Worcester Business Journal

12 Worcester Business Journal | September 16, 2024 | wbjournal.com F O C U S D I V E R S I T Y & I N C LU S I O N Aer a previous offer was rejected, Worcester is close to filling its long-vacant chief equity officer role, which was restructured to provide better support to diversity, equity, and inclusion effots e search for sustainable change BY MICA KANNER-MASCOLO WBJ Staff Writer T he City of Worcester's chief diversity officer position has been vacant for nearly two and a half years, a timeframe longer than any individual has held the role since its creation in 2016. In fact, the longest any of the City's three former CDO's stayed in the posi- tion was two years and two months, and all previous CDOs have kept tight-lipped regarding their experiences in the role, rarely speaking with the press, if ever. Still, a new candidate may soon be filling the open C-suite position under its new title of chief equity officer, as Worcester Assistant City Manager Hung Nguyen said he expects the position will be filled within the next couple of months. Following a declined offer in January, Nguyen said the City's search for a chief equity officer is far along. e City's internal human resources department has been reviewing applications from across the country with input from organizations including Black Families Together, a Worcester-based collaborative group aimed at ad- dressing systemic and institutional racism within the community. For a city as large and diverse as Worcester, filling the city's vacant po- sition is a critical endeavor, said Jessica Pepple, chief diversity and culture officer at RFK Community Alliance in Lan- caster. "We need to recognize that with diver- sity comes diverse perspectives. And with diverse perspectives, people may not have the bandwidth to understand those perspectives, those different lived experiences, and the different forms of oppressions. at's a lot. It's continuous, and it's going," Pepple said. Of the three former Worcester CDO's, Malika Carter and Stephanie Williams declined to comment for this story. Suja Chacko could not be reached. A structural shift Renaming the former chief diversity officer position to chief equity officer, a change announced in 2023, was a decision made to more effectively communicate the principle objective of the role, said Nguyen. "We felt that word equity is a lot more appropriate here. It's a lot more meaningful to what we're trying to really do, as opposed to having somebody who just is solely focused on diversity," he said. "We wanted to make it a point that, 'No, this person's a lot more than just diversity and somebody who is the champion of fairness and our processes.'" e executive title shi came in tandem with an overall reorganization of the City's Executive Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, an effort spearhead- ed by City Manager Eric Batista to lay down the structure to best ensure the success of the fourth incoming exec- utive. Batista said in September 2022 he did not want to hire for the position until the changes were in place. e new chief equity officer will oversee eight fellow department mem- bers as the City's divisions of human rights; investigations; and training and development have been ushered under the EODEI. "As opposed to having somebody come in and again say 'Hey, good luck. You have to look at all these policies, you have to do training and develop- ment, you have to investigate, and, by the way, you don't have an office. You don't have any kind of staff. You would have to figure that out too.' We wanted to make sure that we built the foundation first, and that takes a lot of time," said Nguyen. 'Buy-in from the top down' e high turnover in the former chief diversity officer position was somewhat related to the individuals in those roles, but the City needed to restructure the role in order to set the new hire up for success, said Worcester City Councilor Khrystian King. "You have to have a system in place that's really willing to do the work to change," King said. "ere has to be a buy-in from the top down … I think those folks had an opportunity to assess whether or not we as a city government [were] ready for the level of change nec- essary; and I don't think that we were, but I'm looking forward to us continuing to grow." King and Black Families Together had originally urged Worcester Mayor Jo- Jessica Pepple, chief diversity and culture officer at RFK Community Alliance Hung Nguyen, Worcester assistant city manager Worcester officials hope efforts to reorganize the City's Executive Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion will lead to a longer tenure for new chief equity officer. PHOTO | WBJ FILE

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