Diversity expert Rocki Howard has built a career out of creating space for people who are different. She has spent over two decades working on this in the human resources and talent acquisition arena. “I’ve been able to overcome incredible odds in my career, so it was important for me to support others and to recognize things in people that other people didn’t see,” she says.
Howard joined The Mom Project, which helps connect moms with economic opportunity through job matches, upskilling opportunities and research-backed policy, in the fall of 2021. As the chief people and equity officer, she works to amplify the voices of moms returning to work and help organizations increase gender and ethnic diversity.
Howard previously was chief diversity officer at SmartRecruiters, where she left her mark by creating innovative diversity tools. Her Diversity Hiring Success Toolkit, available for free to anyone, enables organizations to assess gaps in hiring diverse talent and gives them actionable items to move it forward. She also launched the 2021 State of Diversity Hiring report, which shares data, trends and action items companies can take to improve diversity hiring. “This tool is for anyone who wonders, ‘If I want to hire diverse talent, how do I do it better?’” Howard says.
In addition to her work at The Mom Project, Howard hosts the podcasts “Voices of Diversity” and “Grown Woman Life,” is a regularly featured panelist and keynote speaker at major recruiting events, and serves as a guest on other podcasts.
In her podcasts, Howard addresses the systemic problems companies have in their processes and procedures, but she also talks about people and the impact that the lack of diversity and inclusion has on them. “Diversity is a hearts and minds issue. We spend too much on the mind and not enough on the heart,” she says. “When you don’t address these issues, you are affecting the lives of people in a negative way. We have people who represent multiple dimensions of diversity, who genuinely want to work for our companies, and the statistics say we’re making it hard for them. Let’s focus on diversity as a human imperative and as a business imperative in equal measure.”
2023 DE&I Influencers List