Antionette Carroll
Antionette D. Carroll is the Founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, social enterprise that educates, trains, and challenges cities to co-create solutions with Black and Latinx populations to design healthy and racially equitable communities. Throughout her career, Carroll has worked, in in-house and freelance capacities, for non-profits working for social justice, human rights, and diversity and inclusion. Prior to CRXLAB, Carroll spent 7 years in the advertising and marketing industry. Carroll was named the Founding Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of AIGA: The Professional Association of Design in 2014. Notably, within her role, she:
- Grew the task force to 22 members representing 12 states;
- Pitched and created the full-time, in-house Diversity and Inclusion Residency;
- Conducted the first staff diversity training in AIGA’s 102-year history;
- Restarted the Design Journeys archive highlighting prominent designers of color throughout design history;
- Co-planned, and presented at, the Diversity and Inclusion Mini-Summit, training over 250 chapter leaders on the role of diversity and inclusion within design.
She’s currently the Chair Emerita of the Task Force working on long-term strategic initiatives such as the Design Census Program with Google and national Inclusivity in Design Summit. With her encouragement, AIGA created the first Racial Justice by Design program, with Antionette co-organizing and assuming the role of online producer for the national Town Hall in 2016. At the local level, she is currently serving as the President Emerita of AIGA St. Louis and co-founder of the Design + Diversity Conference.
Carroll also sits on several awards and programming committees for local and national non-profits, including the steering committee for The City of St. Louis’ Resiliency Office, supported by Rockefeller Foundation and formerly the founding anti-bias/anti-racism committee for City Garden Montessori School. In 2017, Carroll was named one of Essence Magazine’s 100 #WOKE Women, a 4.0 Schools Tiny Fellow, a Next City Vanguard, and ED Collabitat/Mastercard Edpreneur in Residence. In 2016, Carroll was named an American Express/Ashoka Emerging Innovator in Social Entrepreneurship and a SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) Social Entrepreneurship Scholar. In 2015, Carroll was named a StartingBloc Fellow, one of Alive Magazine’s 20 Under 40 Artists to Watch, and Delux Magazine’s Power 100. Carroll is a Community Arts Training Fellow. In 2014, she was accepted in the inaugural class of the School of Visual Arts' Business of Social Design Intensive. In 2013, Carroll was recognized by the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life as its Amethyst Honoree, and she graduated from the Focus St. Louis Emerging Leaders Program. She was also named the inaugural Katherine Dunham Fellow in Arts Administration by the Regional Arts Commission in 2011.
When she is not working (which as a mom, wife, and entrepreneur usually equals never), she is watching science fiction, action and Asian cinema, reading, practicing handlettering, coloring with her children, and adding to her shoe collection.