Who are we?

Innerpattern was initially launched by Emil Tsao and Scott Nine as a newsletter for friends and colleagues in March 2025. We wanted a non-social media format to share stories and learning in rhythms that were playful, spirited, and maybe sometimes provocative.

Now, we’ve made the choice to fully embrace all things innerpattern by bringing our consulting work and other writing and efforts together into one place.

As consultants we offer a blend of strategic data analysis, intentional facilitation, and organizational coaching to help mission-driven people and organizations to navigate complex social and operational challenges. We are driven by the ways relationships, strategy, authenticity, and techncial rigor intersect.

Knowing and moving what needs to be moved can sound simple, but often it isn’t. Skilled consulting should help more than it costs.

    • Strategy development

    • Relational strategy, cultivating culture and change management

    • Designing and implementing project, outcome, and organizational learning and evaluation systems

    • Unraveling leadership, community, organizational, and operational knots

    • Practicing embodied leadership in community

    • Deepening what it means to have an active stance

    • Listening

    • Board Development

    • Large Group Facilitation

    • Capacity Development

    • Leadership Coaching

    • Providing actionable, critical feedback to planning and strategy documents

    • Leveraging a network of other talented consultants and organizers to support large complex projects as needed.

    • California Partnership for the Future of Learning

    • Portland State University, Center for Public Service

    • Foundations for a Better Oregon

    • University of Minnesota, Hennepin-University Partnership

    • Portland State University, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

    • Movement Strategy Center

    • Oregon Community Foundation

    • National Policy Consensus Center

    • Teaching Preschool Partners

    • University of Vermont, Leadership in Sustainability

    • Partnership for the Future of Learning

    • Multnomah County

    • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Be like love and iron fused together.

Dr. Vincent Harding

Scott Nine

Scott Nine (he/him) is a nationally respected education systems leader, facilitator, and strategist with more than 25 years of experience working at the intersection of public education, governance, community engagement, and social change. He most recently served as Assistant Superintendent at the Oregon Department of Education, where he founded and led the Office of Education Innovation and Improvement, building a new statewide division from the ground up and stewarding over $1 billion annually in school improvement investments. In this role, Scott helped integrate innovation, accountability, and community voice into state education strategy while coordinating across agencies, districts, and community partners.

Scott’s work is rooted in helping leaders and institutions operationalize bold ideas in service of young people and communities. He has led large-scale cross-sector initiatives, facilitated complex decision-making processes, and designed collaborative governance structures that bring educators, policymakers, families, and community leaders into meaningful partnership. His portfolio includes developing statewide engagement frameworks, co-creating equity-centered professional learning systems, and contributing to national narrative and policy efforts focused on the future of public education.

A skilled facilitator of senior leaders and diverse groups, Scott is known for creating spaces that balance rigor, reflection, and forward momentum. He brings deep experience guiding groups through ambiguity, supporting intergenerational collaboration, and translating big questions about the future of education into practical strategy and action. His background in social work and community organizing informs his commitment to equity, engagement, and leadership development across systems.

Scott holds a Master of Social Work in Planning, Administration, and Community Organizing from Arizona State University and began his career as a middle school English teacher. He now works nationally as a consultant supporting education systems, philanthropic collaboratives, and civic organizations to design strategy, strengthen leadership, and build the conditions for lasting, student-centered change.

Emil Tsao

Emil Tsao (he/him) is a relational strategist who works at the intersection of liberatory vision, intentional and adaptive strategy, and supporting people and teams to bring about the culture and world they seek. He operates from the belief that purpose and strategy are only as strong as the humans and relationships able to carry them forward. Emil’s work focuses on helping organizations function with greater coherence, creativity, and integrity, especially during periods of complexity, transition, and possibility.

Emil brings a versatile skill set that bridges systems thinking and practical implementation. He maps and strategizes across complex systems, facilitates groups to move with clarity and intention, works in the operational details needed to make change real, and develops new methods and tools to unlock collaboration and communication. He uses centered design and emerging technology platforms to help systems see and understand complex phenomena.

Previously, Emil worked at the Oregon Department of Education helping to build a new office responsible for implementing the Oregon Student Success Act and stewarding more than one billion dollars annually toward educational equity and community engagement. He also helped create the Master’s in Leadership for Sustainability program at the University of Vermont, an innovative leadership development program for change-makers drawing from ecological thinking and the wisdom of natural systems. Emil holds a B.A. in Sociology from Boston College and a M.S. in Environmental Thought and Culture from the University of Vermont, where he also completed doctoral coursework before transitioning fully into professional practice.

Visiting friends at the Grace and Jimmy Boggs Center

Partners + Collaborators

We are proud, frequent and steady partners with:

  • The Collective Acceleration learning community explores what is necessary to proactively move from patterns of conflict and collapse, to practices of interdependence and possibility.

    Collective Acceleration creates the conditions for the kind of evolution that resets who we need to be.

    It is an unprecedented opportunity to leap forward while connecting us toward mutuality, healing, and reconnection with who we are becoming.

  • Shorelines Consulting is led by Dr. Shadiin Garcia and has gathered a bunch of amazing humans who can row together on larger efforts.

  • SeeChange specializes in helping leaders build and sustain inclusive, effective organizations.

  • khalif williams is our friend and a constant source of learning, wisdom, and inspiration. He very well may be the consultant you are looking for right now.

Mentors, Inspirers, Teachers

Grace Lee Boggs

“What time is it on the clock of the world?”

Dr. Vincent Harding

“Be like love and iron fused together.”

Norma Kawelokū Wong

“At the timeplace when we finally look up, gaze on the horizon, which horizon will we see, which horizon will we move toward?”