Position:
Chief Strategist & Director of Equity, Inclusion & Systemic Change, the Other Bets
Company:
Alphabet Inc.
Bio:
Salima leads, partners with and enables the Bets, Alphabets’ start up Moonshot companies (Waymo, Sidewalk Labs, Acces-Fiber, X, Cap G, Wing, Verily, GV, Intrinsic) to achieve equity, inclusion and diversity (EID) through systemic transformations. She becomes a key partner to stakeholders, including CEOs and their executive teams to design and execute long term, sustainable and operational EID strategies and plans that align to and also inform their organizational and business maturity, goals and objectives. Salima sets the Bets up to focus on high impact areas of change that will not only achieve real EID outcomes for their employees, but also shape the design and effect of their technologies on the world.
She came to Alphabet as an award-winning EID practitioner of 23 years having worked in the public, private, international and academic sectors. Some highlights of her work include: Remodeling government resourcing channels to address racial profiling and structural racism. Working in the global south, leading efforts on women’s human rights through NGOs. Creating racial and gender equity policy frameworks for large-scale institutions. Prior to her role at Alphabet she was the CEO and Founder of Relational, a global consulting firm empowering companies and organizations on the path of EID.
Over the decades, Salima has consistently stepped into her role as a social transformation leader, innovator and equity polymath, committed to human centered change. Her “secret” sauce as an EID expert comes from merging her praxis as an organizational systemic change designer, advocate, strategist, researcher, educator, coach and consultant.
In addition to her professional background, she brings academic rigor to her EID practice with a PhD focusing on transforming racial and gender exclusion between communities and institutions. A Master in Environmental Studies examining public sphere representations of women of color. A Bachelor of Education and Honors Bachelors in Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies.