How Ericsson is Building a Leading DEI Culture

To remain competitive in today’s business and talent market, organizations in all industries are facing a critical need to prioritize workplace Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ). Despite the clear benefits of DEIJ for productivity, innovation, and company culture, many organizations struggle to get their plans off the ground.

So how can organizations prioritize DEIJ to enable present and future business success? And how can leaders enable all employees to support a culture of human flourishing? We wanted to ask someone who is getting it right.

Join us for a conversation between Sarah Rosales, head of diversity & inclusion at Ericsson, and Elise Smith, CEO & co-founder at Praxis Labs. We’ll be discussing how Ericsson’s impact-driven and people-centered strategy has contributed to meaningful outcomes and global recognition as a top culture for DEIJ.

What you'll learn:

Importance of empathetic leadership
Tips for getting leadership buy-in for DEIJ strategy
Ways to help employees practice challenging conversations
How to center DEIJ in your talent development plans

Sarah Rosales

Head of Diversity & Inclusion, North America, Ericsson

In 2013, while still an MBA candidate, Sarah began working for Ericsson as a financial analysis intern. In 2017, following five successive promotions in the Finance department, Sarah was promoted from her role in finance as the Head of Cost Control to a role in Human Resources, the Head of Workforce Planning serving on the Human Resources Leadership Team. In 2018, she shifted to providing leaders with actionable insights via People Analytics. It was during her time as Head of People Analytics that she began spending 50-60% of her time benchmarking, designing, and delivering analytics to help Ericsson North America progress in the D&I space. Toward the end of 2020, Sarah took on the role of Head of Diversity & Inclusion and has spent the last 2 years pioneering the build-up of the D&I team and infrastructure needed for this brand-new function.

Elise Smith

CEO & Co-founder, Praxis Labs

Elise has focused her career on scaling access and opportunity. She joined IBM Watson out of college and began building Watson for Education products and doing B2B Sales for the Watson group. She then went to New Schools Venture Fund, a venture-philanthropy investing in innovation in learning, where she supported the Diverse Leaders portfolio in finding, funding, and coaching DEI entrepreneurs. She co-founded Praxis Labs in 2019 while pursuing her MBA and MA in Education at Stanford University.

How Ericsson is Building a Leading Culture for DEI

Speakers

Sarah Rosales

Elise Smith

Learn how all your employees can show up as leaders for equity and inclusion.