Our Team

MANAGING PARTNER

Dr. Ebbie Parsons, III, is the Founder and Managing Partner of Yardstick Management. A seasoned business executive with a passion for intentional impact, has been applauded for his strategic thinking, engaging leadership and results orientation throughout his successful career. After working at Fortune 500 companies including Intel, Medtronic and American Express, Dr. Parsons, III, made the decision to transition from a promising career in business in 2007 to join the prestigious Broad Residency Program in Educational Leadership. The Broad Residency was his first introduction to the inner-workings of America’s public education where he served as the Chief Operating Officer of Hartford Public Schools.

Championing the overhaul of the district’s school funding methodology, he negotiated the state’s first pay-for-performance teacher union contract and led the redistricting of the city to an “All-Choice” system of schools. Following his time in Hartford, Dr. Parsons, III, was on the founding team of the groundbreaking Relay Graduate School of Education where he led the Human Capital function of the organization. Following Relay, he took on a new challenge to serve as the Chief Operating Officer of the third-largest Charter Management Organization in the U.S., Mosaica Education, Inc. At Mosaica, Dr. Parsons, III, managed over 80 schools across eight states, Washington, D.C., the Middle East and Asia. He led Mosaica to their two consecutive most profitable years in the company’s 14-year history while simultaneously leading the company to their highest academic performance results in years.

Leveraging his wealth of experience and expertise in business and education, he launched Yardstick Management with a vision to become a leader in transforming and impacting the global landscape of the management consulting industry. Less than a decade later, Yardstick has now become a world thought leader and powerhouse in providing specialized Management, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Talent consulting services to renowned mission-driven brands and organizations across the globe. Yardstick is committed to building the internal capacity of their clients so that they can enhance their ability to deliver extraordinary results to their constituents.

He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Florida A&M University, an MBA from the University of Minnesota, and a Doctorate in Educational and Organizational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a Faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Dr. Parsons, III, has extensive board leadership experience, including serving on the boards of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Lighthouse Academies, Children’s Orchestra Society, the Georgia Symphony Orchestra, Urban Ministries, Inc., the Atlanta Music Project (an El Sistema Program), The Winans Group and the Finance Corps. Dr. Parsons, III, is a Fellow with the Pahara Institute and the Aspen Institute and is a Member of the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Dr. Parsons, III resides in Atlanta, GA with his wife, Ayana, and their adorable daughters, Ebbie Noelle aka “Noey”, and Noohra Celeste. He has a passion for the arts and serves on the Board of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and previously served on the Metropolitan Opera Guild Board. He is also a Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling, kayaking, and most of all rooting for his favorite hometown team, the Michigan Wolverines. Go BLUE!

Principal Diversity Consultant

Mansa Bilal Mark King currently serves as a Principal Diversity Consultant at Yardstick Management. He is responsible for key project work at Yardstick Management, and for growing the portfolio. Prior to joining Yardstick, Bilal served as an Associate Professor of Sociology at Morehouse College for 14 years, and as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Middle Tennessee State University for 2 years. Before this, Bilal combined college and graduate school courses with his work on basic and applied social science research projects. In this capacity, he was a research assistant in the Career Opportunities in Research program, at The American Institutes for Research, and on the Three-City Study on Families, Children, and Welfare project. Since finishing school in 2006, he has conducted independent research projects on father-involvement in America’s inner-cities, religious conversion in Ghana, and Black America’s transnationalism. He published chapters/articles on the first two topics, but the third project is ongoing. His other publications, invited lectures, and project work has addressed Black-White racial reconciliation, Africana Muslims in liberal arts education, and diversifying the body of American college students who study abroad. In addition to the introductory sociology course, the classes that Bilal has taught most often are: Men in Society, Classical Social Theory, and Africana Families.

Bilal holds a Ph.D. and M.A in sociology from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in psychology (minor in mathematics) from Howard University. He graduated from Howard Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude.

Bilal resides in Atlanta with his wife Fikira, and their daughters, Sabila, Hafsatu, and Asmaoo. He is familiar with Wolof, Hausa, Kiswahili, Classical Arabic and Spanish. His community work includes educational engagements with local and regional faith organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee in Atlanta, Tayseer Seminary in Knoxville, and the Islamic Networks Group in San Jose. Outside of professional interests, he enjoys exercise, travel, art, and playing monopoly or chess with his children.

Principal Consultant

Shannon Hassler serves as a Principal Consultant with Yardstick Management where she leads our executive search practice and serves as a key member of our diversity, equity, and inclusion practice.

Shannon brings 20 years of talent acquisition and advisory service experience. She most recently served as a Principal with Korn Ferry, driving the expansion and application of their Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored Women CEOs Speak research, and furthering the firm’s work with client organizations to realize the full power and potential of their female talent. She is outspoken about covering topics like women in leadership and determining ways bias impacts organizations’ effectiveness in recruiting and optimizing talent.

Shannon spent the early part of her career specializing in financial officer recruitment, then she broadened into talent consulting with a focus on assessment, board effectiveness, and inclusion and diversity with Heidrick & Struggles. She then applied her experience in both recruiting and management consulting to drive internal improvements with two primary objectives: winning in the market and delighting clients. Most recently as Practice Management Director for both the firm’s CFO and CEO & Board Practices, Shannon led change efforts in processes, training, branding, and engagement execution.

What has fiercely driven Shannon for the past ten years in the industry has been a passion for finding ways to do this important work better and focusing more on the people vs the transaction. Her mission is to find ways to uncover talent too often overlooked or discounted and realizing the power of diverse leadership teams.

Shannon received her J.D. from Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent College of Law, and her B.S. from Northern Illinois University. She is an active member and a Class of 2012 alumna of Leadership Sandy Springs, and she is on the advisory board of The Women’s Collective, bringing C-suite and other executive level women leaders together around a mission of promoting and enhancing leaders focused on the workplace, education, and mentorship.

Senior Consultant

Melanie Calhoun supports Yardstick’s Diversity and Inclusion line of business. As a senior consultant with expertise in marketing management and diversity and inclusion initiatives, Melanie helps organizations improve D&I strategies by conducting assessments, helping to establish clear and measurable D&I goals, and creating long-term roadmaps to address the structural inequality that may exist.

Before joining Yardstick, Melanie spent time as a researcher in the Relationships and Social Cognition Lab at the University of California, Berkeley Psychology Department. Under the leadership of Rodolfo MendozaDenton, Ph.D., Melanie developed an active research interest in stigma, intergroup relations, and stereotyping. Much of her racism and bias research is informed by her experience working as a marketing executive for over fifteen years.

Prior to her work at UC Berkeley, she was Head of New Customer Acquisition and Experience for Invisalign® clear aligners at Align Technology. Under her leadership, Melanie launched new advertising campaigns to recruit new dentists to become providers. Before working at Align, Melanie spent time as the Senior Marketing Manager of Product Marketing for Vocera Communications. In her role, she oversaw competitive strategy. As Marketing Manager at Ecolab, she managed the Surgical Patient Care products, increasing sales to $12MM. She also spent time at Medtronic supporting surgical procedures in endovascular aortic aneurysm stent graft repair, pediatric deformity spinal surgery, and neurostimulation for obesity and chronic stomach disorders. She received various awards for her leadership including the Medtronic Emerging Leaders and was one of the first participants in the Leadership Development Rotation Program.

Melanie is committed to her community and through her leadership has made a significant impact on women and children’s issues. She has held various positions in the Junior League of Atlanta and served on the Executive Board of the San Jose Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Currently, Melanie is a Board Member of the Atlanta Chapter of It’s My Birthday, Inc. and The Atlanta Birth Center.

Melanie earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida A&M University. She currently resides in Atlanta with her husband, two-year-old son and newborn daughter. She is an avid reader, loves cooking, traveling and yoga.