In my 20s, I moved to New York to get my master’s degree in vocal performance. I had a plan: Broadway or bust. Stars in my eyes, I was ambitious, driven, and pretty strategic, looking back now. Sadly, a vocal injury and several surgeries took my plan apart, piece by piece, over a few years’ time. I remember thinking there was nothing left to build a career on and that whatever I was, professionally, had just ended. It was a loss that I never expected so early in my career and journey. The suddenness and unresolved nature of it still sit with me.  

But a mentor of mine at that time saw something I couldn’t yet. The fearlessness, the discipline, the willingness to be seen and to fail publicly was all “good soil”. She made me see that none of what I wanted had to die with the dream. It could be transmuted into another shape, another container. She encouraged me to explore training, facilitation, and organizational change. Fields I’d never heard of, built around a voice I didn’t know I still had. 

I subsequently decided to focus on building a firm dedicated to building more inclusive workplaces for all, put my name on it, and ran it for over two decades. Even after all that time in the field with leaders – with hundreds of clients served, keynotes delivered, and five books written – I was always keenly aware of (and humble to) what I look like when I walk into a room to talk about my topic. I appear as someone who, on the surface, has never had to fight for anything. And there is some truth to that. I hold my privileges consciously, with the responsibilities that come with them. But, as with everyone, there’s a thread under it.  

I am not a monolith. 

For one thing, I came out as a part of the LGBTQ+ community in my 20s, in a conservative household that loved me but couldn’t fully hold that part of me. When I found this community,  I don’t think I’d ever felt like I belonged to something larger than myself. That feeling of arriving somewhere and finally exhaling is the actual definition of belonging I carry into every room I walk into professionally. It’s not just a concept for me – it’s visceral, and springs evergreen from that unforgettable memory of what its absence felt like. There is a significant difference between the years before I found my people and the years after, and how I can show up in this world as a result.  

And it wasn’t just the brave and tireless community of advocates I found myself in that motivated me toward living my truth, but those who visibly supported us. The topic of allyship was just beginning to circulate all those years ago, and now, of course, we have concrete data on what that support actually does. A 2021 Coqual study found that employees with more inclusive colleagues report a 21% increase in their sense of fairness at work, with inclusive managers driving an 18% increase of their own. Everything we’ve learned and witnessed since, especially in recent years, only continues to affirm it. 

To the CHROs and people leaders reading this, I want to be really blunt right now, because every day amidst the backlash towards inclusivity, our choices matter more than ever. And we always have choices.  

The headlines say DEI is in retreat. In one narrow sense, they’re right. Just 131 companies publicly documented their DEI practices in 2026, down from 377 in 2025. However, I know from firsthand experience, as I continue to connect with organizational leaders, that this retreat narrative is being promoted in headlines, but is separate from the underlying work, a distinction HRC’s own year-over-year data confirms, showing implementation of inclusive policies held steady or increased even as public reporting dropped. And sitting with that distinction, it strikes me that decision-makers are more afraid of their own workforce than they need to be, and many are operating from a place of risk mitigation, harming the long-term trust and strength of their organizations in the process, in a way that will take years to repair. 

Coqual’s research backs that up directly: only 10% of employees are outright detractors of this work. 48% are persuadable. And 42% continue to believe in it. I think many of us can remember, either in our own backstories or those of others we care about, that the persuadable middle is a dynamic place, full of opportunity. We can remember a time before we awakened, and how many ways both large and small the shifts can happen.  

For the leaders willing to stay in it, there’s a real case beyond conviction. Real sponsorship, someone going out on a limb for you, advocating for your next move, providing air cover when you stumble, is one of the most reliable levers we still have. I’ve been on both sides of giving and receiving this kind of support, and I see how it still makes a difference for the people I’m watching move up now. 

Thirty years in this work has taught me that leadership has always required judgment. What’s changed is the terrain that judgment now has to cross. Technology, talent, trust, demographics, geopolitics – all of these and more are shifting the relationship between people and work. Little of it belongs neatly to one discipline anymore, and little of it comes with an established playbook. Meanwhile, some of the most useful thinking on these exact questions is happening in universities, companies, nonprofits, startups, and independent practices that have never been in the same room together. 

This is exactly the work behind my becoming the Founding Luminary of Coqual’s Luminary Exchange. The group is built on the same premise as my own career pivot: that the skills and conviction you already have can be redirected towards a system that needs rebuilding, not just renaming. A Luminary, as we’ve come to define it, isn’t the loudest voice or the most credentialed one in the room, although it’s full of impressive credentials to be sure. It’s someone whose work helps others see more clearly, someone curious and generous enough to keep learning in public, alongside people who don’t come from one’s discipline or industry. 

So here’s my honest question, from someone still building this in real time, not lecturing from outside it: what will it look like for you to lead this work? The answer may be different now than it was five years ago. But I suspect it still begins with remembering the moments when someone made room for us, and deciding whose path we might make easier because we did the same.