The Team

Jelani House is the Founder and Managing Director of House Strategies Group, LLC (HSG), an SBA-certified 8(a) federal consulting firm specializing in federal financial services, capital markets advisory, compliance analytics, securitization, real estate advisory, and government program management. He has 17+ years of progressive consulting experience supporting HUD, Ginnie Mae, VA, USDA, Treasury, and the Federal Reserve across multiple prime contract vehicles, with career sales exceeding $25M. Before founding HSG, Jelani served as an Associate Director within Guidehouse's federal financial services practice (2020–2024) and as a Project Manager and Senior Consultant at Novad Management Consulting (2008–2018), supporting HUD's Office of Asset Sales over nearly two decades. He most recently led the Issues Team for a HECM Vacant Property Transaction under HUD's Transaction Specialist contract. On HSG engagements he pioneered the AI-Enhanced Delivery Methodology and the AI/Expert Reconciliation Log, now standard deliverables on HSG classification and compensation studies. He holds an MS in Finance from Georgetown's McDonough School of Business and a BA in Economics and English from the University of Virginia. He is also the Founder of GovCert (govcert.ai), an AI-powered SaaS platform that automates federal certification applications for small businesses.

Gilda Weech-House is an accomplished Senior HR Officer with over 25 years of distinguished service in the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service. She is a Certified Job Evaluator (CJE) with specialized training in the State Department's M-Class classification system and administrative management. Her postings span Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America — including Senior HR Officer tours in Pretoria (2008–2010), Paris (2011–2014), Brasilia (2014–2017), Beijing (2003–2006), and Hanoi (2000–2002), and a retired-annuitant WAE tour across Chad, Botswana, and Ethiopia (2018–2024). She has led HR operations for some of the largest U.S. diplomatic missions in the world, overseeing workforces of 2,000+ locally engaged staff and 1,000+ U.S. hires. Gilda is the study's hands-on technical lead — the signatory on every revised Position Description, Factor Scorecard, and Grade Reconciliation Memorandum. She holds an MA in Labor and Industrial Relations from the University of Illinois and a BA in Social Work from the College of Saint Benedict / Saint John's University. Her Past Performance Questionnaire from Jennifer Haskell (retired Senior Foreign Service Officer, former supervisor) rates her Exceptional across every category: 'Gilda is the best HR professional I worked with in my 30+ year career.'

Michael Nelson is a Senior Consultant at House Strategies Group with 15+ years of experience leading structured discovery, stakeholder engagement, and requirements gathering for compliance-driven engagements in highly regulated environments. At HSG he supports federal program delivery including HUD Office of Asset Sales compliance and audit-readiness initiatives, and serves as Project Coordinator and Methodology Lead on classification and compensation engagements. In that role he oversees Position Description Questionnaire (PDQ) administration, stakeholder interview scheduling and logistics, data-integrity controls, and the AI/Expert Reconciliation workflow that underpins HSG's dual-layer quality-control model. Previously, as Senior Product Manager and Senior Business Analyst at Allscripts (2011–2019), he led product strategy and structured customer research across large hospital systems — translating complex stakeholder input into quantitative analytical findings, a methodology directly applicable to PDQ administration. He holds an MBA in Strategic Management & Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Economics from Northwestern University, where he was a varsity football letterman and two-time Big Ten champion.

Raina Cook is a results-driven Senior HR and Compensation Analyst with 10+ years of progressive experience in human resources operations, employee relations, compensation analysis, and HRIS management at Fortune 100 organizations. At Lowe's she serves as Senior Division HR Advisor leading the Annual Compensation Review (ACR), succession planning, and executive talent movement. At Verizon Wireless (2014–2024) she served successively as Senior HR Recruiter, HR Business Partner Consultant, and Senior Analyst in HR Operations — leading compensation reviews, people-analytics dashboards, employee-relations investigations (documented in HR Acuity and ServiceNow), labor-law compliance, and large cross-functional projects including a $500K new-hire welcome-kit rollout across domestic and international locations. She is proficient in Workday, PeopleSoft, HR Acuity, and ServiceNow. She holds an MS in Human Resource Management from Strayer University and a BS in Management Information Systems from Norfolk State University. Her Past Performance Questionnaire from Kristen Dixon (Sr. HRBP, RTI International; former Lowe's manager) rates her Exceptional across every category: 'Without hesitation, if I had a vacant position today, I would extend an offer to Raina.'

Laverne Cunningham is a senior HR professional with 25+ years of experience spanning position classification, compensation administration, benefits management, and HR compliance across federal, government-contractor, and international diplomatic environments. From 2001 to 2016 she served as Human Resources Management Specialist for the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Embassy in South Africa, an organization of 600+ employees across the Embassy and three consulates. In that role she supervised the classification program, ensuring all position descriptions were written and classified accurately within the State Department's Management Classification (M-Class) system, and served as COTR for benefits administration, recruitment, and compensation-plan administration. She currently serves as Director of Benefits at Constellis, LLC (since 2023), leading benefits strategy, compliance, and administration for over 8,000 union and non-union employees — including health, dental, vision, life, 401(k), union Health & Welfare stipend programs, and wellness initiatives. She is expert in ERISA, ACA, HIPAA, and COBRA compliance, 5500 filings, non-discrimination testing, and vendor/broker negotiation. At HSG she provides specialized subject-matter depth on classification, compensation plans, and HR compliance.

Amy Han is an early-career federal program analyst with three years of subcontractor experience supporting Emax Financial & Real Estate Advisory Services on concurrent federal engagements with VA, the Navy, and HUD. On VA's Enhanced Use Lease (EUL) Post-Transaction Support engagement she helps produce the annual Consideration Report that is part of VA's Congressional budget submission, quantifying in-kind consideration received through the EUL program, and contributes to annual compliance reviews covering insurance, financial, consideration, reserve-account, and site-visit components. On the Navy PPV and Real Estate IDIQ engagement she performs data analysis and supports annual sustainment modeling. On HUD's Program Financial Advisor engagement she provides due-diligence services including loan-file reviews, third-party report reviews, qualification documentation, and bid-day execution support. She holds an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University's Elliott School (concentrations: U.S. Foreign Policy and Asia) and a BA in Global Studies and Spanish from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Dean's List, College Honors James Scholar). She is a native-level Korean and advanced Spanish speaker. Michael McGuire, President of Emax, has submitted a Past Performance Questionnaire rating Amy 'Exceptional' in Quality of Work, Schedule, Communication, Problem Solving, and Overall Performance.

Joel V. Sutherland is a federal Human Resources professional with over 7 years of specialized experience in classification, recruitment, staffing operations, and HR program management within the federal government. From 2018 to 2025 he served as a Management and Program Analyst in Human Resources / Human Capital Management at the U.S. Department of Education's Federal Student Aid (FSA) division, where he conducted position classification analyses using OPM standards and the Factor Evaluation System (FES) to determine occupational series, grade levels, and pay systems. He developed, reviewed, and maintained Position Descriptions and applied Fair Labor Standards Act criteria for exemption determinations. He modernized FSA's Position Description Library by transitioning to a fully electronic system, improving accessibility and standardization across business units. On the recruitment and staffing side he processed 950+ personnel actions in FPPS in accordance with OPM's Guide to Processing Personnel Actions, drafted vacancy announcements under multiple hiring authorities (Merit Promotion, Delegated Examining, Pathways), and supported FSA's agency-wide NextGen hiring initiative that onboarded 1,200+ employees. He conducted quality assurance audits on 250+ hiring packages ensuring OPM and agency policy compliance, served as agency coordinator for eOPF, and led process improvement initiatives across onboarding workflows and HR SOPs. From 2016 to 2018 he was a Management and Program Analyst in FSA's Adjudication & Appeals Division, where he adjudicated 800+ federal student loan servicer appeals and developed training materials and operational manuals for compliance monitoring. He holds an MA in Communication from Trinity Washington University and a BA in Political Science from Fayetteville State University. Recognized with multiple Individual Cash Awards (2023, 2024) and the CSOSA Dedicated Service Award (2013).