Joshua V. Barr is an Emmy and national award-winning, transformational leader from South Carolina with an MBA and Juris Doctorate who has trained people on human rights, diversity, equity, and inclusion issues from all 50 states and 5 continents. From 2010 to 2012, Joshua worked in Colombia, South America, conducting investigations on institutional corruption and leading the English language immersion program at Javeriana University Cali teaching marketing, law, and other business classes to Colombian college students. Upon returning to the United States, Joshua practiced civil rights law with the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission where he laid the foundation for the state civil rights department to be more aggressive in its enforcement of civil rights violations. During his time with the Commission, Joshua retrained the investigations staff assisting them in finding more than sixty probable cause discrimination violations in 2015, the highest number of probable cause cases in South Carolina history at that time.

In 2015, Joshua became the director of the Des Moines Civil and Human Rights Commission where he transformed a department on the verge of being shut down a year earlier into an integral part of the Des Moines municipal government. During his time as director, he increased the number of complaints filed in the office by 170% and the number of probable cause discrimination cases by 500%. One of Joshua’s proudest accomplishments was the Bridging the Gap initiative where the Commission conducted community dialogues throughout the city determining what could be done to increase opportunity and make a safe, more just community for all. Through the Bridging the Gap project, Joshua and his team were able to craft, develop, and implement nearly 30 new city policies and practices designed to improve community-government relations and help residents move up the socio-economic ladder. Because of his hard work, Joshua was named Public Servant of the Year in 2019 by the Des Moines Neighborhood Associations and was the Greater Des Moines 2020 Martin Luther King, Jr. Make-A-Difference Award winner. 

In 2020, Joshua debuted his Emmy award-winning documentary Breaking Bread, Building Bridges where nearly 40 strangers were matched up together based on their differences to have dinners over the course of a few months. Joshua served as the creator, director, and executive producer of the documentary/project. The documentary won the 2020 Governor’s Emmy Award by the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The Governor’s Emmy Award is the most prestigious award because it is the only one voted on directly by the Academy’s Board of Governors, representing all media professionals from TV stations and various other platforms across a five-state region. In 2020, Joshua won the Traeger Award, listing him as #5 of the top 100 influencers in local government in the United States by Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) organization in part for his article A Better Way: 50+ Action Items to Fight Against Racism In Your Community. In 2021, Joshua was selected as one of the country’s Top 100 Corporate Executive Leaders Under 50 by Diversity MBA. 

Joshua now serves as the Chief Strategist and President of his own organization, Raising The Barr, where he collaborates with and counsels government entities, not-for-profits, and other organizations that are committed to transforming their cultures and improving socioeconomic outcomes for their community stakeholders. In this role, Joshua developed the Citizen Participation & Equitable Engagement (CPEE) Toolkit for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Block Grant Development Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program and continues to conduct community dialogues around the country in his ongoing efforts to make every corner of the country a better place.