About

Levinson Consulting is a Hawaiʻi-based consulting practice led by partners Josh and Elila Levinson. We bring complementary professional experience to our work: Josh has spent his career working with nonprofits, community organizations, foundations, and public institutions on strategy, organizational development, leadership, and community issues; Elila brings decades of experience in school leadership, faculty and professional development, curriculum and program development and implementation, early learning, and direct work with children and families.

We share an approach that is curious, practical, and relationship-centered. We listen carefully, ask questions, and invest in understanding an organization, its people, and its context before jumping to solutions. We believe the people closest to an organization or community hold essential knowledge about its challenges and possibilities. Our role is to bring perspective, experience, structure, and an informed point of view that can help create clarity and move the work forward.

As partners, we draw on our collective experience and complementary perspectives, tailoring each engagement to the particular needs of the organization and the work. Our clients benefit from our individual areas of expertise as well as the thinking, questioning, reflection and problem-solving we do together.

We both grew up in Hawaiʻi and, after living and working elsewhere, returned home to raise our family and make our lives here. Levinson Consulting reflects our shared commitment to contributing to this place and the communities we care deeply about.

Josh Levinson

Josh Levinson grew up in Kāneʻohe and Mānoa and, over the course of his career, has worked with communities to address their central issues and concerns. His consulting practice is grounded in problem solving, and he partners closely with mission-driven organizations to help clarify direction, strengthen leadership, and build practical paths forward—while honoring the expertise already present within organizations and communities.

Through his work with Levinson Consulting, and previously as a Principal of Islander Institute and 3Point Consulting, Josh has served as a planner and advisor to many community-based organizations across Hawaiʻi. Organizations have also called on him to step into executive leadership during pivotal periods, and he has served as Interim Executive Director for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaiʻi (now Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute), KEY Project, Aloha Harvest, Hoa ʻĀina O Mākaha, and Project Dāna.

Josh has also contributed to nonprofit and community leadership in volunteer capacities. He served as President of Ho‘okua‘āina for seven years and completed two terms as President of Temple Emanu-El in Honolulu, helping guide the congregation through a period of rabbinic and staff leadership transition. In partnership with the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, he developed and led Nitzavim Hawaiʻi, a multi-year initiative designed to strengthen relationships, organizational capacity, and collaboration among Jewish leaders and institutions across the state.

Before building his consulting practice, Josh was Field Organizer of Neil Abercrombie’s successful 2010 gubernatorial campaign and later served as Director of Communications in the Office of the Governor; President & CEO of Community Links Hawaiʻi, which helped social entrepreneurs launch their enterprises; and Deputy Director of DC Appleseed, a public interest advocacy organization in Washington, D.C.

Josh’s earlier experiences include working on a large oral history project about African-American life in the segregated South; public radio production at Marketplace Productions in Los Angeles; documenting the occupational health hazards of commercial fishing in North Carolina; and clerking at a civil liberties law practice in Honolulu.

Some of Josh’s little-known or forgotten accomplishments include training at a backcountry cooking school in Montana, co-founding a radio show called Hell or High Water featuring American Roots Music on WXYC-FM in Chapel Hill, and starting up (and shutting down) an ill-conceived trash transportation company called “Dump, Inc.” Josh regularly drives a bus for the Windward School District on O‘ahu, connecting students to community-based resources.

Josh is a graduate of Duke University, where he received a John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Award, and holds a Master’s degree in Folklore from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. While at UNC, he was a recipient of the Archie Green Fellowship in Occupational Folklife and received a grant from the Center for the Study of the American South to support the writing of his thesis, Dropnet Tribes: Making a Day’s Work in North Carolina’s Winter Fishery. He lives in Kaelepulu, Kailua, O‘ahu with his family.

Elila Levinson

Elila Levinson grew up in Kailua and, throughout her career, has been drawn to the ways that effective communication and positive learning experiences can build understanding and connection. From the youngest children and their families to experienced educators and community stakeholders, she has worked with people at different stages and from different perspectives to make sense of complex situations, learn from one another, and find shared pathways forward.

This orientation now grounds Elila’s work as an advisor. She works with leaders and teams to strengthen programs and organizations, support effective leadership, develop people and teams, and navigate change. An educator with deep experience in school leadership, early learning, professional development, parent education, and admissions, Elila brings curiosity, attention to context, and a belief in the power of relationships to help people and organizations move forward together.

Before joining Levinson Consulting, Elila served as Dean for Kindergarten and Grade 1 at Punahou School, where she worked closely with teachers, families, and school leaders to support all facets of the educational experience for the school’s youngest learners. Her work encompassed student and family support, faculty leadership and collaboration, parent education, and program development. She also contributed to strategic initiatives, student and program assessments, searches and transition planning, working across grade levels, departments, faculty and staff, senior leadership and the broader school community.

Previously, Elila was inaugural Director of the Hanahauʻoli School Professional Development Center, where she brought educators from schools and community organizations across Hawaiʻi together to develop engaging, accessible professional learning created by and for teachers. Elila built ongoing partnerships with the Hawai‘i Department of Education, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, public charter and independent schools, the University of Hawai‘i, and others to expand professional learning opportunities for educators statewide. 

Elila also served as Public Policy Coordinator for the Good Beginnings Alliance, now Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network, where her work focused on early learning policy and efforts to expand access to high-quality public preschool in Hawaiʻi.

Before returning home to Hawaiʻi, Elila was Director of Lower School Admission at Maret School, a K–12 school in Washington, D.C., where she also led initiatives involving curriculum research and technology integration. Earlier in her career, Elila completed a principal internship with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and held teaching and administrative roles at a K–6 Jewish day school in Los Angeles.

Elila’s experience across classrooms, leadership and administration, professional learning, public policy, and her direct work with students and families has developed a broad perspective on how organizations function—and on the people, relationships, and systems that make them work. She is fascinated by how the different parts of each organization can connect and influence one another, and is especially interested in helping groups strengthen communication and collaboration, create clarity around goals and priorities, and translate ideas and aspirations into practices that work for the communities they serve.

A lifelong reader and avid lover of books and print journalism, Elila’s interest in communication extends beyond education. Early in her career, she explored publishing and communications through an internship at Los Angeles Magazine and work at a boutique advertising agency in Venice Beach. She remains an active reader—and a devoted subscriber to print newspapers and magazines—and enjoys early morning walks, hiking, yoga, and crossword puzzles.

Elila grew up in Hawaiʻi and attended ʻĀikahi Elementary and Punahou School. She earned a B.A. in English from UCLA, with a specialization in Education, and a Master’s degree in School Administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She lives in Kaʻelepulu, Kailua, Oʻahu with her family.