For thirty years, I have worked inside Minnesota's government, health, and nonprofit ecosystems – not as an outside expert parachuting in, but as someone embedded in the relationships and decisions that shape how equity either takes root or stalls.

That work taught me something that training events and listening sessions rarely surface: equity doesn't change when awareness increases. It changes when the people most affected by decisions become part of making them.

That is the foundation of my consulting practice, Equity Strategies LLC.

What I bring that no national firm can replicate is thirty years of relationship capital inside this ecosystem – and the lived cross-cultural fluency of an immigrant of African descent from South America with fluency in Portuguese and working knowledge of Spanish, French, and Italian.

Dr. Antonia Apolinário Wilcoxon is the Principal Consultant and Owner of Equity Strategies, LLC, where she provides direction and leadership for private, public, and collaborative efforts to improve outcomes for individuals and communities impacted by inequities. Based in the Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area, she brings extensive experience across education, corporate, nonprofit, and government environments, with a professional focus on community engagement, equity, capacity building, and sustainable systems improvement. 

Dr. Apolinário Wilcoxon has held leadership positions with the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Ramsey County, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, and Inver Hills Community College. As Community Relations Director for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, she led agency-wide efforts to connect with communities and build sustaining relationships, focusing on improving access and outcomes for communities experiencing disparities. She also led initiatives addressing disparities in access and outcomes across DHS services and established community engagement structures that brought employees and community members together to inform disparities-reduction efforts and agency decision-making. 

Her consulting and facilitation experience includes trauma-informed training and coaching, Technology of Participation facilitation, Respectful Conversations facilitation, Art of Hosting practice, Art of Convening methodologies, adaptive action coaching, and human systems dynamics. She holds a Doctorate in Education in Educational Leadership/Critical Pedagogy from the University of St. Thomas, as well as a master’s degree in international management. 

Antonia brings decades of experience working at the intersection of health equity, social determinants of health, disparities reduction, community engagement, public systems, and organizational change. At the Minnesota Department of Human Services, she led agency-wide efforts to address disparities in access and outcomes and strengthen relationships with cultural and ethnic communities. Her work included establishing and supporting the Cultural and Ethnic Communities Leadership Council, advancing an agency health equity policy, leading disparities-reduction initiatives, and securing support for authentic community engagement addressing social determinants of health, adverse childhood experiences, and historical trauma. 

Earlier in her DHS tenure, she led an agency-wide process that identified more than 85 measures where disparities existed in access to or outcomes of DHS services and created structures for community members to inform disparities-reduction efforts and agency decision-making. 

Her health equity expertise extends across public health, health care, research, policy, and community settings. Antonia has served as President of the Minnesota Public Health Association; Vice Chair and Chair of People’s Center Clinics & Services; a member of the University of Minnesota Program in Health Disparities Research Advisory Board; a member of the Public Health Administration and Policy Community/Alumni Advisory Board; and a member of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute's Community Engagement to Advance Research and Community Health and its Management Council. 

This combination of public-sector leadership, health equity practice, community engagement, policy work, and ongoing connection to Minnesota's public health and health disparities positions her to develop and deliver content that is both substantive and relevant to local government practice. 

Email: Antonia Apolinário-Wilcoxon <antonia@equitystrategies.org>

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonia-apolinario-wilcoxon-ed-d-95694111/