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Kamela Forbes Matheson has been doing transformative work in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion space for over 7 years. She started as a diversity manager in talent acquisition, helping clients diversify their talent pools. Later she moved into the learning and development space, creating and facilitating “Consciously Unbiased” learning experiences educating clients on mitigating bias and incorporating inclusive behaviors in efforts to complement their talent acquisition strategy. She then decided to take her efforts global and now serves as the Global Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Pride Global where she ensures that the company stays at the forefront of the DE&I revolution through her implementation of “Decidedly Diverse” - a comprehensive DE&I strategy.

How is your company appealing to Gen Z professionals from a career destination standpoint?

We recognize that Gen Z professionals value diversity and inclusivity and are more drawn to purpose driven organizations. In efforts to help position Pride as a place to work for Gen Zers, we have several CSR programs that employees can participate in to fuel their passion for volunteerism, philanthropy and align with the company’s mission. These include Pride in Education programming that help prepare the next generation of diverse leaders for the workforce and Pride in Action which offers company-wide opportunities for our employees to volunteer. Also, our celebration of heritage month programming led by our ERGs are also frequently tied to company matched donation campaigns. 

Employees are not only encouraged to participate but are rewarded for their involvement in helping with these initiatives that we believe contribute to building a strong organizational culture that inspires and motivates Gen Z professionals and ultimately helps with not only the attraction but also the retention of these professionals.

How important is impacting underrepresented communities through learning and up-skill programming to your company?  Is this currently a key focus or will it be in the near-term future?

Impacting underrepresented communities is of the utmost importance to us and is at the heart of our Decidedly Diverse initiative.  Our goal is to increase our diverse talent pipeline and, in our efforts, to do that we’re committed to also providing tools, resources and helping to create the next generation of leaders who can diversify the workforce. 

Through our Pride In Education non-profit we’ve created partnerships with minority serving institutions to not only give back but to provide opportunities for our employees to donate their time and expertise to support our mission of ‘Helping the World Work’.  We offer career readiness workshops, where we offer tools like resume reviews, LinkedIn makeovers, mock interviews, and transferable skills assessments. 

How have you been able to scale your DEI initiatives to make a global impact?

We recognize the importance of curated DEI initiatives that address the needs of different geographies.  In our APAC region, we identified the need for increased representation of people from socio-economically disadvantaged communities.  We started a program called DEED – (Develop, Educate, Empower, Deploy) where we put qualified individuals from this community through a 4-month intensive upskilling program and equip them with the necessary professional and personal skills to thrive in today’s competitive market. We seek to employ the program graduates firstly at Pride Global, but if not, then we add them to our pipeline for placement at one of our client partners.  

How is your company leveraging volunteerism or mentorship opportunities throughout your team to deliver impact?

We have two mentorship programs led by our women’s equity initiative group Lioness. 

Lioness League is a program where a cohort of 8-12 female employees get a male and a female managerial level mentor at the firm who meet weekly with their mentees for professional career guidance.  The idea is that they get different perspectives from male and female mentors and learn different leadership styles, have access to different networks, different advice on ways to address challenges and embrace opportunities and insight into different industries. The cohorts renew each quarter, but pairs are encouraged to maintain an informal relationship post program.

The Lioness at Bat program is designed to provide a team of expert advisors at the leadership level to help a woman at a pivotal point in her career.  Once that individual is identified, they are asked to identify a business initiative they are looking to implement or a challenge they are attempting to solve and then an advisory team of about 4-5 leaders with the expertise to help them execute it is chosen.  Teams meet weekly to advance progress on the goal and advisors are able to tap additional resources and contacts as needed to help their mentee accomplish their goal.  This cohort of 3-5 females is also renewed on a quarterly basis.

These programs are not only beneficial to our mentees but allows our mentors to give back while helping to see the fruits of their labor as they watch their mentees grow and serve as sponsors for them.  These programs allow for both sides to contribute to building an inclusive culture and making an equitable impact.

What is your favorite project that you have or are currently working on?

I launched Pride’s Annual Trailblazing Women’s Summit in 2021.  Traditionally women haven’t been highlighted for their accomplishments, sometimes being overlooked and ideas being falsely attributed to their male counterparts.  The annual trailblazing women’s summit was the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of women and particularly their contributions to providing opportunities for other underrepresented groups as well as being able to continue to provide opportunities to elevate this diverse community of women.

The Summit is aligned with the 3 pillars of our DEI strategy: Workforce, Workplace & Marketplace. The workforce initiative is a speaker series with professional development workshop topics aimed to engage and attract diverse female talent. The workplace initiative is an inspirational workshop to engage the female employees at Pride and recognize and award our internal Trailblazing women.  The marketplace initiative is our client and external partners Trailblazing awards and recognition program.

What role does DEI play in elevating your employer brand in the eyes of HBCU and HSI students?

In today’s world, DEI is usually one of the top 3 most important factors impacting the decision of diverse talent to accept a job offer.  These talented individuals have options! And they gravitate to organizations that have strong inclusive cultures that are reflected in their employer brands.  That’s why it’s super important for us to highlight our DEI programming and activities.  Our Employee Resource Groups play an important role in creating impactful programming to celebrate, educate and develop our underrepresented talent and that’s a really important tool in our DEI toolkit for attraction, engagement, and retention of diverse talent.

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