About Powerful Progress

Our mission is to build bridges so that every person, globally, regardless of background, would have the same opportunities to build, create, and distribute wealth long term for generations to come.

By channeling expertise and networks through leaders, thinkers, grassroots efforts, and direct mentorship, we will close the knowledge and opportunity gap across communities and enable new generations of wealth and power holders.

Priya Royal – Co-Founder, President, and Board Chairperson

Ms. Priya Prakash Royal, Esq., LL.M., MBA, has served on nonprofit boards, and committed significant time and resources to nonprofits helping women, minorities, and furthering access in the arts and education for decades. She is a nationally recognized speaker, expert witness, and an established wealth planning and tax attorney.

Priya, has through her personal and professional experience, recognized that access to and belonging to specific networks are critical to success which led to Powerful Process’s vision of fostering intergenerational wealth among the underprivileged through coaching, mentorship, and resources.

In addition to founding the Royal Law Firm PLLC as a tax strategy and planning law firm particularly committed to furthering the careers of talented women in the field, Priya has always been dedicated to social service, volunteering with various organizations, from legal clinics helping refugees, supporting women against domestic violence, to fostering amateur artists. She also served in public service as an IRS Estate Tax attorney auditing some of the most complicated transfers of wealth and analyzing very sophisticated asset protection and wealth planning strategies.

Pawnee Davis – Co-Founder and Senior Vice-President

Pawnee A. Davis, Esq., MPA, JD, has more than 15 years of combined experience in federal investigations and law practice. Formerly a senior-level U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyst, she evaluated how well the government contracted with private companies to solve policy issues, implemented strategic planning, and targeted resources where they are most needed. Some of her work found opportunities for the federal government to implement enterprise-wide IT systems, reallocate resources, and systematize processes, among other things.

In private practice, Pawnee operates a robust family law practice through P.A. Davis Law Office PLLC. She also collaborates with the Royal Law Firm PLLC where she focuses on business strategy, including government and commercial contracting, negotiations, succession planning, budgeting, legal compliance, and other related business areas.

Yolanda Palmer – Executive Director

Yolanda Palmer has over 20 years of leadership experience in the nonprofit sector. In all her roles, through the years, whether as counselor, case manager, director, minister, founder, or executive director, she weaves her expertise and knowledge to connect and further empowerment in locked out communities, regionally, nationally, and globally.

Yolanda knows well the power of relationships and networks. She worked her way up from entry level positions, beginning as a street outreach worker in the South Bronx, New York, through various roles in New York and internationally, directly dealing with those suffering and successfully navigated the existing administrative challenges within the confines of the systems in place to implement effective and sustainable solutions.

In her role as Executive Director of Powerful Progress Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit bringing together financial and business industry experts to create pathways to intergenerational wealth for locked out communities, she is committed to fostering empowerment and sustainability in all communities through her expertise in nonprofit operations and strategic initiatives. In her ministerial capacity, she also founded Causing to Forget, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (recognition of tax-exempt status pending) to house her decades of faith-based Christian healing initiatives by uniting a team of experts in the mental health, public health, and medical health sectors to educate and create access to resources for the ailing across communities.

Within just a few months of joining Powerful Progress, Yolanda successfully worked with the Board to strategically implement a series of programs and initiatives supporting and scaling efforts by nonprofits and philanthropic individuals to further entrepreneurship and sustainability in technology, finance, and agriculture internationally. She continues to develop, implement, and ensure funding and resources on robust initiatives furthering the mission of Powerful Progress in meaningful ways.