Throughout her career, Hyson often has been the only woman in the room — and she is determined to change that. Her advice for fellow leaders: “It starts at the top. The responsibility to cultivate healthy, diverse, inclusive cultures, and to create more seats at the table, starts with executive leadership teams,” Hyson says. At WorkN, Hyson champions diverse hiring practices and promotes diversity and inclusion practices internally, insisting on diverse representation of talent for every open position. Additionally, Hyson has served as a mentor through the ASA’s Mentor Match program for four years, encouraging and assisting women to be proactive about asking for raises and seeking out career advancement opportunities.

It has been a banner year for Hyson, but she is only getting started. “I don’t think in my first 10 years of my career I used my voice well. I feel like right now is the time to use it,” she says. Her influential DE&I work is not simply in her job description, she says, but in her DNA.