. Portland, Oregon, USA.
Executive Advisory Board — QConsul LLC Advisory Board
QConsul LLC has an appointed Executive Advisory Board to support annual accountability to its certified Benefit Company mission to the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. The board is benefit-company-performance only — it carries no fiduciary duty and no management oversight authority. The Board Chair and Directors meet every October to review the prior year's scorecard and set next year's benefit goals ahead of each BCFG re-audit. QConsul selected directors from diverse areas of the technology landscape to provide a range of perspectives and multiple lenses toward benefit company goals.
Governance artifact: the Executive Advisory Board Charter (purpose, authority and limits, composition, responsibilities, annual meeting cadence, records) is published as a branded PDF.
Roster
- Karen Michael, M.S. — Board Chair & Managing Member; Founder & Principal Consultant of QConsul LLC. Convenes the annual Executive Advisory Board review and connects it to QConsul's Statement of Benefit Purpose and annual reporting cycle. Leverages listening and servant leadership to convene industry experts and surface the most pressing areas where QConsul can contribute meaningful benefit. Full bio: /about#founder.
- Dee Frewert, Ed.D. — Sustainability, Governance, and Strategy Director. Senior Director, Product Development and Global Lead for Oracle's Development Design Review Program; 35+ years of enterprise leadership; Summa Cum Laude Doctor of Education (Leadership, HR, and Social Entrepreneurship), Drexel University; early adopter of the UN's AI for Good initiative; co-founder of Gryphon Associates (24 years); STEM leadership with FIRST Nevada and the Society of Women Engineers. LinkedIn.
- Claudia Hetherington, J.D. — Community & Customer Director. Attorney, member of the Oregon State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar, with nearly two decades of experience in commercial contracts, intellectual property, employment law, regulatory and privacy compliance, negotiation, and mediation. Board service with Educate Ya (advancing leadership, health, and education for Latin/x communities in Oregon). LinkedIn.
- Corinne Nakashima, M.S. — Indigenous Engagement Director. Veteran Intel Corporation software engineer and HPC specialist; founder of NativeMade Marketplace (Indigenous arts and crafts e-commerce powered by custom LLMs); volunteer leadership across iUrban Teen (2025 and 2026 iSTEM summits, Intel Future Skills Day 2025, May 2026 ML workshop), the Hillsboro School District Title VI Native American/Alaska Native Education Program (2024–2025), and Echo-Shaw Elementary STEM Club (2024). LinkedIn.
- Vahid Nikougoftar, M.S., P.E. — People & Autonomous Systems Director. Focuses on community and customer outcomes by providing strategic insight at the intersection of people and autonomous systems, ensuring autonomy is governed for equity, accessibility, inclusion, and measurable social-impact outcomes for people and planet where QConsul's mandate and capabilities intersect. Full bio forthcoming. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vahid-nikougoftar/.
- Grant Eaton — Analytics & AI Bias Director (returning advisory board member). Leverages extensive data and analytics expertise and industry best practices to visualize outcomes, especially those around QConsul's Social Justice statements, to remediate AI bias. Senior Solution Consultant at Denodo; seasoned data and analytics executive with 25+ years architecting enterprise-scale analytics platforms for Tableau, Alteryx, SAP, and their customers. Expertise in performance measurement, data integration, and reporting supports company governance by enabling consistent, auditable metrics. Analytics industry speaker and author. LinkedIn.
Advisory board principles, pillar commitments, and BCFG category scores are goals, not guarantees. BCFG re-audits independently each year; QConsul targets year-over-year improvement but does not promise specific scores or outcomes.