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DIVERSIFY NORDICS SUMMIT

OSLO

26 • 08 • 2022

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Amplifying Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Nordics.

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The Diversify Nordic Summit is the first-ever conference on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging that brings together stakeholders from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

About Us
The Diversify Nordic Summit (DNS) on diversity and inclusion is the first of its kind conference in the Nordics that centers diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Now more than ever, there’s a need to:
  1. create inclusive and human-centric hybrid workplace environments to recruit and build productive and efficient teams. 
  2. ensure a collective Nordic society that is inclusive of all its inhabitants across social systems and structures.
The DNS is a meeting place for practitioners in the Nordics to share their work and discuss themes across diversity parameters including but not limited to gender, ethnicity, religion, neurodiversity, race, sexual orientation, identity, disability, age and other topics relevant to the priorities that intersect with the workplace and society at large. Engage in this full-day event that addresses current challenges in the Nordics, and gain insight into practical, impactful and measurable solutions.

Join us to exchange ideas, explore solutions to DEIB related challenges in the workplace and society. Learn actionable best practices to implement today.

Why attend the summit?

Join the first-ever Nordic-wide DEIB conference that gathers practitioners, leaders and companies to:

Get Targeted Insights

  • Attract and retain visibly diverse talents
  • Gain and share innovative ideas, insights & best practices
  • Improve your employer brand
  • Understand your customer better
  • Focus on the issues & solutions
  • Strategies to navigate workplace culture

Build Network

  • Learn & network with people in your field
  • Meet thought-leaders & industry experts
  • Make new connections & grow your network
  • Collaborate with industry leaders, DEIB practitioners & enthusiasts
  • Unlock diverse viewpoints
  • Decrease your diverse talent shortage

Be Inspired

  • Be inspired by best practices you can implement today
  • Springboard cultural & sustainable change at your workplace
  • Make better decisions & drive high performing teams
  • Expose yourself to bold ideas & exciting projects
  • Break out of your comfort zone
  • Learn something new
Reserve Your Place

Who Should Attend

C-Level Executives including but not limited to:

  • Chief Executive Officers
  • Chief Marketing Officers
  • Chief Diversity Officers
  • Chief Financial Officers
  • Chief Operating Officers
  • Chief Sustainability Officers

Vice Presidents and Directors of:

  • Sustainability
  • Human Resources
  • People & Talent Management
  • Operations
  • Sales & Partnerships

Professionals with responsibility for:

  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Employee Relations & Engagement
  • Global Business, Ethics & Compliance
  • Learning and Development
  • Organization Culture
  • Talent Acquisition

DEIB practitioners, consultants, service providers & enthusiasts

All-level employees, job-seekers, students and individuals with an interest in DEIB

Policy makers, politicians, media personnel, journalists, writers, civil society, cross-sectoral NGOs

Share your experiences.
Broaden your network.
Expand your knowledge.
Book Your Place Now

Agenda

The State of Diversity & Inclusion in the Nordics 2022

Join us for a full day of insights within the following six thematic areas.

Workforce Diversity + Recruitment

Create and sustain a diverse, inclusive, and engaged workforce at all levels.

  • Inclusive Recruitment and Development
  • Onboarding and Retention
  • Talent Management
  • Relationship building

Organisational Culture + Strategy

Ensure equal and Equitable opportunity within the workplace.

  • The Legal Case for DEIB & Compliance
  • Non-discrimination in the Workplace
  • Access to Equitable Opportunities + Fair Pay
  • Multi-generational and Intersectional Workforce

Inclusion, Equity, Belonging & Wellbeing

Cultivate an inclusive workplace where unique talents, skills, and perspectives are valued and leveraged.

  • Establishing and Maintaining Psychological Safety
  • Mentorship
  • Active Allyship
  • Employee Resource Groups (ERG)

Learning + Development

Develop a collective understanding of DEIB principles across the organization and society to set a foundation for all interactions and initiatives.

  • Foundational Skill Development
  • Inclusive Leadership Training
  • Education, Awareness and Skill Building

Implementation, Measurement & Transparency

What gets measured gets done. Regular measurement and reporting keeps us focused and allows us to make informed decisions to improve results.

  • Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
  • Using Data to Drive Growth
  • Tools for Measurement, Implementation and Tracking

Technology, Innovation & Investments

Key areas for inclusion and growth. The business case for DEIB boasts increased creativity, innovation and productivity. Join us as we explore the nuances and the structures needed to ensure an inclusive, equitable and profitable engagement.

  • The relationship between technology, innovation, investments and inclusion
  • The intersection of AI Ethics, Technology, Gender Equity and Inclusion

Panels

  • Attracting and retaining diverse talent: Best Practices to lead an inclusive organization.
  • Building Productive Teams: The business and legal case.
  • The burden of leadership in DEIB: Are leaders supported enough? Pulling the plug on the things we don’t talk about.
  • Designing and Integrating a Sustainable DEI policy: Perspectives from intersectoral organizations.
  • Diversity and Inclusion in the Tech/Maritime industry is possible. Here’s how. | Closing the gap in the modern industry.
  • Why unconscious bias training doesn't work and what we can do about it.
  • Is everyone in the room? Intersectionality, equity and allyship.
  • What gets Measured gets done: Tools for accountability for an inclusive workplace.
  • Beyond Binary Gender: Intersectional Gender Equality and Equity.
  • AI, Data and sustainability. What does inclusion have to do with it?
  • Smarter Investments: A diversity framework to drive innovation. Fireside chat: Nordic Denial.

Keynote

  • “Why diversity and inclusion is critical for your brand - and your business”
  • DIVERSITY CAPITALISM – performance enhancing diversity in organizations.
  • Active Allyship: The Essential Key to Inclusion

Workshop

  • Strategies to Inclusively Recruit, Onboard and Retain Diverse Talents.
  • Practice what you preach: Avoiding the reputational and business risk of performative DEIB and unconscious bias.

Fireside chat

  • Nordic Denial: Unpacking identity, equity and inclusion in the Nordics.
Register Here

The cross-cutting themes

The cross-cutting themes: Power, Privilege and Allyship; Unconscious Bias; Gender Equality; Disability Inclusion; Anti-racism & Intersectionality; Equality VS Equity; Racial Equity; DEI Best Practices; Inclusive Leadership; The Future of Work through Human-centric and hybrid design; Cross-cultural Communication and Competence; Neurodiversity.
The cross-cutting themes: Power, Privilege and Allyship; Unconscious Bias; Gender Equality; Disability Inclusion; Anti-racism & Intersectionality; Equality VS Equity; Racial Equity; DEI Best Practices; Inclusive Leadership; The Future of Work through Human-centric and hybrid design; Cross-cultural Communication and Competence; Neurodiversity.

Country-Specific Partners

Hülya Kytö Crop

Hülya Kytö (She/Her)

Founder of DaisyLadies

Hülya Kytö was born in Istanbul, Turkey, but moved to Finland in 1971. Since then she’s been working with people at grassroot level and especially with women from different countries. In 1974 people from Chile came as refugees to Finland and she started her life’s work. In 2000 she founded DaisyLadies association, which is Finland’s first association for women of immigrant background. The main goal of this association is to improve the position of women who have moved to Finland and to increase their participation in Finnish society. Even now at 75 years old she’s still working actively with women from different backgrounds to help them make their voices heard. She was given the title of Goodwill Ambassador by the Ministry of Justice and has been awarded several times for her good work.

Karl Yves Vallin (He/Him)

Managing Director | Co-Founder at LuFu AB

Karl Yves Vallin is the current Managing Director of RFSL Utbildning AB, a leading company owned by RFSL that focuses on providing education and consulting services with the aim to improve the quality of the working environment by promoting diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging.

As a professional, Yves has more than 10 years of leading and executive roles in various industries, ranging from non-profit organizations and the corporate sector to consulting firms both in Asia and Europe. He is also a human rights activist and researcher with a focus on minority populations and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Kamilla Sultanova (She/Her)

Keynote Speaker | Diversity and Inclusion Expert | Mentor

Kamilla is a bridge-builder, public speaker and diversity and inclusion expert, mother, and mentor based in Helsinki, Finland.

Previously Kamilla has held a successful career in corporate sales in Scandinavian shipping companies including Maersk Line, where she combined her advocacy roles in the European women’s lobby and local Danish and Finnish NGO to support access to the job market for immigrants and international talents. Combining her business and non-profit expertise from Global Dignity NGO, Kamilla speaks to and trains executives, students and educators, and people of color to less diverse groups on the benefits of diverse teams in organizational innovation and growth for small and large, public and private employers. During the last 3 years, she has helped universities, municipalities and employers build awareness and skillset on how to create inclusive organizational cultures and inclusive spaces in their own communities, from Helsinki to Vaasa to Turku. As for international students, immigrants, and talents, she has empowered countless talents to find better ways to integrate into Finland, find their first internships, land their first full-time employment and build strong professional networks.

Kamilla is an alumna of several networks including Finnish Sitra fund’s Sitralab community,  “40 under 40” European Young Leaders, GMF Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders, Future Leaders Exchange, and Finnish Innovation Fund’s SitraLab. In 2019 has been invited to join Barack Obama and 300 other emerging leaders at the Townhall Europe to discuss the future of civic engagement and inclusive leadership.

Kamilla was born in Karshi, Uzbekistan. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Corporate Communication from Aarhus University in Denmark.

Olav Haraldseid (He/Him)

General Manager at Olav Haraldseid AS

Olav has a background as HR executive in large Norwegian groups such as Equinor ASA, NorgesGruppen ASA, Circle K, and Apotek1.

He is a prominent spokesman for the HR community in Norway and has a major in sports psychology as an educational background. He has also been the national team coach in table tennis.

Olav is one of the country’s foremost experts on change management and how to build a strong performance culture. He has also won HR Norway’s competence award for his work of professionalizing the HR function, and won the Norwegian Advertisers’ Association’s award as Norway’s best speaker.

Over the last years Olav has focused a lot on performance enhancing diversity. He is the author of the book; Mangfoldskapitalisme (diversity capitalism) where he gives leaders vice advice for how to capitalize on diversity.

Leila Rezzouk (She/Her)

Founder

Leïla is a brilliant and unapologetic champion for measures across societal structures that have inclusion and integration in focus. A nurse by training, she has broad experience from multicultural work with children and adults through various positions: Founder and General Manager of Papillon, Co-founder of Support not Protect & Public speaker. She moved to Norway and Bergen 14 years ago, and is of French-Moroccan descent.

She considers her cross-cultural background and immigrant status as an important resource as it has helped strengthen her identity and genuine belief in each human being and their unique resources. Leila is positive, solution-oriented and a relationship builder. She enjoys creating results with others, while not being afraid to take responsibility.

Leila is involved in a number of organizations and committees with the focus on immigrants and minority groups. Among other things, she is a member of the resource group for diversity and inclusion in the Bergen Business Council and was jury member for the Diversity Award. She wants to promote her commitment through her work in Papillon which is based on basic values: Love, Empowerment, Equity and Self-Determination.

Jasmin Assulin (She/Her)

CEO & Co-founder

Jasmin Assulin is the CEO & Co-founder of deidei, a Helsinki-based agency that helps organizations on their diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) & inclusive communications journeys. Jasmin is a DEI, racial equity & communications specialist who has worked with various organizations on a wide range of themes regarding DEI & communications. Her much-praised strength is combining her extensive DEI expertise in the intersection of society and business.

Roshanak Fatahian (She/Her)

Head of Digital Operations and Diversity & Inclusion Director

Roshanak Fatahian is co-founder of All of Us and Diversity & Inclusion Director at NORD DDB. She has worked with brands such as SAS, Klarna, Willys, SVT, and the Swedish Armed Forces. Roshanak has been nominated as one of the most influential PR people in Sweden 2022, the role model of the future in 2018, and the Role model of the year 2021. She is a board member at KOMM, on the Inclusion board at Berghs School of Communication, and on the board of the Content development program at Hyper Island.

Plamena Cherneva

Founder, Nordic Women in Tech Awards

Plamena  is an IT consultant, passionate entrepreneur and relentless advocate in making the Tech industry more attractive and welcoming to women and other minority groups in Tech.

A mentor, startup advisor and a motivational speaker.

She started her first company at the age of 15 and has 2 startups behind her back.

Shocked by being the only female in her Computer Science program at university, and all the challenges she went through building a career in Tech, she started WonderCoders NGO, to support and inspire women and minority groups in taking their first steps into the Tech world.

She is the founder of Nordic Women in Tech Awards and together with the European Commission she is a Co-organizer of European Female Founder Forum.

Jenifer Clausell Tormos (She/Her)

Founder & CEO

Jenifer Clausell-Tormos holds a Ph.D. in Technology Development. She held positions both at universities and in the industry as a scientific researcher. In her career, she first leveraged tech to accelerate the process of finding new medicines. After 10 years, her drive for gender balance and diversity brought her to use her tech expertise to close the gender and diversity gap by founding Develop Diverse. For 4 years+, Jenifer has been a researcher, speaker, and trainer in the field of Diversity & Inclusion.

Sumeet Singh Patpatia (He/Him)

Global Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

Sumeet Singh Patpatia is Schibsted´s first Global Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging. He has a Master of Science in Business and a Major in Economics from the Norwegian School of Business (BI) and broad experience in multinational companies, working with innovation and transformation. In addition, he has a long experience building diversity in society. He has established and led the organization Young Sikhs and the annual event “The Norwegian Turban Day”. He sits on the board of Impact Norway, is a member of the council for religious and life stance communities in Norway, and is a deputy member of the Council for Multicultural Minorities in Oslo, appointed by the Oslo City Council.

Sarah M Przedpelska (She/Her)

Educator and Collaborator | Founder

Sarah M Przedpelska is an educator and former researcher, who likes feelings, people and justice, and has learnt as much, if not more, outside of academia, as within it. Through her research in Canada and Norway she’s worked and published on migrant belonging, transferable skills and mentoring.

Currently, she is the Program Director at Catalysts Norway, an organization that facilitates a 6-month mentorship program for newly arrived immigrant youths in Norway.

Astrid Sundberg (She/Her)

Director of Diversity & Inclusion

Astrid Sundberg is Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Oda, Norway’s leading online grocery retailer. She has 2 decades of experience in director-level leadership roles within the people and talent arena. Astrid is a pioneer of the employee experience as well as passionate about advocating for women in the workplace with a background in the start-up and scale-up climate.

Astrid is a positive advocate of workplace diversity for understanding, accepting, and valuing differences between people as well as an ally for gender equality. She’s a regular speaker and contributor at conferences and summits across The Nordics, The UK, and other parts of Europe.

Chi Lee (They/Them)

Resident Carpenter

Chi is a practicing artist with over two decades of design/build experience, working with global retail companies such as Tiffany & Co., Ralph Lauren, Reed Krakoff, Tommy Hilfiger, and others. They are currently the resident carpenter of the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, focused on curating more accessible and inclusive experiences with art and culture through the built environment. Presently, Chi is completing their Master’s Degree in Museum Studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Charlotte Jónsdóttir Biering (She/Her)

Global Diversity and Inclusion Specialist

Charlotte Biering is Marel’s first D&I Specialist, based in Iceland but operating across 30+ countries. She brings a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach to her work, drawing from her experiences working across multiple industries and cultures. She spent several years working in international development, disaster response, gender equality and social justice, for organizations such as the Red Cross Climate Center, ActionAid and UN Global Compact, before moving into management consultancy, supporting energy companies in improving their societal and environmental impact.

In 2015, she made D&I the sole focus of her career, first working within male-dominated corporate finance and subsequently co-leading EY’s Women. Fast forward platform.

She is working to develop a culture of inclusion at Marel through education and initiatives; by applying a D&I lens to policies, processes and projects and equipping employees with the tools to be more inclusive.

Lawrence Akpore (He/Him)

Business Excellence Lead (Director) – Global Engineering

Lawrence Akpore is a Nigerian American citizen. His background is in Chemical, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering. He holds multiple academic degrees including a Bsc., MSc. and an MBA. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Organizational Management at Harvard University (class of 2022). He also holds various certifications including Lean Train the Trainer and 6 Sigma Greenbelt/Blackbelt. Lawrence has held various management and leadership positions at companies such as General Electric, 3M, and Georg Fischer.

Currently, he is the Director of Business Excellence at Takeda. Takeda is a leading science-driven biopharmaceutical corporation with headquarters in Japan and the U.S. Lawrence enjoys an active lifestyle. Lawrence is passionate about engineering, efficient business processes, and unlocking the cross-functional benefits of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We are excited to have Lawrence as a panelist and look forward to learning how he intentionally creates space for diversity and inclusion at Takeda.

Heidi Pech (She/Her)

Head of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)

Heidi Pech works as Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Futurice to make a positive impact in the company but also in the tech sector and society at large. She believes that she has found her true professional calling in this role after dipping her toes in various areas of HR over the last 15 years. In addition to her expertise in diversity & inclusion, she has a solid background in employer branding, talent acquisition, and learning & development from the IT consulting sector, and her HR experience covers also pharmaceutical, banking, and not-for-profit sectors both in Finland as well as abroad. She has a degree in broadcast journalism from the UK.

Aiko Yamashita (She/Her)

Principal Data Scientist and Leader of the ESG Data Task Force at Group Risk Management

Aiko works as a Principal Data Scientist at the Center of Excellence in Advanced Analytics, at DNB. She has a background in Informatics with a Ph.D. in Experimental Software Engineering, and +10 years of experience in Data Analytics for logistics, retail, and finance industries. 

In addition to being a Data Scientist at DNB, Aiko is an Adjunct Professor at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, where she has taught courses in Data Analytics and has supervised students. Aiko is passionate about how innovation and technology can be better aligned to tackle current societal and environmental challenges, and how to develop technology in an ethical, humane, and just way.

Norbert Stuger (He/Him)

Global Head of Talent Diversity and Inclusion

Norbert Stuger is the Head of Talent, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at The Economist. He has been working within Human Resources for over 20 years. He has experiences in many fields including film, retail and fashion, and the media. Within HR, Norbert has experience particularly with talent acquisition, HR Consulting and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Norbert is passionate about equipping leaders and management level with the skills they need to create spaces which are inclusive, while providing ways to retain diverse talent so that in the long run, the benefits are seen in sustainable business development and growth, but also for the individual’s wellbeing and personal and professional development.

Norbert wears many hats. In addition to his official role, he is currently building 2 fashion brands. Norbert has a degree in Fine arts and animation and is also a painter and sculptor. To mix it up even more, he volunteers as a soccer coach, where he holds level 1 certification.

Chisom Udeze (She/Her)

Economist | Founder of Diversify and HerSpace

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Phaedria Marie St. Hilaire (She/Her)

Founder & President

Phaedria is a Dominican-born Science Business Leader with over 20 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industries. She has a proven track record of inspiring and driving cross-functional, multicultural teams to deliver results in her leadership positions at global companies like Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, and non-profit organizations, ProWoc.

In addition to a Ph.D. in Chemistry, Phaedria holds a degree in Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School and is a skilled project manager with a cLEAN 3 Star/6 Sigma Black belt certification. She is also certified to serve on Start-up Boards from Niels Brock Business School and Executive Coaching from Henley Business School. Phaedria has over 45 publications and patent applications in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Phaedria is passionate about diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and changing the gender and race narrative. She believes in the empowerment of self and others, continuous learning, self-reflection, and reinvention and is a Mentor and Executive Coach. She enjoys pushing mental and physical boundaries and being out of her comfort zone.

Ingibjörg Lilja Þórmundsdóttir (She/Her)

Head Of Human Resources

Ingibjörg Lilja Þórmundsdóttir is CHRO of Rafal, an Icelandic service company for electronic manufacturing. Ingibjörg has extensive experience in human resources in STEM companies, primarily as an agile leadership and agile HR coach. Within Rafal and Verkfræðistofan Afl og Orka, Ingibjörg is a lecturer in company culture, psychological safety, motivation, and values. Ingibjörg is “a very passionate people geek”, and it is her passion to empower people, teams, and organizations to become stronger, faster, and more successful in a sustainable way. She does this by cultivating a context and culture for people to learn and grow. It is Ingibjörg’s aim to transform Iceland’s electric industry by opening it to women and young girls and creating workplaces where they have the opportunity to thrive.

Clara Bodin (She/Her)

Global Lead for Diversity & Inclusion

Clara Bodin is Global Lead for Diversity & Inclusion at Telia Company, the biggest telco in Nordics and Baltics, 21 000 employees strong, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Her mission and passion is to make Telia Company a true equal opportunity employer. In 2020, Telia Company was awarded the best LGBTQI+-friendly employer designation. Also, Telia Company is proud to have five public commitments to employee diversity and inclusion as a part of the company’s overall sustainability targets since 2021.

Clara has a background working in Ukraine, Eurasia and Russia in various HR and business roles for Swedish companies. Clara was awarded “Top Swede Abroad” in 2011 by Sweden´s leading Business Journal when she at the time ran her own successful HR consultancy company in Kyiv, Ukraine. Prior to being Global Lead for D&I, she was the HRBP of Telia Eurasia and before that, HR Director for Oriflame Cosmetics, Former Soviet Union region. Clara has a Master in Economics and Eastern European Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden and is fluent in Russian and speaks Ukrainian too. Clara is a board member of Diversity Charter Sweden.

Zuzana Warden (She/Her)

Project Manager

Zuzana has a professional background in social work, international development cooperation and project management. Her experience from working with marginalized groups stretches across a number of countries. Besides volunteering with various groups such as homeless people and marginalized members of the Roma minority, she coordinated inclusive empowerment projects aiming to support women and persons with disabilities from rural and slum areas via training in entrepreneurship and vocational skills. As a Project and Research Manager at Diversify she continues to broaden her expertise within organizational work and operation, with high focus on monitoring and evaluation and project management.

Cecilie Heuch (She/Her)

EVP and Chief People & Sustainability Officer in Telenor
Cecilie B. Heuch, is EVP and Chief People & Sustainability Officer in Telenor. She has more than 25 year’s business experience in an international context. Previously she had the role of Chief HR Officer in DNV GL, a position she held for 11 years. Her former work experience also includes managerial positions in Norsk Hydro in Norway and Hydro Agri (today Yara) in Italy.

Cecilie graduated from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. She holds a Master of Science in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a Diploma of Business Studies from Henley Management College.

Dakota Robin (He/Him)

Diversity & Inclusion Consultant | Public Speaker | LGBTQ+ Expert

Dakota is half Turkish Kurd half Finnish transgender man who was born in Switzerland but raised by a single mother and Finnish war veteran grandparents in a small town in Finland. He was a child that never knew how to adapt to the roles of society.

Dakota was different from the others, so he had to learn to connect with others despite the differences. These skills have led him successfully throughout his life and in today’s global and growing work environments, teams and society, his skills are essential to survival as well as success.
The difficult road taught Dakota an exceptional understanding of emotions as well as communication and interaction skills. His intersectional identity and living outside of norms taught him how to create a deeper connection between people, true belonging.

Dakota has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and he is an internationally qualified human rights consultant. For the past 6 years, he has been training companies and communities across Europe. He is an expert in DEI and LGBTQ + issues.

Mamtha Pullat (She/Her)

Talent Attraction Strategist

Mamtha Pullat works at Volvo Cars as a Talent Attraction Strategist with a focus on Diversity & Inclusion. Mamtha has experience working with these topics in the last couple of years where she worked at Telia as a Global D&I specialist. For Mamtha, diversity is all about embracing people’s differences towards a more inclusive culture where everyone feels safe and is treated equally.

Prior to moving to Sweden, she was based in India where she worked in the non-profit space working to help bridge the education gap in India for children from under privileged backgrounds.

Meryn Willetts (She/Her)

Leadership, Innovation and Strategy Consultant

If there’s anyone you want in your corner when getting a bold, ambitious project off the ground, it’s Meryn. She’s passionate about people and works tirelessly with them to unlock their greatest potential. She believes that each and every one of us can be limitless, so long as we have the tools to kickstart our growth.

Meryn has been advising and mentoring leaders and entrepreneurs for over a decade, challenging her clients to take risks, push boundaries and leverage their passions and strengths to become their highest calibre self.

Over her 15-year career span, Meryn has channelled her drive and passion for ‘doing business better’ through advising politicians, senior corporate leaders and up-and-coming startup founders to develop the mindset, strategies and tools to turn their vision into a reality and put a real dent in the world. She takes an unconventional approach to getting things done and relentlessly seeks out cutting edge knowledge to integrate into her work.

Meryn kicked off her career in advertising at age 18 and started her first consulting business at 22. She has gone through the highs and lows of startup life, getting results and making terrible fuck-ups along the way. She is an example of how, through these ups and downs, building EQ (emotional intelligence) can empower you to navigate and take control of your life despite the challenges life throws at you. She relentlessly works on self-value, resilience-building and doing things afraid and is committed to continuous self-evolution.

Meryn is passionate about ecosystem building; combining technology and authentic leadership to create consequential and inspiring change necessary for sociopolitical, environmental and economic progress.

As an executive coach and advisor, Meryn works with senior leaders from firms such as Statkraft, KPMG, and develops founders in the Charge Startup Incubator and within the broader Oslo startup ecosystem. She speaks at various events and conferences and serves on multiple boards including Oslo Blockchain Cluster, Vaffelgutta and Revenue Development Fund.

Meryn embodies a rare mix of productivity, passion and creativity. She is open, curious and has a contagious personality. You cannot help but be inspired by her enthusiasm, grit and strength of character.

Christin Marie Anderson (She/Her)

Advisor for Communication and Concept Development

Christin is the communications and concept development advisor at Papillon in Bergen.

There she is the project leader for Diversity in Action, an initiative for businesses, organizations, teams, and individuals who are ready to dismantle barriers to inclusion and lead change and innovation in their industries.

Currently, her focus is on the development and launch of a unique leadership program that examines traditional concepts of leadership development through an intersectional lens, centering on the experiences, strengths, and barriers to leadership unique to women with cross-cultural backgrounds in Norway.

Rut Einarsdóttir (She/Her)

Secretary General

Rut Einarsdóttir is the Secretary General of the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association (IWRA), and is on the board of the Icelandic Human Rights Centre on behalf IWRA, where she currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board. Rut holds a BBA in Economics and Innovation from Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan and is completing an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development Studies from SOAS University in London.

Rut has extensive experience working on social issues, both in Iceland and abroad. For over a decade, Rut has been involved in various human rights work globally and has significant experience in international advocacy. For example, she is  a previous member of the Advisory Council on Youth to the Council of Europe, as well as working with a number of UN agencies. She has also campaigned for greater involvement of women in security issues and led the series “Feminist Leadership in Disarmament” through a disarmament organization she worked for in London.

Sergio Prin-Sand (He/Him)

Talent Acquisition partner

Sergio Prin-Sand has 4 years of experience from the tech industry in recruitment, sales, and business development roles. He’s had the opportunity to study and work in Venezuela, Italy, Canada, and Norway, and is curre ntly based in Oslo. Sergio has a keen interest in connecting with people from all backgrounds and walks of life, in addition to a fascination with technology that led him to Microsoft and Netlight. He recently started a new position at Schibsted as Talent Acquisition Partner, where he will help build strong and diverse teams with a focus on tech and product roles.

Hyacinth Walters-Olsen (She/Her)

Founder

Hyacinth Walters-Olsen is the CEO and Founder of YUDconsult, an employee wellbeing strategy firm that helps senior leaders to increase their productivity and profitability by enhancing their employee experience. She is also the Commercial Department Head for Fotobaren AS, a highly sought-after keynote speaker, a mentor for Women in Forex Ghana, a mentor for Digital Career Skills Initiative for Africa (DCSI Africa), and a moderator for Wellbeing at Work Global Summits.

Over her 20+ years of working in leadership and management positions, Hyacinth has honed and mastered the design and execution of value-creating resources for businesses, leaders, and individuals. She has a growth mindset and believes in a people-centric approach to leadership and management – one that mandates compassion, empathy, and measurable results.

Hyacinth believes in the transformative power of community and collaboration. She endeavors to ensure that everyone is seen, heard, respected, and uplifted at all levels, whether in an entry-level or a C-level management role. Hyacinth is personable, pragmatic, solutions-driven, and goal-oriented.

Yesmith Sánchez (She/Her)

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant

Yesmith is a DEI specialist and Business Strategy professional with broad experience building up and engaging diverse teams in rapidly changing environments. She trains companies and managers on how to build better workplaces and better businesses by building inclusive work cultures.

She helps companies to build DEI strategies, actions plans and taking concrete actions in a variety of different functional areas such as: Leadership, Internal Communication, and Organizational Culture. Yesmith holds a Master’s Degree from Hanken School of Economics in International Management and Strategy.

Moa Persdotter (She/Her)

Program Administrator within gender equality and AI

Moa Persdotter is working with gender mainstreaming and diversity within R&I at Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova. She has a Master’s Degree in Political Science from Lund University and was the former Director of VentureLab  – Lund University’s incubator. Her main expert areas are around innovation management and policy processes for making support organizations and startups more gender-equal and inclusive. Right now she is team lead for the sustainability team at Vinnova, part of a program focusing on how AI can be used to promote gender equality, and is one of two who represents Vinnova and Sweden in the Nordic Innovation Task Force for Diversity.

Jessica Pedraza (She/Her)

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant

Jessica Bridgette Pedraza’s educational and professional background has heavily centered on addressing the inequities facing under-resourced communities and dismantling inequity and prejudice through different mediums such as educational inclusion and strengthen-based research. Recently, she has used her qualitative and quantitative skills have allowed her to help organizations co-create working environments that move diversity, equity, and inclusion forward for employees worldwide.

Iva Ogrizovic (She/Her)

Project Manager

Iva has broad work experience that includes sales, television and theater production, and work in The International Committee for the Red Cross. Since joining Diversify, Iva has been involved in implementing Diversify’s strategies and mandates, and she takes over ownership of projects under her supervision. Her experience in working with the target group and organizational work has grown vastly while coordinating the Springboard project of Diversify throughout 2020, which was implemented in 6 cities across Norway and reached more than 5000 people from the target group, coming from 43 different countries.

Rahwa Tilahun Yohaness (She/Her)

Editor | Activist | Founder | Public Speaker | Campaign Strategist | Community Builder | Project Designer

Rahwa is a public speaker, activist, social critic, and the founder and director of Manifold Norway. Rahwa has years of experience in community organising and bringing people with diverse backgrounds and experiences together. She practices a policy of “walking the talk” and engages with people who have lived experience in everything she does.

Rahwa is currently running a campaign about “kvitteringsordning” to promote the implementation of a policy to document all police stop and control activities. She was also one of the main organisers behind the “We Can’t Breathe” demonstration in Oslo, which mobilised 15 000 people in June 2020.

Rahwa collaborates with grassroots organisations, academics, artists, and activists in the diaspora to organise and facilitate various events, including panel discussions, educational and artistic workshops, and community gatherings. She currently works as an advisor for the Norwegian Council for Africa, a human rights and solidarity organisation working to increase knowledge about the African continent.

Helene Aagaard (She/Her)

CEO & Partner

Helene Aagaard likes to introduce herself as someone’s daughter, mentor, mother, mentee, and friend. She is also a feminist, social liberal, regular Roskilde festival guest, avid book reader, travel maniac, and a great fan of Burgundy and Brunello wines. She is a passionate leader with 10+ years of experience in strategy, communication, organizational development, CSR, and stakeholder management. Specialized in politics, strategic communication, and management in companies working across sectors and with different stakeholders. She has solid experience in navigating complex stakeholder landscapes, changing ownership structures as well as profound industrial changes.

Maija Typpi-Häkkinen (She/Her)

DEI advocate and Digital Business & People Leader

Maija is a DEI advocate and a seasoned digital business & people leader with over a 20-year career in IT. She has been promoting gender equality in the tech industry for many years, both through her professional role and non-profit work as a Chair of the Board at Future Female.

She has collaborated with Women in Tech Finland and Inklusiiv for many years and kicked off the groundwork for DEI at a Finnish digital consultancy Frantic, by forming a multidisciplinary taskforce together with the company HR. For Maija, it is very important that different company functions are represented in the taskforce: promoting and developing DEI in the companies should not only be the HR’s task – the buy-in and allyship should be organisation-wide, at all levels.

Maija’s special interest in the DEI area does not lie only in gender equality: she promotes an intersectional perspective. Fostering psychological safety in the work environment creates space for a deep sense of belonging, resulting in a workplace, where everyone has a voice and feels comfortable using it. For this to happen we need to bring inclusive and adaptive leadership practices to organisations. Maija is also promoting the less-talked aspects of diversity such as neurodiversity: it should be recognised and embraced in organisations and work communities, as it has an impact on how we interact and work with each other.

Fungisai Gwanzura-Ottemöller (She/Her)

Associate Professor and Department head UIB

Fungi is an Associate Professor and Head of department in the department of Health Promotion and Development, University of Bergen. 

Her background is in psychology, health promotion and geography. She has previously worked in projects on mental health (Zimbabwe) and children’s participation (Zimbabwe and Scotland). She is a member of the transdisciplinary Refugee Resilience project that investigates young immigrants’ transitions into Norwegian society using a strengths-based approach. She leads PIISTON, a transdisciplinary network involving academics and practitioners from the public, private and civil society sectors. PIISTON aims to promote refugees’ inclusion, access to information, and successful transition into Norwegian society. Fungi is also a doula and a passionate advocate for maternal health and well-being. She hosts a podcast ‘Reclaim your power: inspiration and reflections for pregnancy, birth and beyond’. Her podcast focuses on sharing information based on her experiences as a doula and a mother, and encourages women to empower themselves during what she considers the sacred time of pregnancy, birth and postpartum.

Nikki Hayes (She/Her)

Project Manager

Nikki is development practitioner who is passionate about creating conscious and responsible communities. Nikki is analytical, energetic and creative in her work. She completed her Masters of International Development with a practical focus on participatory forms of development at RMIT University, Melbourne. She has experience working with immigrant and asylum seeker communities which where she began to developed curiosity and skill in diversity and inclusion, cultural intelligence and cross-cultural communication. She continues working within these areas at Diversify, where she project managers various events, discussions and initiatives.

Erik Falk Hansen (He/Him)

Partner & Chief Talent Sourcer

Erik is the founder of AvantGarde Search, a recruitment company looking to challenge the established and disrupt what has become a very conservative industry. He moved to the UK straight after college in 1998 to study International Business in Manchester. Since the completion of his studies, he has worked within the recruitment industry, both as a recruiter and at the management level in the UK and Norway as well as internationally. When working for the S-Three group in the UK, he was early involved in their “Women in Business” program, something which kicked off his interest in diversity in relation to hiring processes.

Upon returning to Norway in 2013, Erik was heavily involved with career development as well as taking an active role in media and social media in order to create a better environment for those looking for new jobs. His current company was established in January 2019 and is already seen as one of the most ambitious recruitment companies in the tech industry. The company aims to be the driver for change with a significant focus on anti-discrimination and have had the opportunity to recruit for companies such as Oda, Airthings, Firi, Huddly, Cloud Insurance, PwC, Skyfri, House of Math, and more. Key areas that are of interest to Erik includes: gender equality, anti-discrimination, mental health, and exploitation of the weak.

Outside of work, Erik lives with his wife and 3-year-old dog, Scampi.

Chisom Udeze (She/Her)

Economist | Founder of Diversify and HerSpace

Chisom is an Economist, Organizational Design and DEI Strategist, and a 3 times founder of impact driven companies. She has over 13 years of experience working with organizations like the European Commission, The United Nations, ExxonMobil and The Economist Group. Chisom is a data enthusiast and analytical. She is passionate about interrogating the cross-sectoral relationship between society’s inhabitants, resources, production, technology, distribution and output. She efficiently and effectively unlocks complex systems, interprets data, forecasts socio-economic trends and conducts research.

Having lived in 7 countries across 3 continents, she is highly adaptable to different circumstances and people, and thrives in uncertain environments.

As the founder of Diversify, Chisom works with companies, governments and civil society to facilitate measurable diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace and society. In 2020, mid-pandemic, she founded HerSpace, a diverse and inclusive co-creation community for all genders, with particular focus on women. HerSpace is launching a Women in Tech incubator in August 2022, for women-led companies, with a focus on the inclusion of diverse founders.

Chisom is a thought-leader in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) and a passionate advocate for mental health and wellness. She is an entrepreneur at heart and committed to life-long learning. She enjoys playing tennis, reading, binge-watching TV shows and cooking.