Human Centred
Brand Development
What do you get when athletes, coaches, a creative strategist and experiential therapists get together?
A company with a really different approach!

“For me, I love the challenge of engaging the life experiences I’ve been afforded and channeling them into designing experiences. Being passionate about self-growth, I see experience design as an extension of who I am, and not just what I do.”
Kodi’s passion for sports started with swimming and then he switched and settled into tennis, representing Barbados at the junior international and professional levels respectively in both sports.
Kodi accepted a tennis scholarship to attend Florida Atlantic University and, with the team, went on to win the national conference championships, and graduated with a BS in International Business.
Unfortunately, during Kodi’s third year playing at FAU, he suffered a nerve injury in his back, which required six months of intense rehab and forced him to give up tennis at that level – a turning point for Kodi. Following university, Kodi lived in London for three and a half years, travelling to and from the Caribbean as sales manager for NSG Exports, which specialises in procurement. Interesting fact: Kodi was trained as the Caribbean representative for Orica Explosives.
On returning to Barbados in 2008 at age 24, Kodi embarked on the promotion of tennis in Barbados through several high-profile tennis exhibition events “Tennis pon de Rock”, bringing to the island such superstars as Serena and Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, Gael Monfils, among others, to help raise funds for promising Barbadian tennis athletes.
In 2018, Kodi embarked on a personal growth journey with Dr. Ted Klontz, exploring mental and emotional health, which lead to Kodi founding Dakota Ross in 2019, partnering with Alex and Luis, and collaborating with Dr. Klontz on projects.
Dakota Ross is an extension of Kodi, Alex, and Luis, connecting their passions with purpose.

Before Dakota Ross was established in 2019, Alex consulted both directly with clients and brands, or as a freelance consultant through large agencies.
Mount Gay Rum Global became a key client of his in 2018, and was then transitioned to Dakota Ross in 2019. To date, Alex has helped Mount Gay connect 320 years of passion and heritage to their current brand and business purpose. A highlight was creating and executing the physical and digital experience, internal training tools, and guidelines for the premium Mount Gay Distillery Experience. Through Dakota Ross, the relationship with Mount Gay has grown to include planning and executing the Round Barbados Race Regatta, creating the eSports partnership with World Sailing, and developing and implementing the global Mount Gay sailing strategy.
Before 2018, Alex pursued his Strategy career in both Sydney and London at various creative, social, digital, brand and media agencies including: R/GA; Naked Communications; The Conscience Organisation; Zenith; and National Geographic.
He has helped lead or support brands such as Nike, Puma, Toyota, Lexus, Google, Android, YouTube, Samsung, Nestlé, Qantas, Carlton & United Beverages, Lion, Brown Forman, Chevrolet, HP, and Vestas.

Luis brings a wealth of experience in coaching through his background as a 40-year tennis coach, plus many years of experiential implementation of sales theories.
Sports has always played a major role in Luis’s life. From competing in junior and high school sports, to being a college scholarship athlete while completing his degree in education with a minor in business. He reached the pinnacle of basketball, playing in the semi-professional AAU leagues, and was invited for tryouts for the USA team to compete in the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics. After college, his love of sports and education lead him into teaching tennis and becoming a certified United States Professional Tennis Association coach in 1986.
During the 1980s Luis also set up and managed tennis and golf-specific retail sports businesses, and with his sales ability, entered into the highly competitive automotive industry. It is here that Luis gained valuable experience and knowledge through years of specialty training courses in sales and leasing theories, which eventually led to acquiring a new automobile dealer’s license and opening Autosave, one of the first remote car purchasing and leasing operations, a concept preceding Carvana and others by 35 years.
In 1994 Luis moved to Barbados where he started the Fuentes Tennis International Tennis Academy, as well as taking on the role of Davis Cup Captain for the Barbados team from 1996 to 2000, which at the time consisted of three FTI players including Kodi Lewis. From 2009, Luis collaborated with Kodi on the “Tennis pon de Rock” fundraising initiative, and then with him founded Dakota-Ross to pioneer a sports-forward and experiential approach to helping our clients grow.

Dr. Janelle Chase-Mayers is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, Mental Health Consultant and Creative Systemic Therapist, a master facilitator, and a current PhD scholar. Janelle uses sociometry and experiential activities to engage her audience to create movement and change within their particular social spaces. She is committed to facilitating training and webinars in mental health, and optimal performance for redefining corporate spaces, businesses, and families. Janelle has worked as a leading therapist and facilitator for twelve years at the SAF Inc. and Therapeutic Alliance Wellness.
She is also a part-time lecturer at the Barbados Community College and University of West Indies in the Social Work and Psychology divisions. Her teaching specialty is group dynamics and group interpersonal relationships. Janelle is additionally a wellness coach and manages her own cross fit gym, training elite athletes and seniors to optimise their performance. The emphasis on wellness is to help individuals to realise that their wellness impacts their productivity and performance.
She is also the owner of the Fit Chic Movement which focuses on the integrated wellness of women throughout their developmental stages of life. Additionally, she leads the team at Therapeutic Alliance Training which provides workshops and seminars on personal development. She is the Chief Heart Operator of Grief Recovery Works and specialises in corporate grief training.

“I specialise in the fundamentals of what makes us human – understanding the basic needs of people and meeting those at the mental, physical and spiritual level.”
Jacqui incorporates several different methods of psychotherapy and experiential therapy into her own unique and holistic approach, with the end goal being to strengthen the relationship individuals have with themselves and those around them.
Jacqui has spent 33 years helping her clients deal with challenges across a wide range of areas – from workplace, family, and couples’ therapy to psychotherapy, addiction, and chemical abuse.
She has studied at the University of Miami in addiction, with Hazelden in chemical dependency, and was the Co-Founder of the Substance Abuse Foundation Inc Barbados and the clinical director there for 12 years.
Certified in Clinical Supervision (CSTD Bath) and a certified Experiential Therapist (CET 2) member of the International Society for Experiential Professionals (ISEP), Jacqui has been specialising in trauma for the last 15 years.
She helps her clients build their own ‘recovery plan’ for life, utilising many experiential modalities including art, sports, adventure, music, psychodrama, sculpting, somatic work, team building, and yoga/mindfulness techniques.

Ted is an Associate Professor of Practice of Financial Psychology and Behavioral Finance at Creighton University Heider College of Business. He is the Founder and CEO of Klontz Consulting Group, and Co-Founder and Director of the Financial Psychology Institute®. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
He has a 40+ year career in counseling, consulting and advising that has included authoring, co-authoring and/or contributing to seven financial psychology-related books: Mind over Money – Overcoming the Money Disorders that Threaten Our Financial Health; Wired for Wealth; Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge; Facilitating Financial Health; Financial Therapy – Theory, Research and Practice; The Money Mammoth; and The Psychology of Financial Planning.
He is a published researcher, professional speaker, and trainer with corporate groups focusing on communication skill development and anxiety management.
Ted is a designer and facilitator of workshops (including: “Exquisite Listening®”, “Ultimate Listening”, “Touching Mortality”, and “Experiential Tools for Change”); consultant to major entertainment management groups; consultant to the United States Defense Department, and has a private practice focused on working with professional athletes / entertainers and financial professionals.
He has served in expert roles as an advisor to Congressional Committees, and is regularly quoted in national and international media including: The Today Show; CNN; Good Morning America; Larry King Live; Oprah Winfrey; NPR; The Wall Street Journal; Money magazine; and The New York Times. Ted’s Healing Money Issues Workshop was featured on ABC News’ 20-20 and Good Morning America. He was also featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network. He has served as one of the founding Executive Officers of the National Financial Therapy Association, and is Co-Founder of Your Mental Wealth®, a direct to consumer personal finance brand.
By creating clear & structured pathways, we help our clients deliver their brand systematically in order to establish deeper and more impactful relationships with their target audiences.
This, we believe, leads to continued brand performance and sustained growth.
A BIT ABOUT HOW WE WORK
CREATING CLEAR & STRUCTURED PATHWAYS THROUGH A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH
We look at a brand as though it were a person with a unique personality and values, to which we apply our intrinsically driven approach.
This "human-centric" process brings together the collective knowledge and expertise of our team, represented below, and applies them to each brand’s unique situation with the aim to identify and define clear pathways.
These pathways provide the core direction from which all concepts, ideas, experiences and touchpoints surrounding a brand are built. Creating and establishing deeper, more impactful and consistent experiences for both the brand’s internal teams, as well as their desired audiences.
We call these Vectored Pathways – it is where People, Passion and Purpose authentically align, driving the brand’s continued evolution and sustained growth.
Creative
Strategy
Experience
Design
Exquisite
Listening & Communications
Strategic
Performance
Coaching
Experiential &
Emotional
Intelligence
Creative
Systemic
Thinking
OUR TEAM IS OUR INNOVATION!
Dakota Ross is the coming together of a group of like-minded people, from a multitude of backgrounds and specialties, driven by a common appreciation for the power of sports, and a passion for intrinsically driven growth.
We operate a lean, core team (Alex, Kodi and Luis) passionate about sustained growth, and we tend to work alongside our clients as their extended team, to help their brand evolve and grow.
One of the things we are most proud of, and we believe helps to set us apart, is our own extended team of coaches. A group of amazing people who focus on our continued development (mental, physical and emotional) so that we can sustain a high level of performance, as we too continue to evolve.
Imagine, as a part of your extended team, having access to the knowledge and experience of a diverse group of specialists, focused and collaborating with you on your brand’s performance and growth.