Stephanie Sylvestre

Stephanie Sylvestre excites people to bring their ‘A’ game. Her signature leadership style builds high performance teams that deliver impactful results. Whether she is working in the private sector or the public sector, Stephanie is a powerhouse transformational leader who leverages technology to achieve results.

Stephanie spent 2022 as a fellow at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) where she leveraged her talents to create an asset-based approach to Black wealth creation in Miami-Dade County framework. Her framework has three prongs – helping Black professionals gain positions of access and power, diversifying their income stream, and having taboo conversations. She helps people turn their assets into wealth by using a social emotional wellness approach; that is, asking touch questions that encourages people to be introspective on what stories they are telling themselves that unintentionally lead to self-rejection.

She is the co-founder of Avatar Buddy, LLC, an artificial intelligence company that uses generative AI to help people be the best version of themselves. Research has shown that Avatar Buddy helps users increase their self-awareness and self-esteem, the foundation for lasting self-development.

Stephanie is a passionate leader, parlaying advanced degrees in development economics and Latin America studies and hands-on IT leadership in the Subway and Burger King franchise world into her former role as Chief Programs Officer/Chief Information Officer at The Children’s Trust. She managed a $184 million portfolio, transforming a hodgepodge of funded agencies into a powerful partnership between The Trust’s 80 direct staff members and the 2,500 staff members of those 230 funded agencies. She successfully launched 4 initiatives around capacity building, cross-funder collaboration, innovation, and REDI/SEW (Racial Equity Diversity and Inclusion/Social Emotional Wellness). Moreover, she completely transformed the IT infrastructure to reduce busy work allowing time for high impact, high value interactions with funded agencies garnering the South Florida Business Journal’s CIO of the year 2019 award. Her IT vision was instrumental in The Trust’s flawless transition to 100% remote work during the COVID-19 lockdown. During the lockdown, she led the team providing guidance, direction, and support to the funded agencies. These agencies have been able to provide in-person child-care, summer camp and afterschool services without experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak at their centers. In May 2020, Stephanie helped expand The Children’s Trust Book Club from serving only 3-year-old to serving birth to 5 years. By leveraging technology, she was able to reduce operational overhead by 75% even though the book club membership increased 10 folds over a 15-month timeframe. This newly expanded book club won the Special District 2020 Technology Innovation Award for the Citizens Category.

She partnered with over 40 community organizations and funders to co-launch Vote The Future, a non-partisan youth led effort encouraging voter registration and early voting in Miami-Dade. Vote The Future effort was responsible for approximately 4,200 voters voting in the 2020 general election. She is a member of International Women’s Forum’s Florida chapter. Stephanie was a Board member with Aqua Foundation and the National LGBTQ Task Force. She was a Board member of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Miami. For 3 ½ years, she led a team of 2,100 women volunteers who built 7 Habitat for Humanity homes in Liberty City, FL. She was the Co-founder and Facilitator of The Commonwealth Institute’s Accelerated Growth Business Forum where she helped women grow their small businesses. She served as Secretary & Program Chair for Communities in Schools Board of Directors, and Chair for Burger King Corporation’s community outreach group, BKCares. She was the Human Resources Chair of the National LGBTQ Task Force Miami Dinner. An appointee to Southern U.S. Diplomatic Corps, she served for 9 years as Honorary Consul of Belize for Southern U.S.

Stephanie graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in International Relations, the University of Miami with a M.A. in International Studies & International Economics, and an Advanced Leadership Initiative Certificate from Harvard University.