Q.

How would you define diversity and inclusion?

Diversity goes hand-in-hand with inclusion and one should not be talked about without the other.   Diversity is the many unique backgrounds and skill sets that make us each who we are.  Inclusion is the work environment that allows each of us to realise our potential to the fullest. It is not enough to bring diverse people into the organisation, it is important to make sure that they are valued and encouraged to be themselves.

Q.

Do you believe that businesses are just ticking the boxes for compliance rather than realising the enormous business benefits of true inclusion?  

It is extremely vital that diversity in organisations be based solidly upon a business case.  In HP, our approach to diversity is based upon the company core value of “trust & respect for individuals”, which has been in HP since the founding of the company over 60 years ago.  From there, the HP business case is very much focused on meeting customer needs in a global, diverse marketplace, ensuring our workforce mirrors our customers, and that HP is a company of choice for all talent.  We also know that greater diversity and inclusion drive creativity, which leads to business success in the future.

Q.

What do you believe are the barriers to diversity and inclusion within business life today?  

One of the challenges I see is the balancing of global and local diversity approaches. For a company based in the US, the pitfall could be rolling out US-based diversity programmes assuming that these apply globally. That usually isn't the case. In HP, we have struck a balance of having a global diversity foundation with metrics and still allowing the flexibility at the country level to address the diversity issues relevant locally.

Biography

Lisa Kepinski is the Diversity & Inclusion Director for HP in EMEA. In this role, she is responsible for working with the extended Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) senior leadership team to drive HP’s commitment to diversity forward in the region. Her role includes working inside HP EMEA across all Business Units, countries, and sub-regions; participating on the external circuit to represent HP in culture & diversity-related speaking and paneling activities; and acting as the EMEA spokesperson on culture and diversity towards the media.

Lisa has been with HP for nearly 10 years and brings deep diversity expertise to the role from her 8 years plus in diversity related functions. In recent years, Lisa’s main focus has been to lay a solid infrastructure for achieving key diversity results in each country & sub-region in EMEA. Lisa also participates in benchmarking Culture & Diversity programmes, focused on many dimensions of diversity including the “hiring, development and retention of women”, “male diversity”, “disability”, “sexual orientation” and “age”.

Her recent successes in this role include the implementation of a regional Diversity & Inclusion strategy; the driving support of more than 20 country and business Diversity & Inclusion champions and their action plans; the design and launching of diversity awareness events; the development of over 20 diversity networks, most with special focus on developing top female talent; and substantial increase of internal awareness and communication around this important topic.

Before joining HP, Lisa had prior experience in public relations for the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman, educational design, and as a university lecturer in the US and Poland. In the early 1980’s during the transformation in Eastern Europe, Lisa was a Fulbright Scholar to Poland.

Lisa currently lives in Brussels, Belgium.

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