By Julie Silard Kantor, Vice President, Change 4 Growth, with Eileen Monesson

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Executive Summary

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a growing and an important focus for many businesses and organizations across the world. DEI efforts strive to create workplace environments welcoming and appealing to everyone by celebrating and leveraging our differences including, but not limited to, ethnicity, education, skin color, age, and sexual orientation. DEI-driven organizations benefit all stakeholders—employees, customers, and the community.

Organizations have recognized that they have a responsibility to improve DEI to elevate the experience of their stakeholders, especially employees that are the lifeblood of the business. “The employee experience (EX) is foundational to business performance. Sustaining customer experience efforts, improving products, and building a strong and reputable brand all require the help of your employees. Ultimately, it is their experiences – positive and negative – that will impact how hard they work, how much they collaborate, or whether they are invested in improving operational performance.” (Qualtrics.com. 2022)

Research shows that diversity at work and financial performance are linked. A McKinsey & Company study entitled Delivering Through Diversity found that gender and ethnic diversity are correlated with profitability. Additionally, companies committed to DEI can better attract top talent, enhance customer and employee satisfaction, and improve decision making. Diverse Individuals bring unique lived experiences and perspectives which can lead to innovation, better customer service/products, and high-performing teams. also tend to outperform homogenous teams in terms of various ROI metrics.

While DEI is important to the success of organizations, there remains a great opportunity to better implement initiatives. Ceridian found in its 2022 Executive Survey that although 90% of respondents have a DEI strategy, only one-third say that progress is being made in this area. And only 19% say their organization is a leader in DEI. (Ceridian. Achieving Organizational Agility Through Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Donnebra McClendon. July 6, 2022)

Many obstacles stand in the way of becoming a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization. The work of DEI often requires the changing of hearts and minds to overcome basic human feelings, ego, and learned behaviors. While there are laws in place to protect workers from discrimination, there is more work to be done to evoke lasting organizational change in the landscape.

For organizations (and employees) to achieve their greatest potential we must go beyond acceptance. Organizations must foster a culture of trust, respect, and belonging. This requires more than a series of training programs and management directives to promote DEI in the workforce. The work of DEI is continuous and thus requires a powerful mindset shift.

Therefore, it is imperative that we look at the role that organizational change management (OCM) plays to drive process, performance, people, and productivity. Business initiatives with effective organizational change management (OCM) are six times more likely to meet or exceed objectives.” (Prosci, Inc. Best Practices in Change Management. 11th Edition).

Margaret Regan, president and chief executive officer of The Future Work Institute, Inc., queried over 300 diversity practitioners a few months ago and asked if an organizational OCM approach would make a difference in diversity results. “Over 86% of the IAC (Inclusion Allies Coalition) webinar participants polled said that an Organizational Change Management approach is needed to drive stronger DEI results,” says Julie Kantor, VP Change 4 Growth, and Inclusion Allies Coalition Mentoring Committee Chair.

Beth Thomas, chief executive officer of Change 4 Growth (C4G) and author of Powered by Happy, agrees that OCM is a “must do” for organizations to be successful in delivering DEI culturally: “It is not just about creating a program, checking the boxes, and having a few training classes. It is about integrating DEI into the culture, the way we do things as an organization, which must start at the top and filter down to every single employee. DEI must be part of every decision you make,” stated Thomas.

Although these thought leaders agree that taking an OCM approach would make a sustainable impact, we decided to do our own research to garner additional perspectives from the field. Beth Thomas, Julie Kantor, and the C4G team conducted a series of roundtable discussions to learn what DEI leaders perceived. Their opinions and experiences will be discussed in this paper, as well as best practices, challenges, and practical solutions.

Our Research Goals

Our primary goal in conducting this research was to determine if taking an OCM approach toward implementing real change is a viable solution. We asked a small group of DEI thought leaders to participate in roundtable discussions which were facilitated by C4G’s CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Beth Thomas.

While a lot of our discussions focused on positive outcomes and best practices, we also uncovered challenges that can be addressed by taking an organizational change management approach to DEI. The opinions of the roundtable participants included in this report are verbatim. We thought it would be valuable for you to hear directly from them.

Our Roundtable Thought Leaders

We brought together thought leaders from Fortune 1000 companies, healthcare, and nonprofit organizations to learn more about DEI initiatives in their organizations (see bios below). These professionals were selected because of their DEI expertise and ability to execute organizational change. Their insights will enlighten you on what is happening inside some of the most respected organizations and why organizational change is important.

We value the opinion of these thought leaders because they are some of the best and the brightest professionals in the field. Each one shares best practices and tips for overcoming challenges. Their insights are invaluable to the success of every organization’s DEI initiative.

Change 4 Growth

Change 4 Growth (C4G) is recognized as one of the 2021 Top 10 Change Management Companies in the U.S. by HR Magazine and was recognized for its diversity mentoring initiatives in 2022 by the Global Center for Inclusion. The C4G team are experts in transformational change, specializing in solutions for people, process, and technology.

Background

The workplace is changing, and companies must embrace new challenges and demands to be competitive. Workers today want more than salary increases, bonuses, and benefits. They want to work for companies that embrace diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), care about their well-being and value their work. Workers want to be seen and to bring their authentic selves to work. Psychological safety at work is also paramount to well-being at a time where over 44% of workers from 140 countries polled by Gallup are experiencing high stress and employee engagement rates are stagnating.

Numerous studies show that when employees from diverse backgrounds and cultures collaborate on a project, there is a better chance that they will find solutions faster. A study of more than 500 businesses found that every 1% increase in diversity correlates with a 3% to 9% rise in sales revenue. (Work Status. 10 Reasons Why DEI in the Workplace is Essential for Progress in the Long Run. Ash Grover. March 24, 2022)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace (DEI) relates to the actions taken to establish awareness and transform mindsets, behaviors, and practices to create and sustain a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment.

Diversity is defined as the presence of differences within a given setting, equity as the process of ensuring that processes and programs are impartial, fair, and provide equal outcomes for every individual and inclusion as the practice of ensuring that people feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. (Source: Built In. What Does Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Mean in the Workplace? Kate Heinz. June 23, 2022) Equity considers the individuals needs to close gaps and provides intentional and greater access to opportunities. “You may be a diverse organization but not inclusive. You may be inclusive but not diverse. "You need to pull all three of these levers to foster belonging., " states Amtrak executive Jaime Snelgrove.

DEI experts are now including “belonging (B)” in the DEI acronym and many are also using “access (A)” to opportunity as well as “accessibility (A)”. Belonging is what people feel because they are included and valued. According to a report entitled Belonging at Work: 2021 Culture Report by the Achievers Workforce Institute, belonging is a key factor for organizational success because:

It positively affects retention. Forty percent of respondents with a strong sense of belonging rarely think about looking for a job elsewhere, versus 5% of respondents with a low sense of belonging.
It boosts productivity. Forty-five percent of respondents with a powerful sense of belonging say they are their most productive selves at work. Only 6% of those with a low sense of belonging say that.
It is the best kind of employer branding. Fifty-one percent of respondents with a strong sense of belonging would recommend their company as a great place to work, versus 4% of those with a low sense of belonging.

DEIB Value Proposition

A DEIB-based culture recognizes the “value of diverse voices and centers inclusivity and employee wellbeing as central facets of success. To bring those values to life, companies must implement programs and initiatives that actively make DEIB part of their culture.” (Academy for Innovative HR. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB): A 2022 Overview. Neelie Verlinden. January 12, 2022).

McKinsey & Company's study Delivering Through Diversity found that on a global scale, the top-quartile companies on executive-level gender diversity had a 21% likelihood of outperforming their fourth-quartile industry peers on earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margin and a 27% likelihood of outperforming fourth-quartile peers on value creation. Furthermore, the study found that companies with the most ethnically diverse executive teams are 33% more likely to outperform their competition on profitability.

“Ethnically diverse companies are 36% more likely to outperform less diverse organizations, while gender diverse companies are 25% more likely to outperform less diverse organizations,” according to Sara Prince with McKinsey & Company. “What’s more, employees are 47% more likely to stay with their company when they perceive it to be inclusive, a significant finding for organizations grappling with turnover costs.” (YW Boston Blog. The Future of DEI: How to Sustain Organizational Change. December 28, 2020)

DEIB Challenges

PwC found that organizations still have a lot of progress to make in designing and executing DEIB programs. Nearly a third of its Global Diversity & Inclusion Survey respondents indicated that they still view diversity as a barrier to progression at their organizations. Similarly, only 4% of organizations are succeeding in key dimensions of successful DEIB programming.

“For a culture of inclusion and belonging to be realized, organizations must show up as good corporate citizens, rather than taking isolated, performative steps to look good in the short term. This requires C-level leaders to hold themselves and their teams accountable for carrying out holistic DE&I strategy.”

- Jodi Davidson, Vice President, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Sodexo.

One reason to account for this dissonance between what organizations are doing versus employee perception is that organizations are failing to empower their leaders on topics of DEIB. PwC found that 80% of leadership engagement on DEIB remains at the basic or emerging levels. Furthermore, 25% of organizations have DEIB goals for leaders and only 17% have a C-Suite level diversity role in place while nearly 31% still have no D&I leader. (PwC. Global Diversity & Inclusion Survey. 2021)

Common pitfalls to the successful implementation of DEIB initiatives include:

Aspiration or case for change is generic or “copy-cat” and not specific to the organization’s needs, context, and environment.
No clear goals or arbitrary goals set without analytical rigor or understanding of underlying DEIB challenges.
Letting “one thousand flowers bloom” with no plan to learn and prune. In other words, attempting to implement all and any DEIB initiative.
Thinking training is a “cure-all” rather than a part of a broader set of solutions.
DEI becomes a “flavor of the month” and is not owned and consistently advanced by a broad set of leaders.

(YW Boston Blog. The Future of DEI: How to Sustain Organizational Change. December 28, 2020)

Organizational Change Management

Organizational change management is a method of leveraging change to bring about a successful transformation. It typically includes three major phases: Preparation, implementation, and follow-through.

Organizational change is necessary for companies to succeed and grow. Change management drives the successful adoption and usage of change within the business. It allows employees to understand and commit to the shift and work effectively during it. (Harvard Business School Online. Organizational Change Management: What it is and Why It Is Important. January 21, 2020)

“It is so important that we remember the critical role that good change management theory plays in sustainable IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access) efforts. Passion can motivate a process, but if we want to actually change the culture of our organizations in a sustainable way, we must develop a long-term, thoughtful process. Otherwise, despite our best intentions, our efforts may not only succeed, but they may even make things worse!”

- Howard J. Ross, Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Accessibility thought leader, co-Founder of Udarta Consulting, a founder of Inclusion Allies Coalition (IAC) and author of ReInventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose and Performance, Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives and Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect is Tearing Us Apart.

“Skilled DEI practitioners strongly agree that a sincere effort to effect change requires an organizational change management strategy,” adds Andres Gonzalez, roundtable participant and vice president, chief diversity officer at Froedtert Health & Medical College of Wisconsin. “Otherwise, you will have a series of trainings and celebrations (awareness activities) instead of creating a culture of inclusion, belonging and equity where you can access 100% of the skill and talent of the entire employee population.”

What We Learned

All the participants in our roundtables have extensive experience with DEIB and are considered the best and brightest in the field. These individuals are pioneers in the field and are well-respected by the DEIB community. Their insights are invaluable to the success of any organization’s DEIB initiatives.

Sharing of Best Practices

Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for Boehringer Ingelheim, a private, family-owned company with over 52,000 employees globally, Nancy J. Di Dia, PCC, is working to constantly evolve DEIB in her organization. She has built innovative ways to garner support from the top. Di Dia hosts courageous conversations, often with senior leaders to ensure that their DEIB initiatives are moving forward while providing a safe environment for employees to talk openly about an array of topics that are most important to them. “Courageous conversations give leaders and our employees the opportunity to discuss how they are feeling about what is going on in the world and in our local communities. Fifty percent of our top leaders engage and listen to our workforce through courageous conversations. There’s no agenda. Participants are welcome to discuss what is on their mind in a confidential setting. These discussions are an engaging way for senior leaders to remain present, stay in touch about how employees are feeling and what more we need to do to continue advancing our DEIB work. Courageous conversations serve as a gentle reminder to the value of having our senior leaders engaged and involved.”

The March of Dimes also encourages courageous conversations with its leaders and team members. “For many people in the organization, it was the first time they ever talked about race and racism in the workplace. So, they were very heartfelt conversations,” explains Darlene Slaughter, vice president and chief diversity and engagement office (former chief diversity officer at both Fannie Mae and United Way). “I didn't put a lot of boundaries around our conversations which gave staff the opportunity to really talk about where they were, and what they were doing. And from that, we created our Black employee resource group (ERG) and LGBTQ ERG. Our ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) have made a world of difference to the organization and its leadership.”

“We have a number ERG groups which have experienced a 35% growth over the past two years during COVID. It is about empowering staff to have a voice during courageous conversations. And the best part, more and more leaders are coming and participating,” says Di Dia.

“I have partnered with an organization to do a global assessment of our DIBE initiatives,” says Iesha Berry, chief diversity, and engagement officer with DocuSign. “We are gathering qualitative and quantitative insights through focus groups and leadership interviews globally. DocuSign just completed its global pulse survey, so we have real-time feedback on our employees' experience of inclusion, belonging, and equity. Ultimately, this assessment is going to move DocuSign towards the creation of a DIEB strategy.”

DEIB Meets Organizational Change Management

Organizations must recognize that no matter how many DEIB interventions are introduced into the workplace nothing will change if employees are not being held accountable for the environments that they are cultivating. “In general, organizations must have accountability to really drive behavior change,” says Thomas.

“Competencies and behavioral alignment are really how you get the cultural change,” explains Thomas. “It is how you hire, promote people, and understand what your organization’s values are. Change management is a critical component for DEI to become sticky in an organization and really have the employees adapt to what you are trying to achieve.”

“In terms of organizational change management, I am lucky that I work very closely with our organizational learning and development function, we are joined at the hip as I like to say. A lot of those efforts, including change management, have been hardwired into the work that we drive strategically within the organization,” adds Gonzalez.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion must be interwoven into the fiber of the organization” explains roundtable thought leader Catherine Campbell, director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Baptist Health. Campbell adds that an entire DEI policy and model are being shaped by the Executive Leadership Council (ELC) at Baptist Health. Campbell is currently working with C4G on a customized ERG Mentoring initiative that engages seven Baptist Resource Groups (BRGs) with the top 10% leadership.

“Our strategic planning function has been very good over the years about looking at true DEIB integration,” says Gonzalez. “As a result, we started embedding equity, diversity and inclusion into all the work that we're doing.”

“Organizational Change Management is the bedrock of a well-planned and successful DEI strategy. The process – using a diversity and inclusion lens – deeply examines the structure and culture of the organization, its roots, policies, and practices while getting a picture of its current state of affairs to see what most needs to be addressed and changed for creating the most effective DEI strategy for the organization.”

- Andrea Cisco COO, The FutureWork Institute, Inc., COO, International MultiCultural Institute, and an IAC founder.

Measurement Tools and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)

“You need to have a deep and broad understanding of the organization, and why it does, what it does,” says Campbell. “Determine what the company’s goals and objectives are, what makes it successful, what brings money in the door, and what causes money to go out the door.”

A DEIB strategy must define the company’s purpose, mission, and values, as well as relevant metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). “Companies must decide upfront what metrics are important to measure based on the desired outcomes and how they are going to measure success,” explains Thomas.

Sherrice Sledge-Thomas, vice president of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) at the Columbus Chamber finds it important to “define what problem you are trying to solve, clearly articulate the solution, and speak to how DEIB will solve the problem. Change management work around DEIB requires stakeholder engagement, alignment conversations, focus groups, and creating a psychologically safe space where people feel comfortable sharing how changes will impact their work. They must also feel safe to speak up about bias, microaggressions, and other behaviors that stand in the way of having a DEIB-based work culture.”

“We have several metrics to measure our success, including an inclusion index and empowerment index,” adds Di Dia. “Part of inclusion, culture of belonging and empowerment ties to psychological safety. We want people to be empowered to make decisions. If they must come to me to order sandwiches for a meeting, that's not empowerment.”

“Our organization has mapped out a scorecard to gauge our success,” says Slaughter. “We also have a dashboard and use an inclusive workplace index to measure emotional intelligence and things like that.

“Our external website showcases our eradicating racism and enhancing health equity strategic plan, as well as our balanced scorecard,” adds Gonzalez. We also created a balanced scorecard with 30 metrics that we track, monitor, and report on quarterly to our executive diversity council. “We post our workforce diversity, board of governance, health equity and supplier diversity metrics online. We also have five employee lifecycle drivers that we measure in terms of workforce development, hiring, professional/leadership development, promotion, and exit (transfer wisdom). Our CEO has signed numerous pledges for DEIB initiatives which we need to implement. There is a lot of accountabilities around that. This speaks to leadership, accountability, and transparency within our community and staff members.”

“We're looking at the Global Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Benchmarks (GDEIB),” says Heon Hahm, director of talent development and diversity at RAND Corporation. “Although we currently do not have KPIs in place, we are exploring how we are going to measure and categorize our efforts. We've already updated our quality assurance standards.” GDIB is a free tool to help organizations determine strategy and measure progress in managing diversity and fostering inclusion.

Challenges

“Our staff is engaged in the work and knows what inclusive change leadership looks like. They pay attention to who leads inclusively and who does not. That is why it is imperative to get leadership on board,” says Sherrice Thomas.

“We want to make sure that our top leaders understand what we are doing in respect to DEI, as well as their responsibility and the type of competencies, capabilities, behaviors, and actions they need to adopt and live up to within our health network,” adds Gonzalez.

“Organizations should avoid solely leaving everything up to the company’s Chief Diversity Office (CDO) or other individual(s) in charge,” suggests Campbell. “Instead, it is important to establish a governance body or committee that will ‘own’” the DEI initiatives. Include a mix of people – C-suite executives, department managers, HR, and select employees who represent the general employee population.” Baptist Health currently has Executive Leadership Council (ELC) executives working with DEI team.”

“As a DEIB leader, it’s my job to create a framework and equip everyone to play their role. It only works if everyone in the organization embraces the change and plays their role in making it happen,” adds Sherrice Sledge-Thomas. “I am the DEIB visionary and implementer, and there must be ownership and accountability across all levels. DEIB should not be siloed. It should be engrained across the organization’s systems and leadership practices.”

The Change for Growth 3-Phase Approach to DEIB Sustainability

“Change management is a critical component for DEI to become sticky in an organization and really have the employees adopt and adapt to what you're trying to achieve.”

Here is what you can expect with Change 4 Growth supporting OCM within your DEIB initiative:

PHASE 1: ASSESS

Perform a 6 to 12-week assessment of your company’s current state, desired future state, and desired behaviors around your DEIB Initiatives.

STEP ONE: Define how, as a company, you currently are managing your DEIB/general change. What has worked, and what hasn't? We will speak/meet directly with key stakeholders for focus groups to determine progress made to date and what resources are in place for its success.

STEP TWO: DEIB Maturity Evaluation. Formulate a plan based upon the findings and align to the overall strategy and associated activities to support adoption. Define the objective and subjective metrics that will be used to determine the success of the initiative. Assess what behaviors need to exist? Do they exist, and how mature they are embedded into departments and organization?

PHASE 2: EXECUTE

STEP THREE: Engage with the people leaders across the enterprise to gain their alignment and advocacy of the DEIB initiative Educate them on their role to provide direct leadership influence with the teams they manage and provide them with tactical activities to perform throughout the program.

STEP FOUR: Execute a robust communication campaign that reaches all levels of the organization to build awareness of the program, its benefits, goals, and objectives. Engage a network of Change Agents to provide line-level support throughout the organization. This group will also provide a meaningful channel of two-way communication back to the project team and leadership. Periodically assess and measure the employee’s engagement and understanding of the initiative and identify opportunities to increase communication efforts.

STEP FIVE: Measure the impact of the DEIB initiative to determine the on-going sustainability program, as well as remediate where goals may not be met. Initiate long-term plans to sustain DEIB through new hire on-boarding, leadership development and alignment with overall company mission, values, and objectives.

STEP SIX: Ongoing measurement of Adoption. Confirming the journey to imbedded Behaviors in the organization and the delivery of the desired KPI’s from the overall changes.

About Change 4 Growth

We are experts in transformational change, specializing in solutions for people, process, and technology. Change 4 Growth helps design, develop, and implement the change at your organization’s core so it is built to last. We produce real, measurable results so you know you are setting up your organization for success. Change 4 Growth has delivered solutions that create meaningful, lasting improvements in your people, process, and technology.

We tailor solutions for your organization’s unique culture, working within your budget and constraints to maximize potential and deliver the highest quality (product) solution. We are a high-touch consultancy; we will be with you every step of the way providing personalized service. We’re passionate about serving our clients and it shows in everything we do.

“We serve our customers as trusted advisors and provide customized solutions based on years of experience and proven models. Striving to be the best, we lead with our values, we delight our customers, and we have fun!”

- Beth Thomas, C4G CEO

Meet Our Roundtable Thought Leaders

Iesha Berry is the chief diversity and engagement officer at DocuSign. She is focused on accelerating DocuSign’s DIBE strategy and continuing to evolve its impact and sustainability efforts. Iesha and her team are responsible for enhancing the employee experience at DocuSign, working to develop a more diverse and inclusive culture through supporting the impact of employee resource groups and overseeing inclusive talent development along with diverse pipeline sourcing and outreach. As a global HR professional, Iesha is a thought leader who has demonstrated success leading cross-divisional strategic talent acquisition initiatives.

Catherine Campbell, MBA, SPHR, is the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Baptist Health, South Florida. Cathy is a Human Resources Professional with over 15 years of experience in multi-industry, midsize and Fortune 500 companies. She has a proven ability to partner with business leaders in the alignment of HR and business strategies to solve organizational issues, increase employee performance and improve operating results. Cathy is well recognized for her ability to build coalitions and influence organizational outcomes.

Nancy J. Di Dia, PCC, is the chief diversity, inclusion, culture, & equity officer at Boehringer Ingelheim. Nancy's overall goal is to make a difference in the world and create a sense of belonging for all people. She works daily to ensure bias and exclusion do not exist in the workplace and society by creating, fostering, and modeling what it feels like to belong and work within a culture of inclusion and acceptance.

Andres Gonzalez, is the vice president, chief diversity officer at Froedtert Health & Medical College of Wisconsin. Andres is an executive with broad experience in non-profit and corporate management. He has direct experience with executive coaching, talent development, program development and financial management. Andres is a thought leader in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as executive coaching and management. He is known for designing, implementing, and evaluating culturally and linguistic competent programming.

Heon Hahm is director, talent development & diversity at RAND at Corporation. She is a results-oriented senior human resources leader whose expertise and breadth of experience encompasses the full talent life cycle from attraction, retention, and development of all levels of staff up to and including C-suite executives. Heon evaluates and measures results and progression based upon strategic workforce analytics, with strong priority upon driving diversity in the talent pipeline and succession planning. As a former attorney with a global and business-oriented mindset, Heon aligns and partners with senior leaders to ensure talent programs reflect and support critical business strategies at the department and organization level. She is known for designing, implementing, and leading programs related to the successful delivery of talent planning through a diversity lens, ranging from initiating diversity-driven demographic metrics, initiating, and instituting leadership development and coaching programs, implementing global mobility programs, and establishing diverse community-based employee resource groups.

Darlene Slaughter is the vice president, chief diversity, and engagement officer for the March of Dimes. Darlene is a visionary with a passion to remove barriers and provide equal opportunities for all. At the March of Dimes, Darlene is leading a culture of engagement, innovation, accountability, trust, diversity, and inclusion. Darlene is an experienced human resources practitioner and frequent speaker on diversity and inclusion (D&I) topics. She is responsible for creating an organization wide strategy for integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the March of Dimes. Darlene has a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit organization management industry. She is skilled in nonprofit organizations, career development, analytical skills, coaching, and diversity education.

Sherrice Sledge-Thomas is the vice president, diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce where she is focused on equipping Chamber members to take their DEIA practices to the next level. Sherrice is an innovative leader driven by achieving strategic goals with a keen focus on organizational effectiveness and equality for all. Sherrice is the author of two books, The Balance Finder and Hot Like Fire.

Meet Our DEIB Leadership Team

Beth Thomas, Chairwoman and CEO

As CEO of Change 4 Growth, best-selling author, and global motivational and keynote speaker on topics such as Leading Change, Culture Alignment/Powered by Happy and Women in Leadership, Beth is truly enjoying growing the organization she started in 2017. Beth built a consulting practice for another organization and invested 12 years perfecting the services offered before purchasing the company to establish Change 4 Growth.

Beth has more than 25 years of experience specializing in transformational business change and readiness, leadership, learning and development, culture shaping and employee engagement. Her book, Powered by Happy, and the accompanying workshop, has guided Beth’s efforts and services in helping organizations shape productive cultures and employee engagement.

Beth previously served as senior vice president at JP Morgan Chase where she led the retail organization’s learning and change management department across the country in support of their branch network. In addition, Beth served as the head of knowledge and service management for all Limited Brands, where she led organizational change, learning and service management activities.

Beth is a thought leader whose work has been praised all over the world. She has served as a trusted advisor to many Fortune 500 executives who wanted to make sustainable change. Beth’s work has received accolades and global recognition from some of the most respected media. She is a contributing author to four books: On Demand Learning (Darin Harley), Implementing eLearning (Jay Cross and Lance Dublin), Learning Rants, Raves and Reflections (Elliott Masie), and Lies About Learning (Larry Israelite). Connect with Beth at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beththomas/

Julie Silard Kantor, Vice President-Leadership, Culture, and DEIB

Julie is an ‘all-in’ roll-up your sleeves leader committed to building mentoring cultures to drive a happier more inclusive workforce. Whether in a board room with top executives or working with collaborative teams, Julie instills excitement, inspires commitment, and demonstrates an unwavering drive to succeed on behalf of her clients. Julie’s company Twomentor merged in August 2021 with the C4G family to dramatically expand quality service opportunities for clients with a focus on leadership, culture, employee engagement, and DEI offerings.

Kantor’s management consulting firm focused on turnkey corporate mentor and sponsorship solutions, built on her 24 years in workforce development and building movements. Julie has worked with clients and organizations such as Verizon Wireless, Anthem, Schnucks, The World Bank, Banco Sabadell, COSTCO, Marriott International, Cisco, AVIXA, SHRM, ASAE, Abbott/St. Jude’s, Entrepreneurs Organization, Hazelden/Betty Ford Foundation, NextEra Energy, Baptist Health and more.

Julie sits on the national board of ActiveMinds.org to reduce the stigma of mental health on college campuses, high schools, and in the workforce. She and her husband Marc coach families who have been impacted by the disease of addiction. She is passionate about family, entrepreneurship, karaoke singing, mentoring, and her 10-pound Havanese Naomi and COVID rescue pup Luci.

An Organizational Change Management Approach to a Sustainable DEI+B (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) Initiative