DiversityInc - January/February 2008

THE EXPERTS

LINDA AKUTAGAWA is a national speaker on topics including leadership, Asian/ Pacific–American issues, employee-network groups, diversity, networking and relationship building. She is the vice president of Resource & Business Development for Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP).

tion on Corporate Responsibility; vice chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda; and vice chair of the SER National Board of Directors. Previously, she was national executive director of Federally Employed Women Inc., executive director of the National Alliance of Veteran and Family Services Organizations

and an expert consultant with the Pentagon.

ployment Practices Division of the legal department. Wal-Mart is No. 41 on The 2007 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® list.

DR. ELIZA BYARD is
serving as the interim
executive director
for GLSEN, the Gay,
Lesbian and Straight
Education Network, until Feb.
3. She has been GLSEN’s deputy
executive director since 2001,
overseeing programmative work in
public advocacy, student organizing,
education, communications, and
chapter organizing. She previously
was development director for the
Center for Investigative Reporting.
She has a Ph.D. in U.S. history from
Columbia University.

DR. dt ogilvie’s research
includes executive
leadership strategies of
multicultural women;
women in the executive
suite; strategic decision making; ef-
fective communications for women;
and use of creativity to enhance
business and battlefield decision
making. An associate professor of
management and global business at
Rutgers University in Newark, N.J.,
she has a Ph.D. from the University
of Texas-Austin.

ROBERT L. “BOB” REED has spent more than 20 years managing human resources for major corporations in the healthcare, high-tech, manufacturing, wireless communications and consumer-goods industries. After the recent merger of AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular Wireless, he became vice president for diversity and inclusion for the new AT&T, No. 3 on the Top 50 list. He serves as a workplace mentor for women and people of color.

STEPHANIE STREET
is a former U.S. Army
communications-
electronics officer,
having served for more
than 12 years in active military
service as a platoon leader, company
commander and staff officer. She is
now director, Diversity &
Inclusions Practices, Global Diver-
sity & Community Affairs Office,
Eastman Kodak Co., No. 35 on the
Top 50. She has been instrumental
at Kodak in the development of
recruitment strategies geared at tra-
ditionally underrepresented groups.

L. MECOLE (COLE) BROWN has extensive employment-law and human-resources experience. As vice president of Employment & Diversity Practices for Wal-Mart Stores, she is responsible for Wal-Mart’s diversity development and education strategy, diversity-goals program, contractor compliance and a strategic HR best-practices initiative. Her team leads company-wide diversity training, diversity-leadership development, mentoring programs, diversity goal-attainment tracking and work-force utilization analysis. She previously served as Wal-Mart’s associate general counsel in the Em-

STEPHEN YOUNG is the founder and senior partner of Insight Education Systems, a management-consult-ing firm specializing in leadership and organizational-development services, especially discussions of micro-inequities. The former senior vice president and chief diversity

officer at JPMorgan Chase, No. 9 on the Top 50 list, Young also was vice president for diversity with Merrill Lynch’s Private Client Division.

ALMA MORALES
RIOJAS is a national
leader in recruitment
and promotion of wom-
en and Latinos. For the
past seven years, she has led MANA,
A National Latina Organization, as
its president and CEO. Its mission is
to empower Latinas through leader-
ship development, community ser-
vice and advocacy. She also is chair
of the board of the Hispanic Associa-