Today’s DEI leaders are navigating a puzzle of heightened expectations and global challenges — legislative and political landscapes, improving employee resource groups, reporting DEI metrics and data, leadership engagement and accountability, to name a few. Each new challenge adds another piece to an already intricate picture.
But what if they didn’t have to solve it alone?
The heads of diversity, equity, and inclusion at 100+ of the world’s largest companies have joined the DEI Board, a home for unbiased, real-time benchmarking.
This private, vendor-free peer group offers year-round, expertly facilitated discussions and insights to help DEI leaders stay ahead, adapt swiftly, and make informed decisions. Designed for busy professionals, it ensures every interaction is valuable.
But how do we actually solve the problems keeping DEI leaders up at night? Let’s walk through how we support senior leaders every day.
1. Personalized, Full-time Support to Solve Your Biggest Challenges
Our Membership Directors act as expert advisors offering personalized, full-time support, and they don’t stop until members get the answers they need.
As Membership Director for the DEI Board, Jordona Smith assesses members’ strategies, priorities, and roadblocks and identifies areas where the community can help.
She knows the exact challenges members are facing and how to facilitate the one-on-one connections and nowhere-else conversations to solve them.
All members need to do is ask a question, and Membership Directors take care of the rest.
2. We Turn Your DEI Questions into Immediate Value
The only thing certain in leading DEI is uncertainty. It can often feel like piecing together a puzzle without having the full picture in front of you.
When you’re constantly facing new hurdles and challenges, you need answers in hours or days, not weeks. That’s why the DEI Board offers fast, efficient, and unlimited service.
Plus, members set the agenda. Unlike conferences or webinars, where the conversations are designed to increase attendance, our calls and discussion topics are hand-curated by Membership Directors on demand based on members’ most pressing needs.
3. How Members Use Unique Access to Expert Knowledge for a Competitive Edge
The resources that are available through the DEI Board can’t be found anywhere else. But what does personalized support look like for members at a practical level?
The real-world solutions come from real conversations with peers who truly understand the complexities.
Recently, a Director of DEI Employee Initiatives at a large beverage company reached out through the community’s private question and answer forum to benchmark with members on DEI within talent acquisition and streamlining hiring processes to be more inclusive.
Quickly, Board Members shared practical insights, including different processes, strategies, and outcomes for inclusive hiring practices. One member even shared their specific steps for how they prep ERG leaders for these interviews. And the conversation didn’t end there.
DEI Board members had a lot to say about improving DEI initiatives within talent acquisition, so we scheduled several confidential, vendor-free conversations to dig deeper into the topic.
Over the following weeks, members came together in several facilitated calls to discuss how to:
- Ensure career pathways for women in manufacturing roles
- Diversify the talent pool across large enterprises
- Recruit and retain DEI talent
- Assess progress beyond race and gender metrics
They shared feedback on methods for developing and instituting more inclusive hiring practices, recruiting from HBCUs and Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and creating alignment with the necessary partners to ensure that the DEI and talent functions work in tandem.
Members agreed that it’s critical for all levels of your organization to ensure DEI remains a top priority in talent acquisition and succession planning processes. And while you can never eliminate all the challenges with recruiting and retaining diverse talent, you can gather with your peers to improve your efforts.
4. Answers to Your Questions Come from Leaders at Some of the World’s Biggest Companies
Not all peer groups set strict membership criteria. In fact, many have little or no restrictions around seniority or company size.
Only heads of diversity, equity, and inclusion at large enterprises and their senior team members are allowed in the DEI Board. We don’t allow the conversations to be diluted by insights that aren’t relevant to your role.
Above all, we never allow vendors, agencies, or consultants to participate (Though, we talk about them all the time). It’s paramount to keeping the community unbiased and candid.
Every answer in our community comes from people like you — senior leaders at companies like yours, with problems like yours.
DEI Board Founding Members include: Applied Materials, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Edgewell, Fidelity Investments, GE Vernova, LCBO, Mars, Moody’s, Ralph Lauren, Travelers, and more.
5. A Chance to Connect with Your Peers In-Person at our Board Meetings
On top of the year-round support members have access to, we also bring senior leaders together in person at our Board Meetings.
We know there are a lot of conferences and events to choose from, but our Board Meetings stand out — people have even postponed honeymoons to be there!
It’s a unique opportunity to connect with other senior decision-makers leading strategies like yours. Just the community, vendors are never allowed to join, and the conversations are always off-the-record.
At the 2024 DEI Board Meeting, members benchmarked how to leverage DEI incubators for values-driven systems and practices, optimize DEI learning and development, and more.
Ready to complete your DEI puzzle?
The DEI Board is the only confidential space where senior leaders come together to tackle the toughest challenges in real-time.
Our on-demand service, peer-driven insights, and personalized support, set us apart from any other resource available.
Don’t navigate these complexities alone. Join a community of your peers and get the answers and connections you need to stay ahead.
