A Fireside Chat: The Commitment for DEIA in the Workplace, Post the Affirmative Action Decision
In-person session offerings are on a first-come, first-served basis. Seating is limited.
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This fireside chat will feature senior diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) leaders from the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal Government, who will discuss the current state of DEIA in the federal workforce, synthesize the findings of the most recent GAO report on DEIA, discuss the major accomplishments of the governmentwide strategy of DEIA and White House Executive Order 14035, as well as share weather proofing strategies for DEIA implementation. The panel will evaluate promising and best practices in DEIA. Specific topics will include a discussion about sustainability of the national DEIA strategy, how to talk about “equity” with everyone, the impact of the affirmative action supreme court decision on DEIA, and how to address political complications. The session will also include a Q&A with attendees.
If a speaker has provided session materials, please see below or visit https://presentations.shrm.org
All virtual sessions inherently run the risk of audio or visual issues due to factors out of our control. If any technical difficulties arise, we appreciate your patience and understanding as we work diligently to resolve it. All virtual sessions, unless marked as "LIVE ONLY" or "VIRTUAL LIVE ONLY", are recorded and will be available to view on demand until December 1, 2023.
Alaysia Hackett
Alaysia Black Hackett is the Chief Diversity and Equity Officer in the Office of the Secretary at the United States Department of Labor. Appointed in the summer of 2022, she leads and provides strategic insight for the Department’s internal and external initiatives for interagency diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs. She serves as the principal advisor and subject matter expert on promoting DEIA into systems that guide the labor market, diversifying the workforce, dismantling historically exclusive systems that perpetuate discrimination in the workplace and embedding equity in the labor field so that all people may feel seen, heard and included.
Prior to joining the Department of Labor, Chief Hackett provided executive-level diversity leadership in both the public and private sectors, and she dedicated her career to effectively building diverse and equitable infrastructures. She served as the inaugural Deputy Chief Diversity Officer, a cabinet level role, to Governor Ralph S. Northam in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In this historic position, she managed the overall operations of the Governor’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office. Most notably, she co-created the ONE Virginia plan, a DEI strategic plan for inclusive excellence across 100+ state agencies in Virginia, working with leaders to champion the most robust equity agenda in Virginia. Before her gubernatorial appointment, Chief Hackett served as the DEI consultant for the Virginia Department of Human Resource Management where she oversaw the reviewing and removal of bias policies and inequitable hiring practices and was an Equal Employment Opportunity investigator. Prior to her tenure in government, Chief Hackett spent 18 years in administration and diversity officer roles in higher education, including: University of North Carolina-Asheville (a state institution), Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College (a large community college), Virginia Union University (a historically black college/university), and Mars Hill University (a private institution), where she established the diversity office and advocated for inclusive excellence.
Chief Hackett received the 2020 Governor’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Outreach Award for leadership in prioritizing equity in the Commonwealth of Virginia’s COVID-19 pandemic response by helping improve access to historically marginalized communities. Those efforts led the multi-agency Unified Command response and recovery, which leveraged the Equity Leadership Taskforce to integrate equity into each decision made on behalf of the Commonwealth.
Hackett earned a Bachelor of Science in Sociology with a concentration in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Relations and has a master’s degree in Public Affairs with a concentration in Organizational Development from Western Carolina University. She received her Juris Doctor from Concord Law School.
Charles Barber
Dr. Charles Barber was appointed to the Senior Executive Service (SES) and assumed the duties as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, National Science Foundation in January 2023. In this role, he serves as the NSF’s senior advisor responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership and management for ongoing agency programs and new initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, or DEIA, in the NSF workplace and the STEM enterprise. Prior to his appointment as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dr. Barber served as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and was a primary author on the Navy’s Task Force One Navy report that led to the Operational Navy’s DE&I Implementation Strategy. Dr. Barber is a TEDx speaker and served as the feature speaker on DEI at the 2022 DAU TEDx conference.
Dr. Barber has led a broad range of diversity efforts, development of culture intelligence capabilities, strategy, organizational leadership, critical data analysis and business transformation initiatives that have provided world class human resource and transformational leadership support to a dynamic range of public and private sector clients to include military service members, civilians and their families. With more than two decades of experience in HR, Diversity & Inclusion, Business Transformation and Cultural Intelligence, Dr. Barber is a staunch advocate for efficiency, transformation and process improvement. He spearheaded development of the Army’s Soldier Record Brief (SRB) while supporting the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A) during one of the largest Army HR Transformation efforts in the modern era. At the Defense Logistics Agency, he led the development of a culture intelligence framework that integrated transformational leadership principles within the DLA enterprise. As Director of Business Transformation for the
Department of Defense Vetting Directorate, he was a key contributor to the US government’s security clearance and background investigation process improvement effort. He also previously served as the Chief Human Capital Officer for the District of Columbia Courts.
Dr. Barber holds a doctorate degree in Transformational Leadership from Bakke Graduate University, and other degrees in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from
Columbia Southern University and Excelsior College. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a previous guest lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executive Fellows Program for Political Science and Government. Dr. Barber is a U.S. Army veteran with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq. A native of Bald Knob, Arkansas, he also starred as a sprinter on the Ouachita Baptist University and All Army Track Teams and achieved a personal best of 9.98 seconds in the 100 Meter dash, and recently inducted into the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame (class of 2022).
Constance Mayer
Constance (Conny) Mayer is the U.S. State Department’s Acting Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer and serves as the Secretary of State’s principal advisor on how to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in the Department and at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. Conny leads a DEIA data working group for the White House-run Chief Diversity Officers’ Executive Council which coordinates DEIA efforts across the federal government as departments and agencies implement Executive Order 14035 on advancing DEIA in the Federal Workforce.
Dr. Janice Underwood
Janice Underwood, Ph.D. joins the Biden-Harris administration having most recently served as the inaugural Virginia Chief Diversity Officer in Governor Ralph Northam’s cabinet, leading the DEI agenda and the COVID-19 equity leadership task force. As a national expert in diversity leadership across multiple sectors, Dr. Underwood has worked for 20+ years to make structural inequity visible in government and education as a state official, teacher educator, a nationally certified special education teacher, academic researcher, higher education administrator, and diversity trainer. Most notably, she has been nationally recognized for her contribution to advancing equity initiatives at the intersection of government and politics, including launching the first statewide DEI strategy across 100+ state agencies in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Dr. Underwood has been appointed to the role of Executive Director of the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility at OPM, where her primary responsibility will be to lead the government-wide White House initiative on DEIA.
Janice is a graduate of Hampton University and Old Dominion University.