Speakers 2022 – People Make The Brand

“People Make The Brand” invited its viewers in its 10th year to embrace our differences, which are a prerequisite for an equal and fair life.

In an increasingly diverse organizational climate, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion themes started to take place on the agenda of the business world as a subject of interest. Today, many organizations realize that DEI efforts are starting to have meaningful impacts on all their stakeholders and provide a competitive advantage. However, DEI is not just a top-down initiative. Executives consider diversity when making hiring and promotion decisions, product developers tend to understand the needs of underrepresented groups before they bring new products to market, human resources recognize the indispensability of an embracing language for a meaningful business climate. It is not easy but it is possible to become equitable institutions that can put aside biases and fight against inequality and discrimination, in which everyone can have a real say in decision-making mechanisms.

In its 10th anniversary, People Make The Brand, builds a dialogue environment where the leaders from organizations, experts from academic institutions and real-life stories come together to embrace our differences which are the prerequisites for a more equal life, and discuss about the importance of equity on the journey to understand each other.

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The Compulsive Journey: Truly Advancing on Equality and Inclusion

Dr. Ella F. Washington is an organizational psychologist and DEI expert with a wealth of experience through her involvement as the Founder and CEO of Ellavate Solutions, a Professor of Practice at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, the Co-host of Gallup's Center of Black Voices Cultural Competence Podcast, and the Author of "The Necessary Journey: Making Real Progress on Equity and Inclusion". Dr. Washington continues to deepen her research pipeline and thought leadership as a Gallup Senior Scientist studying race, strengths and other DEI workplace topics.

Dr. Washington’s global human capital consulting experience has allowed her to impact clients across a myriad of industries including financial services, sports & entertainment, oil & gas, higher education and government. Previously, Dr. Washington led the Diversity and Inclusion function Gallup as a subject matter expert where she provided insight to clients on issues of inclusion, culture, strategic diversity and engagement. Her research and client work focuses on women in the workplace, barriers to inclusion for diverse groups, and working with organizations to build inclusive cultures. She has conducted inclusiveness audits, developed learning workshops, and facilitates strategic planning sessions with executive leadership teams who have goals of intentionally improving diversity and inclusion.

These experiences inspired the 2016 founding of Ellavate Solutions, an integrated DEI strategy firm. Ellavate Solutions provides dynamic diversity and inclusion strategy and training for organizations looking to commit to systematic cultural changes in how they recruit, develop, engage and assess performance. Dr. Washington's in-depth experience in this area stems from both her research on racial and gender disparities in corporate leadership positions as well as her global DEI consulting experience with Fortune 100, government and non-profit organizations.

Growing up in Durham, North Carolina with a tight-knit family gave Dr. Washington her roots. She proudly attended Spelman College, a historically Black women’s institution in Atlanta which led to her passion for maximizing the success of women and minorities. After earning her PhD in 2014 at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, she moved to Washington, DC where she currently resides. Dr. Washington is passionate about teaching and she truly loves the impact that she is able to make on the lives of future business leaders every day as a professor at Georgetown. Her impact is powerful as she received the Excellence in Teaching Award from Georgetown's MBA Class of 2021.

While eagerly anticipating the publication of her first solo book published by the Harvard Business Review titled "The Necessary Journey: Making Real Progress on Equity and Inclusion", Dr. Washington enjoys being active in her church, giving back to her local community, traveling the world and staying closely connected with loved ones.

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10 Years Dedicated to Equality: Borusan is Equal

Nursel Ölmez Ateş, continues her professional job career since 1995, after the graduation from Istanbul University, Industrial Engineering Department. She had started her career at Migros Türk T.A.Ş. as Method Organization and Planning Specialist and worked in different departments as New Business Development, R&D, Planning and Project Management. During that period, she implemented many innovative human resources projects. In 1999, while working in Migros, she acted as the Project Leader of the first application of SAP Human Resources Module in Turkey, and that project is ranked among the best practice applications of SAP.

In 2003, she is appointed as Deputy General Manager in charge of Human Resources and Administrative Affairs to Ramstore, one of the foreign operations of Migros. During her term of service of five years thereat, she played an active role in opening of more than 60 stores in different cities, and acted as a leader in establishment and operation of human resources systems therein. In 2007, she played an important role in election of Ramenka as the company with the most successful human resources practices in Russia.

After returning to Turkey in 2008, she continued her career as Human Resources and Corporate Communications Director first in Koçtaş, and then in Ford Otosan. During her term of office thereat, she worked actively not only on human resources transformation, but also on gender equality, and supporting education of girls in STEM fields, she built and led the “Honeybees Are Becoming Engineers” project.

Nursel Ölmez Ateş, Group President of Human, Communication and Sustainability, assumed the Sustainability Leadership of the Group, in order to create synergy between Group and company activities and thematic working groups.

In 2016 and 2017, in “50 Most Effective Human Resources Directors of Turkey” survey, she is elected as one of the 50 Most Effective CHROs of Turkey managing human resources most effectively and creating difference therein. Since 2013, she is serving as an executive coach as well.

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Is organisational empathy the key to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion success?

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A Sociological Perspective of Diversity and Inclusion

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Reducing Prejudices with Competencies

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Talent Perspective

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PANEL: DEI in Organizations
Moderation: Evrim Kuran

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From Unconscious Bias to Conscious Inclusive Leadership

After quickly rising to become General Manager of Sir Chay Blyth’s ‘Challenge Business’ at just 23, Hayley went on to achieve her first directorship in an Anglo-French business aged 26. Since then Hayley has founded three companies and is also currently a Non-Executive Director of YHA, one of the biggest Youth Charities in the UK.

Hayley is a professional speaker, consultant and media commentator on subjects including gender balanced workplaces, inclusive leadership, unconscious bias, and cross-cultural leadership. She tackles issues surrounding unconscious bias and inclusiveness with humour, ensuring that her ideas have real value for audiences’ working lives.

One of the most innovative projects that Hayley has headed up is the LeasePlan Women’s Arctic Challenge in which she co-led a team of women on a traverse of Baffin Island at minus 40 degrees C. MIX worked with LeasePlan to develop this unique platform to communicate the gender balance issue and challenge unconscious bias within their company.

With her clients, Hayley combines the latest research on inclusion of diversity with first-hand experience, helping a wide range of companies establish what inclusion looks like for them, what their business case is and how to move the agenda forward. Hayley has:

• Designed an Inclusive Leadership program for the top 600 leaders at Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, and for clients such as Capital One and Experian.
• Advised the Irish government on the introduction of Gender Pay Gap Reporting legislation and how to help companies reduce their pay gap.
• Provided keynotes and board level briefings for clients including Microsoft, Vodafone, Nissan, Virgin Media, Roche, Teva, H&M, AstraZeneca and many others.
• Spoken at over 200 events across banking and finance, construction and engineering, aerospace, legal, telecoms, technology and the energy sector.

Hayley is a prolific keynote speaker providing entertaining and inspirational speeches for company conferences as well as in-depth senior leader briefings and seminars. Her aim is always to be highly practical and demonstrate that everyone can immediately make an impact on how inclusive their place of work is through a number of small actions.

When not at work or at home Hayley can usually be found swimming in the nearest stretch of open water. She has successfully swum across the English Channel, taking 14 hours and 12 minutes to reach France. In 2018 she also swam 46 km around Manhattan Island in New York.

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