Erica Keswin

🔥 NEW from Ms. Magazine: Investing in Inclusion: How DEI Initiatives Uplift Both Companies and Consumers "Along with boosting profitability, DEI initiatives have significant positive impacts within workplace environments. Business and psychology studies have proven DEI-initiatives foster a more positive working environment for employees by reducing burnout, supporting open communication and using inclusive language. In the healthcare industry, studies indicate patients fare better when treated by a more diverse treatment team." "DEI is far from a new, cultural concept. It’s a pillar of business." It's little wonder, then, why shareholders of 30 of the largest corporations in the world voted overwhelmingly to reject anti-DEI proposals in 2025, as unanimously recommended by their boards of directors. Shareholder voting scorecard here: https://lnkd.in/dyeHqUi3 Alexandra Lalli and Cat Ross wrote the story for Ms. Magazine https://lnkd.in/gPz8REen

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Practicing gratitude for nonprofit leaders who choose problems government can't solve and business can't monetize. While others chase easy wins, you tackle what everyone else avoids. This starts my week-long series on developing gratitude. Most CEOs could make more money in corporate jobs. Better hours, less stress, clearer success metrics. Instead you chose homelessness. Human trafficking. Mental health crises. Food insecurity. You picked problems that make people uncomfortable at dinner parties. While government debates policy for years, you house families tonight. While corporations calculate profit margins, you serve people who can't pay. You work in the space between what's profitable and what's necessary. Your board meetings discuss budgets for underfunded work. Your programs serve people society wrote off. Your strategic plans address problems that existed before you were born. This week I'm practicing intentional gratitude for leaders like you. Not because your work is easy. Because it's essential and often thankless. You chose purpose over profit. Impact over income. Service over safety. You tackle what others won't touch. You serve who others won't see. You solve what others won't attempt. In a world full of people avoiding hard problems, you run toward them. Because in fundraising, the leaders who matter most are the ones who choose missions that matter more than money.

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The equity conversation corporate leaders need to hear RIGHT NOW ⚡ NEW EPISODE: Celeste Warren (She/Her) joins Bernadette Boas on Shedding the Corporate Bitch for an essential discussion on equity in the workplace. As anti-DEI rhetoric increases and organizations retreat from equity commitments, this episode provides clarity, practical strategies, and the business case for why equity matters now more than ever. What makes this different: → No corporate speak—just actionable insights → Real talk about unconscious bias in decision-making → The "small steps" approach that creates big cultural shifts → Why equity drives business results, not just optics Celeste's new book "The Truth About Equity" + free Audible vouchers available at crwdiversity.com Stream now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast platform - https://lnkd.in/g-pxvKEN Watch on Youtube - https://lnkd.in/emEEaaJ7 #Leadership #EquityInBusiness #CorporateLeadership #ExecutiveInsights #WorkplaceInclusion #BusinessStrategy #PeopleManagement #DEI #TalentDevelopment #OrganizationalCulture

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Day 3 of SXSW Innovation brought some in-your-face realities of AI to the forefront and emphasized the power of human connection and choice to shift profound grief and uncertainty into a hopeful way forward. 💡 A key personal takeaway for me is how lonely and disrupted everyone is feeling right now. We can respond by having personal self-regulation practices in place, building human support systems, and collectively recognizing how we want to move forward with AI in ways that make life better for humans. Intentional, ethical, and strategic choices on how we invest our time, money, and attention are key. ⚡️Futurist Amy Webb announced her shift from tracking top tech trends to convergences, which are focused on systems-level realities moving toward us instead of single trends. As she walked us through current human augmentation like performance pants and AI beds and the coming lights-out industrialization, where bots run all steps of manufacturing, there was an overwhelming sense of the unsustainable capitalism and the human and nature disconnection we're facing. She shared the data realities of the emotional outsourcing we're doing with friendship, romance, therapy, and religion to AI. We are extremely alone, and our emotional demands exceed our available human community connections. This was not a doom and gloom prediction but a reality check that how we as a global society choose to use our time and attention, and the decisions we make individually and organizationally matter more than ever right now. *Check out the new "Convergence Outlook 2026" report just released for full info. My personal commitments walking away are: 1- to do an audit on the amount of stuff I'm purchasing each month, 2 - to invest in community-oriented connection and building connection in workspaces through my work, and 3 - to refrain from emotional outsourcing to AI, seek human support and personal practices for this, and continue to implement guardrails around use. 🎨 Artist Tom Sachs shared about the importance of output before input each morning. Before looking at his phone to take in info, he journals or creates pottery. He shared the importance of a lifetime commitment to learning a practice like sculpting a teacup each day. This same principle is true in leadership. We never arrive as a great leader but commit to continuing to learn and develop through practice. 🏕 Grief Summer Camp leaders Sara Deren and Dan Wolfson led an interactive workshop on grief. They brilliantly created a safe space to reveal how much grief we all carry and the importance of community connection to walk through that grief. I was reminded how much power we can have as leaders to support people in hard times just by holding space for what they're feeling and being willing to listen. #leadership #convergence #choice #connection

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Thank you Ashley S. Brooks for sharing your story and insights on adaptive leadership. Our ability to stay open, aware, and willing to evolve is critical to thriving in our ever changing world. #adaptiveleadership #rva #podcast

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I recently had the opportunity to host an insightful Amazon Talks interview with the founding Director of the Yale Center of EQ and best-selling author Dr. Marc Brackett, alongside my amazing co-host Eronda SPHR, Esq., discussing his new book "Dealing with Feeling." Here are three powerful takeaways: 1. Emotional regulation is a lifestyle, not just a crisis tool: Effective regulation can't be something we practice only in the heat of the moment. It must be integrated into our lives throughout our waking hours, becoming not just something we do, but who we are - through consistent practices like mindful breathing, healthy self-talk, and intentional reflection. 2. Co-regulation is a powerful skill: It's about intentionally guiding another person's emotions with warmth, empathy, and strategies - not just reacting. The sweet spot lies in neither ignoring nor over-identifying with others' emotions, but finding constructive ways to support their growth. 3. Precision in emotional labeling matters: What we often lump together as "stress" can actually be distinct emotions requiring different strategies: - Anxiety = uncertainty about the future - Stress = too many demands, too few resources - Pressure = outcomes dependent on our behavior - Fear = presence of danger - Overwhelmed = emotional saturation Understanding these distinctions helps us choose more effective regulation strategies for ourselves and others. Which of these resonates most with you? How do you integrate emotional regulation into your daily life?

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Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion Webinar: August 28, 2025: Interview with Paolo Gaudiano, Founder & Chief Scientist, Aleria (PBC) https://lnkd.in/gJBJX_HG In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Paolo Gaudiano (https://lnkd.in/ga32_GAX), Founder & Chief Scientist at Aleria (https://www.aleria.tech/) to unpack how measuring day-to-day workplace experiences, rather than headcounts or vague culture scores, translates inclusion into business outcomes. Gaudiano traces his path from computational neuroscience and complexity modeling to a 2015 “lightbulb moment” that led him to build simulations and tools showing how inclusion lifts productivity and retention, and how focusing on diversity alone can spark backlash. He outlines the premise of his 2024 book Measuring Inclusion: Higher Profits and Happier People, Without Guesswork or Backlash, and makes the practical case for aligning inclusion with financial performance rather than sentiment. Aleria Dr. Kirk Adams Access Information News

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Meredith Pasekoff-Dinitz, ICF ACC and I share our takeways from the Career Thought Leaders Symposium in our latest 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑷𝒐𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒕. 💎 Find what your differentiator is and try not to be everything to everyone. You get lost in the sea of mediocrity. 💎 AI is and will create new jobs and not every job is in IT. There will be a need for accounting, finance, sales, operations, construction, trades, and many other roles across these emerging technologies. 💎 Being a leader does not mean you need to be in the boardroom. Position yourself with not only technical capabilities but to also find ways to solve problems, improve a process, or being a "go-to" person. 🎙️ 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐭: https://lnkd.in/edSHmUqX If you are looking to transition in your career, connect with me on how I can coach you to move forward with clarity and to provide you with the branding documents. #CareerThoughtLeaders #CareerCoach #Skilledtrades #Professionals

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tl;dr: If you’re a founder, executive, or manager and you’ve ever thought “I need to talk with someone but my therapist/friends/long-suffering life partner hasn't ever truly dealt with these kind of business challenges,” or "omg I do not want to have this conversation," you probably could use an executive coach. I didn't know what they were until I started working with one at the recommendation of another start-up founder, so if the idea is foreign to you, you're not alone. I made a matchmaking site to connect you with the right coach for your personality/needs: https://newcoachmatch.com Longer version: I’ve worked with coaches on and off throughout my career, and it was especially helpful when I was running a startup — managing my own confidence, dealing with investors, and having difficult conversations I would otherwise avoid. (I’m conflict-avoidant by nature, so… coaching helped.) This is not life coaching. It’s executive coaching focused on leadership, entrepreneurship, and real work situations. I built this because I kept seeing two things at the same time: 1. Business leaders who could really use a neutral, skilled thought partner 2. Coaches who need real-world experience to complete certification hours, but don’t have a good way to find clients What I kept seeing instead was coaches posting in industry groups asking to trade coaching hours with other coaches, which feels… not ideal for anyone. How can they get real-world experience working with real people facing real, on-the-job problems? So I made a small matchmaking site. You fill out what you’re looking for, and it suggests coach matches. Right now, there are only two coaches on the platform — me (for testing) and a friend (Tara Robertson, CPCC, PCC) who is actually very experienced and generously helping me test this. I’m intentionally starting by getting people seeking coaching on first. Once there are ~20 founders, executives, or managers on the platform, I’ll open it up more broadly to coaches. A few important expectations to set: - The matchmaking is free - Coaching itself happens outside the platform - This is not a business and I don’t plan to monetize it - This is about making it easier for the right people to find each other If you’ve ever thought about working with a coach but didn’t know where to start, this might be useful.

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In the latest episode of the #VisibilityFactorPodcast, we dive deep into the concept of resilience with Tissa Richards. Tissa shares her journey from a tech founder to a thought leader in resilience, emphasizing the shift from reactive to intentional resilience. Her new book, "Rethinking Resilience," challenges traditional definitions and offers a fresh perspective on building readiness and steadiness in leadership that creates a competitive advantage for companies. Discover how micro-moments and intentional innovation can transform pressure into power. Here are some of the key highlights: ➡️ Redefining Resilience Tissa challenges the traditional definition of resilience, advocating for a shift from reactive resilience to intentional resilience, where readiness and steadiness are key. (see the video below where Tissa shares her thoughts on this topic!) ➡️ From Tech Founder to Thought Leader Tissa shares her personal journey from being a tech founder to becoming a thought leader in resilience, highlighting the importance of aligning with one's values and making intentional choices. ➡️ Habits are Key - She emphasizes the power of small, intentional actions in building resilience and transforming organizational culture. ➡️ The Resilience Flywheel - A model comprising seven dimensions starting that leaders can use to build a culture of intentional resilience. This model emphasizes the importance of micro-moments and continuous improvement, allowing teams to adapt and thrive in a dynamic environment. ➡️ Competitive Advantage through Innovation - Tissa discusses how intentional resilience can be a strategic advantage, enabling leaders and organizations to innovate and seize opportunities even amidst challenges. ➡️ Turning Pressure into Power - How leaders can transform the pressures of decision-making into a source of power by fostering clarity, confidence, and a proactive mindset. 🌟 Thank you so much for coming on the show again Tissa Richards! Love your energy and passion for everything that you do! ⬇️ See the comments below to follow her and learn more about her amazing background, books and work with companies. ⬇️ Links below to listen and watch this episode. Listen to episode 58 also where Tissa spoke about her first amazing book, "No Permission Needed." 🌟 Share with anyone who would benefit from this episode! #Leadership #RethinkingResilience #Innovation

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Episode 3 of True Voice Unfiltered features the amazing Kristin Slanina: MIT engineer, C-Suite executive, and author of the bestselling book, Shifting Gears: 7 Power Moves to Design a Life You Love, Grow Your Career, and Lead With Impact. In this clip from the interview, Kristin tells the story of her Paris adventure as a young college student - before smartphones, Google maps and Uber. She also takes about the importance of immersion and making the effort. #KristinSlanina #ShiftingGears #WomenInLeadership #WomenInSTEM #MITEngineer #CareerGrowth #LeadershipDevelopment #CLevelExecutive #TrueVoiceUnfiltered

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🎧 NEW EPISODE: "Why Culture Beats Performance Every Time" Just dropped my conversation with Lauren Dunn, SHRM-SCP, Chief People Officer at Wiss —and it completely reframes how we think about building high-performing teams. Here's what hit me most: Lauren moved to WISS while six months pregnant and found leadership that understood her as a complete human being, not just an employee. That experience now shapes how she's designing a workplace culture for 300+ people. The key insights that stood out: 🧠 Mindfulness as Strategy: WIS runs meditation sessions for 60+ employees and integrates mindfulness into DEI training. It's not wellness theater—it's practical resilience building. 📊 Data with Humanity: Instead of just tracking charge hours, they're giving employees dashboards that show PTO usage, continuing education, and performance—then having adult conversations about what the data means. 🤖 AI Anxiety Solution: Their approach to technological change? Transparent communication and education, not fear-based mandates. 💡 The Culture-First Paradox: Lauren's conviction that culture must come before performance seems backwards until you realize it's the only thing that sustains results long-term. What resonated most was her story about mentoring a restaurant employee living in a shed who became a sous chef. That same "see the potential before they do" philosophy now drives how WISS develops talent. The conversation challenges the assumption that high performance requires grinding people down. Instead, it shows what's possible when you treat people like complete humans first. Worth a listen if you're questioning whether there's a better way to lead through change. 🎧 Listen wherever you get podcasts or click here: https://lnkd.in/gx464u9b What's your take—does culture really have to come before performance? #Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #PeopleFirst #LeadingMindsRevealed #PodcastEpisode

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In this powerful episode of the Minute Mastery Podcast, time management coach Ngozi Edema interviews Anna Gomez—author of Somewhere Along the Way and CFO at Mischief. Anna shares how her personal experiences with mental health inspired her fiction, and how she prioritizes creativity in a high-level executive role. Perfect for: ✔️ Aspiring writers ✔️ Women balancing career & creativity ✔️ Anyone turning personal pain into purpose. https://lnkd.in/gXup88rq

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Reframing Leadership Through Consent and Curiosity In this insightful episode of Reframe for Resilience, I speak with Jessica Katz, CEO of Poly Labor and founder of Liberated Elephant. Jessica shares her powerful journey of reframing—from being passed over for a promotion to becoming a leader and advocate for consent-based leadership. She unpacks how setting boundaries, fostering mutual respect, and encouraging psychological safety within teams can radically transform workplace culture. Jessica’s real-world examples and bold vulnerability offer leaders a new model for productivity: one grounded not in command-and-control, but in curiosity, consent, and collaboration. Key Topics • What is consent-based leadership? • The emotional toll of being passed over for promotion • How values misalignment can drive career change • The power of curiosity-led leadership • How leadership behaviors influence team dynamics • Practical habits for inclusive and empowering leadership • Shifting from DEI to EIIE (Equity, Inclusion, Individual Engagement) #Equity #Inclusion #EquityandInclusion #EIIE #WorkplaceCulture #InclusiveLeadership #WomenInLeadership #InspirationDaily #Meharry #ReframeforResilience #SafeHavenDialoguesLLC

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What if confidence isn’t something you have — but something you practice? This question guided my latest conversation on Transformative Leadership Conversations with Angela Stopper, Ph.D. Chief Learning Officer at UC Berkeley. Angela brings a powerful lens to the topic of confidence that every leader should hear: Confidence isn’t a personality trait. It’s a skill — one you can build. In our conversation, Angela breaks down confidence into six learnable competencies and reframes it as something that grows through intentional practice, not perfection. Here are a few insights that stayed with me: 📌 Confidence is not fixed — it strengthens through repeated behaviors. 📌 A clear framework (courage, expertise, self-awareness, self-development, resilience, adaptability) makes confidence achievable and authentic. 📌 Comparison erodes confidence; self-awareness anchors it. 📌 Courage is the connector between confidence and leadership — acting despite fear, not without it. 📌 Mistakes don’t diminish confidence; they build it when we learn from them. 📌 Role models inspire, but they shouldn’t define your version of confidence. Angela’s perspective makes confidence feel both accessible and actionable — something any leader can cultivate, no matter your starting point. Where in your leadership would growing your confidence make the biggest difference right now? If this resonates, listen to the full episode and share your reflections. And thank you Angela for being on the show!!

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Thank you to Volcano Summit for the assignment, and to Gabriela Genovese and Victoria Costa Paz for the sparks and conversation. The assignment: "Psychedelics are rapidly emerging as pivotal forces—not only for personal healing and expanded awareness, but also as catalysts for profound business innovation and leadership transformation. This intimate conversation explores the dual frontier: how these powerful compounds can unlock internal resources like empathy, presence, and intuitive clarity for leaders, while simultaneously breaking old paradigms in biotech and catalyzing new, regenerative industries. We'll dive into the actionable practices that support leaders in greater alignment and purpose, whether utilizing these medicines or accessing similar states through other means. Simultaneously, we will examine the ground-breaking business models and regulatory frameworks shaping this evolving field—from the ethical scaling of pharmaceutical-grade compounds to designing distributed, culture-attuned approaches that redefine mental health access across borders. Join us to understand how founders and teams can cultivate resilience, creativity, and conscious leadership while navigating, and ultimately, shaping the future of this transformative economy."

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What is #SpaciousMode in the workplace? Read now ... 👉 ️https://conta.cc/4lnCPNx In a recent Harvard Business Review, Distinguished Fellows John Higgins & Megan Reitz shared their research results on the concept of encouraging Spacious Modes. Their research showed that Spacious Mode leads to critical benefits in the workplace, such as gaining insight into challenges, thinking strategically, spotting opportunities, building relationships, and sparking joy and motivation. Their research points to 3 behaviors of leaders and managers who enable their teams in this way. Read what they are in this edition of #GlobalFoodserviceNews, plus tons of other essential information! Read now ... 👉 ️https://conta.cc/4lnCPNx #leadership #foodservice #businesstips

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