Director of Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion Director

Mountain View or San Francisco, CA

Summary

The Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Director will assume a central and significant role in ensuring that we are building and supporting an increasingly diverse community and fostering an inclusive culture. The D&I Director will be responsible for working with firm and committee leadership to set and execute the Firm’s diversity and inclusion strategic goals, and must be highly capable of achieving and delivering measurable results. The role will focus on implementation of diversity and inclusion trainings and programs, alignment and support of employee networks and affinity groups, and a targeted and intentional approach to diversity recruiting, retention and advancement at all levels.

The D&I Director will serve as a thought leader who will raise awareness, implement best practices from a variety of industries and develop a vision with firm leaders. Reporting to the Chief Talent Officer, the D&I Director will manage and develop an effective, professional D&I team and will serve as a trusted advisor to every practice group and administrative department across the firm to ensure alignment with the firm’s D&I priorities and goals. The D&I Director will provide strategic guidance and support to the Firm’s D&I Committees and work collaboratively with partners, associates, and business professionals across the organization.

Responsibilities

Management and Leadership

• Provide subject matter expertise on internal and external D&I best practices.
• Raise awareness and engage others to further the Firm’s goals around building an inclusive workforce and an ally-ship focused culture.
• Develop analytical tools and methods to measure the effectiveness of the Firm’s diversity strategy; analyze and report on D&I progress to determine organizational health.
• Build key relationships with diverse professional organizations; serve as the Firm’s representative to external professional and community organizations.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with practice groups, teams, offices and functional leaders to leverage D&I-related marketing opportunities.
• Manage, mentor and lead the D&I team, creating an engaged environment with an open communication culture and providing effective guidance.

Strategic and Business Planning

• Work with Firm leaders to prioritize and align the Firm’s D&I objectives with the vision and goals of the Firm and practice groups.
• Collaborate with the firmwide D&I Committees and Committee Leaders to create and implement strategic plans and initiatives.
• Work closely with the Chief Talent Officer, senior management team and administrative departments to accomplish the goals of the D&I Committees.
• Work collaboratively with the Firm’s marketing team on the client RFP and survey processes, ensuring that our D&I team is well prepared to tell our diversity story with current data and strategic analysis. Participate in client meetings as requested.
• Lead efforts to simplify and automate client and industry diversity reporting and to utilize diversity data to establish priorities and drive change.
• Elevate the Firm’s brand as a leader in D&I through personal engagement with clients and the D&I legal community and by writing thought leadership pieces and speaking at industry conferences, bar associations, etc.
• Develop and lead communications plan that includes the Firm’s intranet and website content to promote D&I activities, initiatives and messages for both the internal audience and for potential candidates in the recruitment process.
• Track diversity expenditures to eventually prepare detailed annual budget.

Talent Retention and Development

• Partner with attorney and professional staff recruiting departments to develop and deploy a cutting-edge workforce strategy; identify and implement strategic opportunities to develop our diversity pipeline including best practices to recruit in local communities in which we operate.
• Collaborate with the attorney and professional staff training departments to organize and implement all diversity and inclusion training programs and CLE requirements.
• Collaborate with the legal personnel and practice management departments to oversee the mentorship, development, retention and promotion of women, minority and LGBTQ attorneys.
• Develop strategy for integration of D&I into firm management and leadership initiatives.
• Focus on programs that will further the hiring, retention and development of a diverse talent pipeline.
• Develop meaningful metrics, tools, and analytics that enable leadership to evaluate D&I performance and integration and effectiveness of the Firm’s D&I strategy.
• Conduct research and analysis to provide insight on developing diversity workforce management trends. Benchmark industry best practices to support strategies to monitor and evaluate progress in creating a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Affinity Group/Employee Network Optimization

• Evolve affinity groups and employee networks to positively impact the business through effective leadership, engagement, programming and management.
• Guide and support the introduction and development of affinity groups, employee networks and other networking groups.

Requirements

• Broad business acumen combined with deep functional knowledge of D&I best practices.
• Demonstrated success in developing cutting edge strategy and driving process improvements with regard to diversity and inclusion issues in the workplace.
• Excellent interpersonal and collaborative skills across levels, with an ability to persuade and influence, and the ability to build enthusiasm and commitment.
• Strong analytical skills, with a track record of using data and metrics to evaluate needs, drive change and measure impact.
• Strong organizational skills, including setting priorities, planning and implementation, structuring project deliverables and problem-solving.
• Excellent communication skills, including effective writing, listening, presentation and facilitation skills.
• Proven willingness and ability to be hands-on and work in a fast-paced environment.
• Must be well-versed in change management and creating alignment with a diverse set of employees.
• Self-sufficient and capable of liaising with the leadership team, including comfortability building and delivering executive-level presentations.
• At least 10+ years of prior in-depth relevant professional experience with at least 5 years of experience as a D&I professional.
• Prior experience working in a fast-paced, highly-collaborative, data-driven, global and technical environment is a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree required; additional advanced degree a plus.