This chapter is dedicated to a short description of the interviewees. Firstly, an overview of the whole group is provided, and then, each of the interviewees is briefly introduced.
2.3.1 Interviewees overview
Interviews were conducted with twenty D&I coaches and professionals in total. Out of them, four interviewees are based in the United States of America, two in Australia, and the remaining fourteen in different countries around Europe, including the UK, Northern Europe, as well as Middle and Eastern Europe. In terms of gender, the vast majority of interviewees are women, forming 18 of the total 20 interviewees.
2.3.2 Interviewees introduction
In the following section, each of the interviewees will be briefly introduced. However, to keep the responses anonymous, their names will be pseudonymised and the companies they work for and other details that could lead to their identification will not be mentioned. Therefore, this section serves the purpose of providing a basic overview of the respondent sample the interviews were conducted with.
The following table presents a basic introduction of each of the interviewees. The table includes the pseudonym of the interviewee, their position, description of their work, their accreditation status, the number of people coached, and the country where they are located. Please note that cells with “Not relevant” for number of people coached indicate that that person is either at the beginning of their journey or coaching plays only very small role in their responsibilties.
Pseudonym
Juliet works mostly on “two portfolios – disability and LGBTQ, but also gender and cultural diversity, and then broader inclusive capability.” She works as an internal coach and delivers leadership and organisational coaching to people across the business.
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and leadership coaching
Coach, as she says, “D&I is woven into everything that she does.” Previously, she has worked in HR positions in different European countries for 12 years and spent another 12 years in empowerment and possibility of liberating themselves, so that they can years, after spending 25 years in HR and organisation development, always focusing on leadership and inclusion, even if indirectly. Currently, she focuses on “whole organisation policies, practices, hiring, promotions, career development, opportunities, mentoring, coaching, looking at all of that through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Peter started focusing on D&I in his role 6 years ago and has previous experience as an HR director from another multinational company. Apart from that, he has been “working in business strategy development roles for decades.”
Trisha has had her coaching business for over 4 years and now she has started focusing directly on D&I coaching, to which she got through D&I facilitation work. She sees “D&I coaching as an opportunity to help people unravel some of their unconscious biases and do some deep work without telling them what to think.”
Yes 80 UK
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Caroline Owner of D&I consulting business
Caroline's business focuses “on working with organisations to increase the diversity of their workforce, and also to create environments where everybody can thrive and be at their best.” The emphasis is put specifically on inclusion. Besides, she runs trainings on inclusive leadership, LGBTI, awareness, gender equity and unconscious bias.
Mindy has been in her position for over 6 years. She states that her role “does not only allow her to educate people on the D&I topic, but also create a culture according to that.” Mindy also teaches and inclusion. Specifically, she works with companies to ensure they “build diversity and inclusion on the right grounds.” Part of her role is also coaching, as well as mentoring focused on the support of female entrepreneurs.
Besides leading her own organisation, she also delivers personal development small” around the topic of D&I. She has been in the field for around 20 years and has both theoretical and practical experience, with extensive focus and expertise in gender. inclusion is a topic connected to HR in general” and is reflected both in internal and external branding.
No 120 Poland
49 and also has experience with D&I from the academic environment. She sees her role a way to “make sure that the company has diverse and inclusive culture, but beyond that, that it provides inclusive services or products to diverse her own company two years ago, stating that no matter what she did, she “always liked the people side of the business.”
She focuses on coaching and moderating events, where she is passionate about “bringing in other voices onto platform that they might not have had access to.” months, after her extensive experience in marketing and commercial roles.
Currently, she focuses mostly on how to roll out D&I implementation roadmap in her company, which is a “first ever roll dedicated to diversity and inclusion” in that particular organisation.
Matthew has been in roles connected to HR for 7 years. In his current role, he is US-based consulting business, which she also founded. She has experience with coaching many international clients around the whole world. In terms of diversity, she is interested in “all the different ways we're diverse, how we
Yes 100 USA
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think differently, how we problem solve differently, how we communicate differently, and how all of us truly believe that our way is the right way.”
Belinda Owner of a
Belinda has been working with the D&I topic for almost the last 20 years. She academia did not allow to do that.”
No 15 Finland involved in implementing the D&I strategy.” Her responsibility was, besides other things to provide kick off workshops about D&I to Executive Board members and team leaders.
Paula has spent over 2 years in different roles in human resources, particularly in charge of a project of how to “spread diversity and inclusion throughout the organisation.” She then further specialised in the inclusion of partially work able people.
development, and financial services, throughout which she always used coaching as a part of her role,
“interested in how people learn and how we can identify and develop talent in diverse and inclusive way.” Besides, she is a holder of multiple psychological qualifications.
Yes 200 UK/USA
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