In the consulting profession, there has been a (gradually) growing sense that diversity is an important issue. Rather than waiting for that notion to be fleshed out, Tonie Leatherberry began guiding Deloitte Consulting toward a better understanding of diversity — and its value in the marketplace — three years ago. Although the effort is in its early stages, it has already achieved significant success. Largely due to the leadership of Leatherberry, a firm director, the National Black MBA Association presented its Silver Torch award to Deloitte U.S. firms. The award annually recognizes an organization or an individual who has made the greatest gains to promote equal opportunities that challenge and stimulate qualified minority professionals to prove themselves and advance in strategic positions within the organization.
Leatherberry, who regularly speaks on diversity at conferences put on by the Harvard Business School and other leading organizations, views diversity as a strategic catalyst that drives business growth through talent development. The view seems a natural outgrowth of her personal and intellectual passion, past contributions to Deloitte Consulting's longstanding women's initiative, her engineering background, and her current work in the field of corporate governance.
"When you look at the clients we're serving, you see how those clients are now demanding corporate board directors who are of a diverse background," Leatherberry notes. "Our clients are changing, and they are going to start to demand that the teams that serve them reflect how they are changing." Leatherberry is currently developing corporate governance educational programs designed for diverse executives who might one day become corporate board directors. The seeds of that effort were planted about three years ago, immediately after she was grilled by an external advisory board on the 10th anniversary of the firm's women's initiative.
Deloitte Consulting Chairman and CEO Doug Lattner approached Leatherberry after the hearing and asked about the firm's approach to racial and ethnic diversity. Her response was twofold: She suggested that the issue be kept separate from gender diversity and emphasized that it was a much more complex issue.
Complex problems have fascinated Leatherberry since her engineering days on the client side, before she returned to school for an MBA degree and then joined Deloitte Consulting. This allure more recently drove her into the firm's governance and compliance practice.
"Governance is not just about the finance organization — it's enterprise-wide and it crosses all industries," she explains. "That sweeping impact forces all of my knowledge of business process, technology, and human interaction to come together to address the governance and compliance challenges clients face."
Taking a page from her governance consulting, Leatherberry maintains a board of mentors, which consists of different sets of individuals inside and outside the firm who help her reflect on decisions that affect and drive her professional development. She is also a member of numerous mentor boards within Deloitte Consulting, coaching the firm's future leaders on their own development.
Not coincidentally, the firm's most recent annual people commitment survey, which she also helped to develop, indicates that Deloitte Consulting's commitment to diversity and inclusion is earning high marks.
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