Political Strategy and Voting
Branding & Personal Branding Coaching
The strategist who drives progress and growth.
- What happens when you finally earn the seat at the table — and no one hands you the strategy to keep it?
- Is your business afraid of what AI is taking over, or ready for what it’s making room for?
- Does your church have a strategy for saving souls and standing strong for its community — or just a Sunday routine?
- When decisions get made about your community’s future, is your community in the room, or just living with the outcome?
- Is your customer service strategy just a fix — or a system built to outlast the leader who built it?
- What happens when the favor you need requires a relationship you never invested in?
Cheryl Scales has lived these moments — the boardroom, the hangar, the room full of strangers waiting for someone to tell them the truth. She doesn’t just advise on strategy. She’s the one who holds steady when everyone else is heading for the exit, and builds the plan that actually holds. If your question needs more than good advice, you need someone who’s already proven she won’t flinch. That’s Cheryl.
30 minutes. No pitch — just a conversation about fit.
AI Strategy Development
Early-certified in AI strategy for small and medium-sized businesses — a distinct track focused on activating brand positioning and revenue growth for growing companies.
Congressional Black Caucus Institute Foundation Conference
Selected Cheryl Scales Innovation Consulting Group — political strategy planning & policy engagement.
$2.8B in New Revenue
Built through the Store of the Future launch for Febreze and Swiffer, and Delta’s J.D. Power-winning turnaround — across two industries in corporate America.
Customer Service Excellence Development
A proprietary model of strategies and mobilization for large organizations, generating systemic change that lasts for decades.
Graduate Research
Her Princeton University thesis, Retrospect and Prospect: The Dynamics of Black Political Participation on Presidential Politics in the 1980s, grounds her advisory work with campaigns, churches, and communities today.
Civil Rights Coalition
Built the coalition, alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., that opened an unprecedented relationship with Kroger and secured Orange Mound’s food access.
Good Morning America
NBC
Fox Atlanta
Time Magazine
The New York Post
Commercial Appeal
About Cheryl
Strategy, access, and the courage to ask for more.
Courage and confidence are the cornerstones of her DNA.
From a chair in an Atlanta hotel lobby on 9/11, to a coalition that reversed a major grocer’s decision to abandon a community, to the Store of the Future launch for Febreze and Swiffer — Cheryl Scales has been a disruptor of the status quo and an activator who delivers on the same truth every time: strategy only matters if someone is willing to stand in the room and see it through.
Decades of proof, not one moment
Two rooms. Two decades. Same discipline.
2001 · Aviation Crisis
She held hundreds of people steady for 29 hours.
“We see you. We are working through a plan. Stay steady.”
When Delta’s systems went dark on 9/11, Cheryl stood on a chair in Atlanta hotel lobbies, briefing hundreds of stranded flight attendants across six hotels. Weeks later, she activated the Brand Ambassador program that helped make Delta the first airline back in the air.
Civil Rights Coalition · Memphis
She kept a food desert from taking hold.
When Kroger, the country’s largest supermarket chain, exited Orange Mound — Memphis’s historic first African American subdivision — Cheryl stepped up as lead justice champion. She brought civil rights legend Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. to the store’s own parking lot, then led a strategy meeting with Kroger’s CFO and a roundtable of 30 civic and ministerial leaders that opened an unprecedented relationship with the chain.
The store stayed closed under security for 18 months while local leaders continued the work her meeting made possible — until the community gained equity access to quality groceries through a competitor. When Rev. Jackson passed, international media sought Cheryl out to talk about the work they had done together.
Watch the International Interview
She also led the public relations launch when First Lady Michelle Obama designated Orange Mound a Preserve America Community, the first historically African American community in Tennessee to earn the honor.
As Featured In
First Lady Gives Orange Mound “Preserve America” Status
Orange Mound became the first historically African American community in Tennessee to earn the national Preserve America designation — with Cheryl leading the public relations launch behind it.
Caption: The historic Orange Mound neighborhood, Memphis, Tennessee.
Diversity, equity & civic impact
The work behind the strategy
This is the perspective institutions retain her for — lived, researched, and proven in rooms that matter.
AI Is a Tool, Not a Weapon
When five businesses felt stuck in the AI era, Cheryl developed the AIFR model — working one-on-one with CEOs and teams to sharpen strategy, lead implementation, and shift roles for purpose and performance.
Voting Rights Across Generations
Moderator and organizer for voter-readiness conversations, including with the Association of Black Princeton Alumni and Senator Cory Booker.
Workforce, Culture & Community Engagement Advisory
The same strategic discipline recognized twice by The Obama White House, now applied to how institutions build strong, high-performing culture.
Strong Black Women
A masterclass and community for Black women reinventing and restoring their next chapter, together — including spotlighting Washington, D.C.’s launch of Mrs. Coretta Scott King’s biography, My Life, My Love, My Legacy.
3 Years as Executive Producer
Led Celebrity Judge Glenda Hatchett’s national parenting community — booking speakers, building weekly programming, and growing lasting community engagement.
5 Years of Cohort Development
Executive-produced faith and justice programming through COVID and beyond, including the Drum Major for Justice Cohort Program and the Justice Journey Education Initiative.
Where I create leverage
Three practices. One strategist.
Each engagement starts with the same question: what’s the highest-leverage move available to you right now?
Strategy Consulting
The same discipline that generated $2.8 billion in new revenue — now paired with AI, so the strategy moves as fast as the industry does.
Political Strategy and Voting
She’s advised campaigns, sat in policy rooms, and studied political access at Princeton — not from the outside, but as someone who’s actually moved the needle on who gets a seat and who gets left out.
Branding & Personal Branding Coaching
The same brand discipline behind the Store of the Future launch for Febreze and Swiffer, and Delta’s J.D. Power-winning turnaround — now applied to you. Courageous, strategic coaching that positions people and businesses to achieve what they deserve.
This is a fit if —
- ✓You’re the decision-maker, or one step from it, who can actually sign a contract — not just explore an idea.
- ✓You need strategy that survives contact with a boardroom, a campaign, a congregation, or a customer-facing crisis — not just a slide deck.
- ✓You’re ready to act on what the strategy says, even when it’s uncomfortable.
This isn’t a fit if —
- –You want an AI tool without a strategist behind it.
- –You want a strategy done to you, not with you.
A method, not a moment.
Every engagement follows the same discipline that produced $2.8B in new revenue — adapted to your table, not templated.
Where leverage actually sits
A clear-eyed read of the room, the market, or the institution — no assumptions carried over from the last client.
The plan, built to your table
A specific strategy — commercial, political, or personal — with a sequence, not just a set of ideas.
Execution, at your side
Cheryl stays in the work — briefings, negotiations, and the moments where a plan either holds or breaks.
Proof, not promises
Revenue, access, or advancement — the engagement is judged against the specific result it was built for.
Ready to see where the leverage is in your situation?
30 minutes. No pitch — just a conversation about fit.
Ways to work together
Individuals. Business. Community.
Three audiences, three tracks — the same strategist behind every one of them.
Executives, entrepreneurs & rising leaders
Go 4 Your Dreams Circle
Personal branding, wealth-building, and the habits of high achievers.
Personal Branding Masterclass
Seven modules built from the same framework she uses with real clients.
1:1 & Small Group Coaching
For the moments that matter most — a negotiation, being stuck, or a pivot.
Strategy Intensive
A half or full day that leaves you with a written strategy or a 90-day plan.
Companies, institutions & education systems
AI Strategy Development
Certified strategy work to activate branding and revenue growth with AI.
Live Strategy Zoom Session
Live team training that closes with a specific next step.
Customer Service Excellence Development
A proprietary model for systemic service change that lasts for decades.
Retained Strategy Consulting
Ongoing strategy for organizations connecting dots for innovation, action, and movement forward.
Believe Enough to Ask
Built for conferences, chambers, and leadership programs.
Churches, civic groups & causes
Make Your Voice Count
Civic engagement for church groups, communities, and organizations.
Church & Congregation Strategy
A strategy for saving souls and standing strong for your community.
Faith & Justice Cohort Programs
The Drum Major for Justice Cohort Program and the Justice Journey Education Initiative.
Parenting Community Leadership
Built and led Celebrity Judge Glenda Hatchett’s national parenting community.
Partner on the Mission
Voting rights access and leadership-pipeline work for funders and partners.
Looking for the speaker? Meet Cheryl Steps.
Believe Enough to Ask™ is Cheryl’s keynote and stage brand — its own site,its own voice, its own energy.
Results
What leverage looks like
A sample of the outcomes behind the strategy.
Revenue
$2.8B in new revenue
Built through the Store of the Future launch for Febreze and Swiffer, and Delta’s J.D. Power-winning turnaround — across two industries in corporate America.
Access
A seat at policy tables
From the Congressional Black Caucus Institute Foundation to campaign, church, and community advisory work.
Recognition
Two-time Obama White House honoree
For Business Innovation and Diversity, Equity & Community Engagement.
Systemic Change
A model built to transfer
A proprietary customer service model, built at Delta, now available to any organization ready to rebuild trust at scale.
Clients & Partners
Coming soon
Building the next chapter: a foundation for generational impact.
Cheryl is developing a giving initiative that carries this work beyond any single engagement — funding leadership access, education, and political literacy for the next generation.
Everything that got her here.
Cheryl Scales built strategies behind $2.8 billion of new revenue in multiple industries. Over 29 hours, in six rounds, she stood on a chair holding a company together on its worst day. That’s not a metaphor — it’s how she leads. Today, as CEO of Cheryl Scales Innovation Group (CSIG) and Magnificent PR in Atlanta, she brings the same discipline to every boardroom, campaign, and stage she enters — work recognized twice by The Obama White House for Business Innovation and Diversity, Equity & Community Engagement.
Her Customer Service Excellence Development model is proprietary, not theoretical — built from leading Delta’s InFlight teams through September 11th and its aftermath, including the Brand Ambassador program that mobilized 1,000 flight attendants in front of corporate clients to rebuild public trust in flying again. It’s a framework for organizations of all sizes to build systemic options for service that can last decades, not a policy update that fades by the next fiscal year.
Before she branded people, she branded products you already trust — kicking off the Store of the Future launch for Febreze and Swiffer, and helping lead the Delta Air Lines brand renaissance that moved the airline from last place to first place globally, winning back-to-back J.D. Power awards. Her Authentic Positioning System™ (APS) — a framework she built before “personal branding” was even a common term — takes that same product-brand discipline and turns it on people. It’s the same system that gave her the courage to negotiate her own career moves and stop absorbing corporate politics she didn’t create. Her free report, The Gift of Your Name Is a Powerful Legacy, gives people a place to start; her one-on-one coaching moves them further.
Her political strategy practice is reignited in this era of pivotal global change, anchored in her Princeton University thesis, Retrospect and Prospect: The Dynamics of Black Political Participation on Presidential Politics in the 1980s. Her M-Scale™ model has taken on new relevance for education and activation today. Her civic engagement masterclass, Make Your Voice Count, is a weekly, year-round tool for church groups, communities, and organizations large and small. In 2020, with American democracy on the line, she launched the Association of Black Princeton Alumni’s Presidential Election series — featuring Senator Cory Booker, Craig Robinson, and author Eddie Glaude — drawing roughly 1,500 alumni and guests across two conversations. She serves on the Ebenezer Church Fortifying Democracy Committee and the Freedom Forward 2026 Planning Work Group, and recently participated in the Congressional Black Caucus Institute Foundation’s political strategy conference.
Her client portfolio spans American Express, the Princeton Alumni Development Series, Atlanta Black Chambers, and MSC School Systems, and her work has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC, ABC, Fox Atlanta, and in Time Magazine, the New York Post, and the Commercial Appeal.
Cheryl activates people and organizations through her speaking keynote, Believe Enough to Ask — built on a simple premise: most people don’t lose the promotion, the raise, or the deal. They lose it before they ever ask — and Cheryl’s work disrupts that thinking. Cheryl makes change happen in your heart, your head, and your bottom line.