Alison McDermott

Alison McDermott is an expert in Inclusion and Diversity and has worked for a range of blue-chip clients helping them to advance their diversity strategy and practices. Her pragmatism, experience and passion for what she does creates motivation and change in others. She has a very warm, engaging style and clients rate her great sense of humour as one of her core competencies.

A graduate in German and International Relations, Alison has always been interested in other people and cultures and is very accustomed to working at both UK and European Board level. She has over 18 years experience of HR Management and worked as one of the first ever European Diversity Managers at Hewlett Packard. At 31, she was one of the youngest people ever to be appointed as a Fellow to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. This arose due to the success of a far-reaching Diversity Change Programme at Hewlett-Packard, resulting in a personal commendation from the Worldwide CEO.

Alison now works with businesses to harness their diverse talents and open their eyes to the business benefits of Inclusion and Diversity. As an independent consultant, Alison has worked in delivering strategic diversity programmes in Boots, Barclays and Kellogg’s, and is currently very actively involved with Cisco Systems, providing a range of consulting services and support to the European Diversity Director. Her innovations have included Strategy Development, Organisational Audits, Diversity Coaching, Communications, Website Development, Gender Workshops and Analysis of Marketing from an I&D perspective amongst many other products and solutions.

Areas of expertise include:

Developing diversity and inclusion strategies
Harnessing talent
Creating more inclusive workforces
Increasing female engagement