Mari Kong is a consultant with the Solfire Consulting Group and is passionate about supporting organizations in facing their most pressing diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges.   Her passion for diversity and inclusion issues led her to earn a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Systems at Fielding Graduate University.

Mari recently retired from the San Diego Police Department after a 19-year career.  She had multiple roles in different communities and environments within the department.  As a result of these experiences, she desires to shift the culture of policing toward becoming more inclusive, with greater demographic variety and intellectual diversity.

Her personal and professional experiences provided the impetus for her dissertation topic: “Being Brown on the Thin Blue Line: A Narrative Inquiry of the Lived Experiences of Latinas Within the Institution of Policing.”

While working as a police officer, Mari began adjunct teaching at the University of Southern California Bovard College, Master of Science in Criminal Justice program.  She enjoys teaching criminal justice professionals about research, organizational change, and criminal investigations.  Mari is also a faculty member at UMass Global in their Business and Professional Studies, where she teaches business and professional in graduate and undergraduate studies in Organizational theory.  Recently, Mari has also begun to explore the connections and disconnections between Women of Color and White Women through the Solfire Relational Institute.

Mari has an M.A. in Criminal Justice from Chapman University, M.A. in Human and Organizational Systems, and Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University.  She enjoys surfing and playing with her niece in Hawaii.