At the heart of everything that Nish Parikh does is a profound sense of empathy. As the CEO of Rangam, a global minority-, woman- and disability-owned workforce solutions company he founded with his wife, Parikh is passionate about connecting a largely untapped talent pool with corporations avid about neurodiversity and disability hiring, and he aims to change the way that disabilities are managed in the workplace. Rangam’s empathetic approach under Parikh’s leadership has been met with success.
At the age of 18, many individuals with disabilities reach a “cliff” at which many of their support systems seemingly drop off. Historically, an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis has been a barrier to gainful employment for many — not because of a lack of skills or motivation, but because of a lack of accommodations, inclusivity and empathy in the corporate world. In 2017, Parikh discovered that companies were looking for end-to-end solutions to support disability inclusion programs, and SourceAbled was born. Over the past year, the groundbreaking program has seen national and even global expansion.
Rangam’s intense focus on awareness has been fruitful, paving the way for Parikh to help companies create scalable and sustainable diversity hiring programs. “When we used to talk about disability hiring and autism hiring programs, we used to focus on explaining the benefits [and] why it’s important,” he explains. “In the last two years, we are not mentioning anything about the benefits of hiring neurodiverse talent. They all know!” Rangam’s goal is to see 7% disability representation in the US workforce by 2030.
Looking ahead, Parikh is optimistic that technology will be used to further build and expand disability hiring programs — but he notes that the real victory will be the day when DE&I ceases to be an “initiative” altogether. “The future is when we will not talk about diversity and inclusion as an initiative, but it will become part of the hiring process,” he explains. “It will become part of the corporate culture, and it will be standard business practice.”
2023 DE&I Influencers List