On a mission to reclaim democracy

Gresham has the dual role of counsel for the organization as well as vice president for people & culture. As vice president, she administers the organization’s program of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. She brings to the position both her legal knowledge and deep experience in human resources.

The legal work is actually the lesser part. RepresentUs is partially unionized, and so she handles contract negotiations as well as corporate governance work like compliance and legal issues around political activism.

But Gresham, who has studied at Cornell University’s famed School of Industrial and Labor Relations, has a passion for making the working environment more just, more inclusive, more supportive—a place where good ideas can grow. “There’s a common theme in my career trajectory,” she says, “of designing a system or making space for people to advance their careers or move from one place to another. I really have a heart for mission-driven work. I need to work for an organization or company where I believe in their mission, and I can see the impact of how my work can support that mission.”

For nearly eight years Gresham honed that philosophy as executive director of the Buffalo and Erie County Workforce Investment Board, which provides employment training for job seekers through a network of partner institutions. After a few years as a human resources executive for a nonprofit health insurer, she joined RepresentUs in 2022.

It’s a special kind of place, she says: “We are 30 people, and the opportunity there is that we are nimble enough to pivot. If something isn’t working, we try something else. That’s true at every level of the organization.”

Funded by donations and grants, RepresentUs is nonpartisan, with members ranging from Occupy Wall Street activists to Tea Party adherents, and supporters including a roster of A-list Hollywood celebrities. It creates ads, produces videos, organizes protests and demonstrations—whatever it takes to draw attention to such issues as voting rights, gerrymandering, the outsize influence of lobbying, and campaign finance reform. One such clever project: a complete A-to-Z alphabet font made out of complicated quilt maps of gerrymandered Congressional districts.

For Gresham, it’s a laboratory for her ideas on how to create a welcoming corporate culture. “The organizations that are most successful are ones where there’s a blend,” she says. “If you say, ‘This is our organizational culture’ and it doesn’t necessarily jibe with the people who are working there every day, you won’t have success. Here there’s a combination of board and leadership that’s committed to ensuring that employees are heard and responded to. We’re able to take a lot of that feedback and design programs and culture that incorporates it.”

So, for example, after the organization’s first collective bargaining agreement was ratified, they extended many of the same benefits in the contract to non-union employees as well. They’ve also just completed a pilot experiment with a four-day workweek and are considering whether to make that arrangement permanent.

It’s all in service of building a thriving work environment—a place where, as Gresham says, “people feel comfortable and can bring their authentic selves to work. For me,” she says, “that means understanding what people need, knowing what works for the employee, and balancing that with what works for the organization.

Gresham acknowledges that hers is not the path that most attorneys expect to follow, and she makes that point to UB Law students she meets as a vice president of the UB Law Alumni Association or in mentoring situations. “I’m so excited to talk to people, and there are so many opportunities available to one with a JD,” she says. “It doesn’t have to look like being a litigator or a judge or a solo practitioner. Being open to the possibilities is great, because you never know how it can change the trajectory of your life and career.”