William Huston, AIF®, AIFA®

Inclusion Consultants

William Huston, AIF®, AIFA®

William Huston, AIF®, AIFA®

Inclusion Consultants

In today's world, diversity and inclusion have become more important than ever before. Many companies are beginning to realize that having a diverse workforce not only makes good business sense, but it's also the right thing to do.

Inclusion Consultants

However, creating a truly inclusive workplace can be challenging, which is why more and more companies are turning to inclusion consultants for help. This blog post explores what inclusion consultants are, what they do, and how they can help organizations create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for all employees.

Key Takeaways
  • Inclusion consultants help companies create an enabling professional environment for people from all backgrounds
  • Their work involves identifying the needs of various groups and individuals and promoting cultures that respond to these needs
  • Black, women and LGBTQ+ themes generally dominate their work
Disclaimer

The contents of this article are for educational purposes only. They are not intended to be a source of professional financial advice. You will find experts on financial planning and financial management here. More on disclaimers here.

Who is an Inclusion Consultant?

Inclusion Consultants in a Meeting

An inclusion consultant works with companies to help them come up with best practices that promote diversity and inclusivity in a particular team within their organization or the company in general. He or she usually starts by identifying the specific needs of the different people and departments in the workplace.

With these information and insights, they are in a good position to help develop and implement policies and practices that don’t discriminate against any group of people in order to create positive change and a good and healthy work environment for both staff and clients.

Leading Inclusion Consultants

Inclusions Consultant

Here are our leading professionals offering top notch services for inclusive consulting:

1. Dr. Nika White
Dr.Nika White

Dr. Nika is an award-winning management and leadership consultant with 22 years of experience when it comes to dealing with diversity, equity and inclusion matters. As a keynote speaker and published author, her focus is on helping companies and organizations overcome barriers related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

In her line of work, Dr. Nika has managed to help over 80 companies in their DEI efforts to create a healthy work environment for all people. Originally from Greenville, South Carolina, a town historically known for its discrimination, Dr. Nika together with a group of change-makers founded MLK Dream Weekend as Greenville is the last county in the US to officially recognize Martin Luther King - MLK Day as a holiday.

Over the years, she has gone ahead to become the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at the Greenville Chamber. She has written two books on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: The Intentional Inclusionist and Next Level Inclusionist: Transforming Your Work and Yourself for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Success. Through her consulting company, she continues to transform companies and organizations.

2. Wayne Sutton
Wayne Sutton

Wayne is the founder of Icon Project and the co-founder of Change Catalyst. The Icon project was founded with an aim of addressing mental health needs for Black and Brown men in tech. Change Catalyst was founded with the aim of encouraging more diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.

Wayne has been in the tech industry for over 14 years and he’s been recognized as one of Silicon Valley's 100 coolest people in tech, one of the 52 hottest new stars in Silicon Valley, one of the 46 Most Important African-Americans In Technology by Business Insider and one of the Top 100 most influential Black people on social media in 2014. Among the media outlets where Wayne has been featured include CNN, USA Today, BBC among others.

3. Deborah Levine

Deborah is the founder/ editor of the American Diversity Report. She’s also an award-winning author with 15 books under her belt, in addition to being named by Forbes Magazine as among its top 10 diversity and inclusion trailblazers.

With over 33 years of experience in the DEI space, she’s been able to create and design different resources that help companies and organizations build diverse teams and develop global leaders. She’s also the creator of the Matrix Model Management System, a tool that is used to measure diversity. Her work has been published in numerous publications including Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, the HuffPost and The Journal of Public Management & Social Policy.

4. Steven Matly

Steven Matly is the founder and CEO of SM Diversity, a staffing & recruiting firm based in Seattle that caters to the technology sector. The recruiting agency helps bridge the gap between companies and talent in order to help in the recruitment of more diverse employees. In 2017, Steven was selected by TEDx to give a talk on diversity and inclusion. In 2018, he was voted among the most influential leaders by Seattle Magazine. In line with his DEI efforts, Steven also created a diversity and inclusion Meetup, which currently has over 600 members.

5. Mary-Frances Winters
Mary-Frances Winters

Mary-Frances Winters is the founder and CEO of The Winters Group, a global organization that helps companies create systems and solutions that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.

Through her consulting company, she has managed to work with numerous organizations to help them come up with and implement DEI strategies that help to create a better work environment for all people. She's an author of six books and over the years she has received a number of distinctions such as, a feature in Forbes’ June 2016 publication, which honored some of the DC Metro area’s most powerful women.

In November 2019, she was named by Forbes as one of 10 trailblazers in diversity and inclusion. She's served as a torchbearer for the Olympics and was previously recognized as Athena Award winner from the Chamber of Commerce for her contributions to women and the community.

6. Lily Zheng

Lily Zheng is a DEI consultant who works with companies and firms to create and implement proper DEI practices that create impactful change within their work environment. Being a consultant, she has worked with start-ups, non-profit organizations and even fortune 500 companies. Among the topics that she tackles in her trainings include DEI, LQBTQ+ issues, effective leadership and also gender ambiguity.

Together with fellow author Alison Ash Fogarty, they have written the book Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace: Transgender and Gender-Diverse Discrimination. It talks about the experiences, challenges and discrimination that people who are gender diverse go through.

7. Dr. Shelton Goode
Dr. Shelton Goode

Dr. Shelton Goode is a HR professional with over 20 years of experience in D&I Talent Management, Leadership Development, Organizational Development and Executive Coaching. He is the CEO and President of Icarus Consulting, LLC., a consulting company that specializes in helping organizations create more inclusive organizational cultures.

Dr. Shelton was named among the top 10 D&I Trailblazers by Forbes and he also currently serves as the Chief Diversity Officer for the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources.

8. Anj Handa
Anj Handa

Anj Handa is a multilingual lobbyist with 20 years of experience in the sector of employment law. As the founder of Inspiring Women Changemakers (IWC), her mission as a changemaker is to lobby on social issues that hold women back in order to help them advance.

Her work has mostly been on diplomatic assignments in the field of skills policy and employment. In 2019, she was named by Forbes as one of "10 Diversity And Inclusion Trailblazers You Need To Get Familiar With". Anj also serves as a member of various boards and committees.

9. Uché Blackstock, M.D.

Dr. Uché Blackstock is a Havard-educated physician who after 10 years, left the academic medicine field to tackle bias and racism in the healthcare system. Inspired by her mother Dr. Dale Blackstock, a Black woman in medicine, who managed to navigate the medical world amidst all the bias and odds stacked against her, she founded her company Advancing Health Equity in 2019 with the goal of partnering with healthcare organizations to dismantle racism in healthcare and to close the gap in racial health inequities.

10. Dr. Kristen Liesch
Dr. Kristen Liesch

Dr. Kristen Liesch is the co-founder and co-CEO of Tidal Equality, a consulting firm that aims at creating more equality in the world through game-changing strategy, transformational projects and engaging conversations.

She's an educator and strategist with over 15 years of experience in designing transformative curricula, implementing equitable process changes, and capacity-building programs to support the design of more equitable organizations in Canada, the US, Europe and New Zealand. She also holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature.

Bay Street Capital Holdings

Bay Street Capital Holdings

Bay Street Capital Holdings is an independent investment advisory, wealth management, and financial planning firm headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. They manage portfolios with the goal of maintaining and increasing total assets and income with a high priority on managing total risk and volatility. Although many advisors may focus on maximizing returns, they place a higher priority on managing total risk and volatility.

Our founder, William Huston founded Bay Street after 13 years of supporting the United States' largest retirement plan ($650B) Thrift Savings Plan. He is recognized as Investopedia’s Top 100 Financial Advisors for 2021. In California, only two black-owned firms out of nineteen firms received this recognition.

In Scottsdale Arizona, Ekenna Anya-Gafu CFP, AAMS is recognized among the Best Financial Advisors for his responsiveness, friendliness, helpfulness, and detail. Bay Street was founded to advocate for diverse and emerging fund managers and entrepreneurs. In 2021, Bay Street was selected as a finalist out of over 900 firms across the US in the category of Asset Manager for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Sources

https://www.nikawhite.com

https://www.protocol.com/workplace/wayne-sutton-diversity-inclusion-tech

https://www.deborahlevine.com

https://www.smdiversity.com

https://www.wintersgroup.com

https://lilyzheng.co/

https://www.diversitywoman.com/dwm/dr-shelton-goode/

https://advancinghealthequity

https://www.tidalequality.com

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