Diversity & Inclusion Advice for Startups

About The Talk

Practicing and implementing diversity & inclusion is difficult, especially in the early stages of a startup. How do you as a founder figure out how to ingrain diversity and inclusion in your culture from the very early days, and how do you make it authentic and meaningful for your team?

Now more than ever, building a diverse and inclusive team is important not just for your culture, but studies have shown that companies that are more diverse are more likely to succeed.

Join us on October 19th as we learn more about what it takes to build a diverse and inclusive startup with Kellie Wagner, Founder & CEO of Collective, and NYC-based diversity and inclusion consultancy and research lab.

We’ll learn how you can create an effective diversity recruiting strategy, building an inclusive culture, and more!

Our Guest

Kellie Wagner

Founder of Collective

Kellie Wagner is a consultant, speaker, and the founder of Collective, a NYC-based diversity and inclusion consultancy and research lab that is shifting how millennial-driven organizations build, grow, engage, and retain diverse teams in today’s workforce.

After nearly a decade working at fast-paced startups like Meetup and DoSomething.org, Kellie decided to leverage her lived experiences as a woman of color in tech to help companies address the common culture problems hindering their diversity efforts. Having worked with dozens of startups as they evaluate issues of diversity from the ground up, Collective takes a no-nonsense approach to building inclusion into the foundation of organizations.

Through employee-driven assessments, long-term strategy, and innovative initiatives focused on every stage of the employee lifecycle, Kellie’s work allows companies to build (and nurture) equitable teams and drives sustainable change centered on amplifying marginalized voices. In addition to strategic consulting, she is leading Collective in launching the first Inclusive Hiring Accelerator aimed at startup recruiters.

Kellie has been featured in Forbes, AlleyWatch, and Like A Boss Girls, and speaks regularly at businesses and conferences, including Ladies Get Paid’s Get Money, Get Paid Conference, Culture Amp’s Culture Conference, Namely’s HR Redefined Conference, WorkAwesome, The Muse, Deloitte, and The Wing. She’s a graduate of NYU’s Managing Workplace Diversity & Inclusion program, holds an MFA from The New School, and sits on the board of Experience Camps, a free grief camp for kids who have experienced loss. When she’s not working, you can probably find her eating ice cream with her dog Dylan.

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