About
A macro social worker, at the wheel.
Ashleigh N. Cooper, LMSW, is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Wheel Haus Collective — operating at the intersection of institutional systems and individual leadership for 15+ years.
Ashleigh holds a Master of Science in Social Work (Mezzo/Macro Systems) from Columbia University, is a Licensed Master Social Worker in the Maryland/D.C. area, and is a certified executive coach through iPEC, with an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential completing in Fall 2026.
Her career has centered on operating at the macro/systems level — as a social worker and partnerships builder — across corporate partnerships, workforce development, nonprofit strategy, global health, and education-to-career initiatives. That includes senior roles at Management Leadership for Tomorrow, What Works Cities / Bloomberg Philanthropies, IBM P-TECH, Management Sciences for Health, and the Corporate Council on Africa — work that has taken her from a vocational high school in West Baltimore to the African Union Summit and the UN General Assembly.
Education
M.S. in Social Work, Mezzo/Macro Systems — Columbia University
Licensure
Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW), Maryland / D.C.
Coaching Credential
Certified Executive Coach, iPEC. ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) — completing Fall 2026.
Entity
Wheel Haus Collective operates under Alden Park Consulting LLC.
Who We Center
Wheel Haus centers professionals and leaders from communities of color, particularly those navigating the systems, expectations, and complexities of advancing in spaces where they're often the only one in the room.
Our work is open to anyone seeking to grow their leadership, navigate transition, and create more meaningful impact — a Latina executive stepping into the C-suite, a first-generation professional decoding corporate norms, a white leader who wants to lead more inclusively, an organization trying to build and retain diverse leadership. We're not claiming everyone's experience is the same. We're naming the lens the work is built around.
The Metaphor
Why a potter's wheel
Wheel Haus Collective takes its name and its method from wheel-throwing ceramics — a practice Ashleigh has lived and worked in as a ceramic artist since 2012, where the wheel became a site of alignment, resistance, and sanctuary.
Centering, opening, pulling and shaping, and firing in the kiln aren't just stages of making pottery. Clay has to be centered on the wheel before it can be opened, or it wobbles apart the moment pressure is applied — the same is true of a leader, or an organization, under real pressure. Once it's centered, it can be opened up, pulled into shape, and finally fired into something that holds its form permanently. That sequence — not a generic wellness metaphor, but the literal physics of the craft — is the operating structure behind every service Wheel Haus offers.
Coaching from early career through the executive level — open to anyone building more intentional leadership.
Workshops, retreats, and culture assessments that help organizations understand what's getting in the way, and create more intentional ways of working together.
Open convenings with trusted organizations and institutions, closed cohorts — His Haus and Her Haus — and Kinfolk, a cross-gender community advancing equity and strengthening communities of color.
Organizational Strategy & Systems — strategic planning, organizational design, and the systems and partnerships that turn strategy into sustainable execution.
Talk through what you're navigating.
A discovery call is the first step — no pitch deck, just a real conversation.