Hey there, it’s Shai.
Highlights include:
Starbucks Coffee Company, Director & Counsel
Olin Corporation, Vice President & General Counsel NA
Delek US Holdings, Associate General Counsel
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Executive MBA, Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business
Juris Doctor, Howard University School of Law
Bachelors of Arts in Journalism and Advertising, Howard University
Berklee College of Music, professional music
Leadership Coaching Certification, Rice University
My background spans corporate law, executive leadership, government, communications, and human-centered brand experience. I hold a J.D. and a B.A. in Journalism and Advertising from Howard University, and an Executive MBA and leadership coaching certification from Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business. I also attended Berklee College of Music. These experiences shape the multidimensional way I think, listen, create, and work.
Over the course of my career, I’ve advised executive leadership teams inside Fortune 500 and 100 organizations including Starbucks Coffee Company, Delek US Holdings, Olin Corporation, and others, along with founders, small businesses, and creative entrepreneurs on matters involving corporate social responsibility, ethical sourcing, regulatory, sustainability, innovation, communications, organizational identity, customer experience, brand integrity, reputation, and strategic growth.
My work sits at the intersection of leadership, marketing, business strategy, human experience, and emerging ideas, working across functions including R&D and innovation, communications, retail store operations, procurement, sustainability, and brand.
My Story
For years, I was doing everything “right.” I was the overworked Washington, D.C. lawyer navigating long hours, high expectations, nonstop deadlines, and the constant pressure to perform. On paper, it looked successful. In reality, I felt increasingly disconnected from the parts of myself that felt most alive.
Over time, I began noticing the same patterns across organizations and leadership: environments optimized for performance, but lacking resonance, creativity, meaning, and signs of life.
What changed my own trajectory was creativity. Through music, art, writing, and reflection, I rediscovered perspective, imagination, emotional clarity, and a more meaningful relationship to work and identity.
I created Shai Littlejohn Studio from that exploration. Grounded in Diamond Thinking, which my multidimensional approach to perspective, creativity, and leadership, and meaningful change, the studio helps people and organizations uncover clearer direction, stronger resonance, and more meaningful ways of working, leading, and growing.
In an era increasingly shaped by automation and artificial intelligence, I believe deeply that human experience, creativity, emotional intelligence, perspective, and communication matter more than ever. It’s what makes people and brands come alive.
In an increasingly 0ptimized world, I wanted to build something for the human experience.
As for Shai Littlejohn Studio, the heart of my work comes from years of listening carefully, helping people navigate complexity and change, and noticing something I could no longer ignore: many modern workplaces, brands, and systems feel emotionally dead when they don’t have to. Meetings lose energy. Brands lose emotional connection. People begin shrinking inside environments shaped by constant optimization, micromanagement, fear, and cuts that slowly remove the humanity, creativity, curiosity, and expression that make people feel fully alive. The Studio emerged as a response to that problem.
Built around four dimensions of human experience, See • Hear • Touch • Move, The Diamond is a creative lens with which to expand perspective and help people and organizations become more fully expressive, connected, and resonant.
“Aliveness is strategy.”
- Shai