Exploring systems, stories, and questions at their roots.

Alterrell is an essayist exploring Blackness, queerness, masculinity, corporate culture, class privilege, and grief. Much of his work begins with the same question: how do the systems around us shape what we believe about ourselves and each other?

His interest in these questions began in psychology research, including work in a psychophysiology lab studying in-group and out-group dynamics, stigma, and social perception. Fifteen years inside Fortune 100 companies gave him another view of the same patterns: how identity, incentives, and institutions shape behavior at scale.

Today, he writes essays and builds tools that translate research, data, and lived experience into something people can use. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, has co-authored two published HBS cases, and his work has been covered by The Wall Street Journal.

He publishes regularly and thinks in terms of long-term intellectual artifacts rather than short-term attention spans. He cares about making work that stays useful over time.

Explore the portfolio to see what he's built, or Touchstones for the books and ideas he keeps returning to.