Shermaine Perry-Knights

About the Founder

Shermaine Perry-Knights is the Founder of Innovation Consultants of DeKalb, a consulting firm specializing in creating interactive learning solutions and leading organizational development initiatives.

Before stepping into the classroom, she spent years in public policy research, data analysis, and community advocacy across the government, nonprofit, and corporate sectors — work that taught her how to translate complex information into decisions people could actually act on. She became an adjunct professor in 2013, a role she held for seven years. In 2016, she pivoted into talent development full time, continuing to teach until 2020 — the same year she was recognized by the Association for Talent Development as the One to Watch. That combination of classroom experience, experience across industries and organizations, and her ATD Master Instructional Designer certification is why the curriculum she designs holds up in real classrooms and boardrooms alike, not just on paper.

Shermaine earned her bachelor's degree from Spelman College and her master's degree from Strayer University. She holds a Six Sigma Green Belt and the Kirkpatrick Four Levels Evaluation Certification, Bronze Level. She has traveled throughout Asia, Africa, and the West Indies as an adult, extending a global fluency that started decades earlier.

Why She Writes

That fluency started here. I attended 13 schools across 5 countries before I graduated high school — including time living and studying in Europe and the Middle East — growing up a military kid who learned, again and again, how to belong somewhere new. That adaptability is where my work with military-connected families and children began.

So I published the book that didn't exist when I needed it growing up across the globe. I Move A Lot And That's Okay became the first title in what is now the And That's Okay!® series, a registered trademark and a growing library of books that help military-connected children see their experience reflected back at them, not as a footnote, but as the main character, and as a story of strength.

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I write the books that I needed and I'm grateful that they are helping so many kids.

That work led somewhere I did not expect. Schools, military family support programs, and organizations across the globe started asking for more than a book. They wanted a curriculum: turnkey, trauma-informed programs they could put directly in front of kids and families navigating deployment, relocation, and everything that comes with military life. So I built that too, using the same instructional design expertise behind my executive consulting work — the same expertise I now use to deliver interactive learning solutions for organizations and schools alike.

That one book blossomed into 60+ books. I'm officially addicted to publishing high-quality work, including my upcoming authority book, Excellence Trap — written for every professional who has been too good to promote and too valuable to lose, because the reward for great work can't be more work.

That's the throughline behind every book, workshop, and licensed curriculum I build: turning lived experience and hard-won expertise into strategy that works, not just good intentions.