July 30, 2025

Most workplaces talk about disability inclusion in theory. These four New Leaders Council alumni make it happen in practice. They’re changing policy, changing who gets to make it, how rooms get filled, and what leadership looks like when disabled people are actually in charge.

Disability Pride Month shouldn’t be the only time we pay attention. These leaders have been reshaping systems, challenging assumptions, and building stronger communities long before July rolled around. They’ll be doing it long after it ends. The question is: Will you be paying attention?

Rachel Arfa: Making History Look Easy

Most people don’t realize they’re looking at history when Rachel Arfa (NLC Chicago 2013) walks into a room, but they should. As Commissioner of Chicago’s Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, she’s the highest-ranking deaf government official in the country and the first deaf person to lead this office nationwide. No big deal, right?

Under her leadership, the office is expanding and innovating. Chicago’s first MOPD Career Center didn’t exist before Rachel. Now it’s connecting job seekers with disabilities to employers who are finally ready to hire them. The center places people in jobs and teaches companies how to hire better in the first place.

Rachel brings a legal background sharpened at Equip for Equality, where she learned that accountability is a requirement. That experience shows in how she approaches public service: with precision, persistence, and zero tolerance for systems that don’t work for everyone.

Your move: Audit your workplace’s hiring practices. If you don’t see a plan for recruiting and retaining disabled professionals, stop making excuses and write one.

Phil Garber: The Superpower You’re Not Ready For

Phil Garber (NLC New York City 2025) has a superpower, and he’s tired of people treating it like a party trick. He stutters. He’s also a researcher, artist, and program consultant who’s done field work in Guatemala, infrastructure studies on the Texas-Mexico border, and energy analysis in New York City. He moves between photography and policy like others switch between emails, and he’s open to new opportunities in NYC..

Here’s what Phil does: He speaks fully and asks the room to make space. His work challenges the idea that the camera gets to speak louder than the person holding it. When Phil talks, you listen because he’s saying something worth hearing.

Phil’s approach is simple: Communication is essential, and so is patience. He’s inviting you to listen more closely, and honestly, you should take him up on it.

Your move: Shift how you run meetings. Value what’s said, not how quickly it’s delivered. Revolutionary concept, we know.

Sarah Philippe: The Volunteer Whisperer

Ever wondered why volunteer programs seem built for the same five people who show up to everything? Sarah Philippe (NLC Twin Cities 2025) has spent over 15 years wondering the same thing and actually doing something about it. She designs volunteer systems that work for everyone, not just the people who were already able to participate without barriers.

As a neurodivergent leader, Sarah knows that meeting format, application flow, and communication style can either create space or quietly slam the door shut. She’s experienced firsthand how workplace barriers often have nothing to do with job performance: she increased volunteer participation by 270% while needing a 9:30am start time, yet was still treated like she was asking for “special treatment.” She builds inclusion into the structure. Her working guide for volunteer engagement helps organizations redesign their programs from the ground up.

Sarah’s work proves that inclusion is the foundation. It’s built into the structure, or it fails.

Your move: Take a hard look at your volunteer process. Who is it built for? Who gets left out? Use that uncomfortable truth to redesign with purpose.

Tiffany Lanier: The Disability You Can’t See

Visibility doesn’t define disability, but try telling that to the people who’ve questioned, confronted, and dismissed Tiffany Lanier (NLC Palm Beach 2019) for not looking disabled enough. As a mobility scooter user living with chronic pain, she’s heard it all. The stares, the comments, the assumptions, they come with the territory when 70% of disabilities are invisible and 100% of people think they know what disability looks like.

Tiffany has a different approach. She’s interested in changing how we define disability. As founder of Change is the Catalyst, she helps individuals and teams harness the power of change to spark meaningful transformation through keynote speeches, retreats, and personal development programs. Her Morning Shift framework helps people start their day with clarity and intention. She’s also written “I Can’t Wait to Vote,” a children’s book teaching civic engagement, and is launching “All Access–The Palm Beaches” next year, a show exploring tourism and recreation with accessibility in mind.

Tiffany’s presence challenges how we define disability. Her work challenges how we respond to it. She’s not asking for your approval; she’s asking for your attention.

Your move: Don’t let your assumptions speak before you do. Shift your approach and mindset about disabilities. Tiffany shows us exactly what disability leadership looks like.

These four leaders prove something simple: When disabled people get in the room, things change. They’re rewriting rules that were never written for them in the first place, and they’re doing it with the kind of precision and purpose that comes from lived experience. Rachel, Phil, Sarah, and Tiffany aren’t asking permission to lead. They’re leading, and the rest of us are catching up. The question isn’t whether disability leadership matters. The question is whether you’re ready to follow.

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