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Photography by Kourosh Keshiri

JANE ALLEN

Chief Diversity Officer and Partner, Deloitte

WHAT SETS HER APART

Jane led or participated in client engagements worth $10 million in sales in the past year

Developed Deloitte’s 2020 talent strategy for enhancing diversity

Jane is a member of the Board of the Energy Council of Canada and the National Ballet of Canada

HER CHAMPION

Jason Winkler, Managing Partner, Talent, Deloitte Canada

From Jason Winkler

As told to Rhea Seymour

Jane and I once worked together on a big proposal for a large client, and they asked us for a meeting right after Canada Day. Jane had to mobilize the partners to work through the entire long weekend. It was up to the partners whether they were going to work or not….you don’t do that for many people. But Jane’s really good at pulling in people from a range of places, explaining why you should do it and what’s in it for you. She was there the whole weekend rolling up her sleeves to get stuff done. She’s not a distant, hands-off leader.

Jane spends about 50 percent of her time as Deloitte’s Chief Diversity Officer (she spends the other 50 percent consulting on strategy and business performance to energy clients). When we were filling the role six years ago, we wanted someone who lived and breathed the client service experience, with that credibility, rather than someone from human resources. And we were looking for a person who “walked the talk” in supporting diversity. There weren’t many people who struck that balance.

After Jane won the role, she had a position to fill in the diversity group. It was a small team and she wanted to make sure it wasn’t just women, that it represented the whole firm. She considered the importance of introducing diversity of thought and back­ground into the all-female group. In the end, she made the decision to hire a man who was really passionate about diversity. That was her way of leading by example.

We’ll only really appreciate Jane’s impact on Deloitte three to five years down the road because diversity is slow, long-term change, but Jane’s not afraid to be the Jiminy Cricket conscience and ask hard questions.

As Chief Diversity Officer, she led a rig­orous analysis to figure out why our balance was off in terms of gender. That analysis was the first time Deloitte shined a light on that. It showed us that our promotion levels were slightly lower for women than men and it was really about our senior hires: when a man or woman left a senior role, the replacement rate was 7- or 8-to-1 for men over women. It was a breakthrough, and without Jane’s analysis we wouldn’t have gotten there.