The CEO Activist

6Breathe in Courage, Breathe Out Fear

One of the true joys of doing the work that I do, and leading DIAL Global, isn't just the outward-facing work, where I work with CEOs, diversity leaders, and people leaders to make their organisations a better place for people to thrive, but often the inner work I get to do on myself when I'm personally inspired by incredible leaders.

One of the women who have taught me so much is Tami Erwin, former Executive Vice President and Group CEO for Verizon Business, now Board Director NYSE, Xerox, John Deere, F5, York and Skylo. She's had a phenomenal career, spanning multiple years of experience in Global Fortune 500 companies, and is a passionate advocate for diversity, inclusion, belonging, and equity and has recently championed multiple initiatives across the board including Verizon's Women's CoLabs, through to a focus on women during the pandemic through to really diving deep into some of the challenges and opportunities within STEM for diverse communities.

And impressive though that sounds, I've barely scratched the surface. Luckily, I've been honoured to spend a lot of time in her company and wanted to bring her story to you.

Tami's Story

“I grew up in a small agricultural community north of Seattle. My father was a physician, but I really thought he was a farmer. So we did a little bit of farming and we did a lot of caregiving in the community in which we lived. I think it was there that I really was grounded to the importance of compassion ...