Dereca Blackmon

Dereca Blackmon is a passionate speaker, trainer and facilitator and national expert on topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. For over 25 years she has consulted with a wide variety of corporate, educational, nonprofit and community-based groups to facilitate “uncommon conversations” on issues of race, gender, class and social justice. Her experiential training models cut through “diversity fatigue” and allow participants to engage in deep, authentic and meaningful dialogues.

She currently serves as the Assistant Vice Provost and Executive Director of the Diversity and First Generation Office at Stanford University where she has introduced groundbreaking work on authentic engagement, intergroup dialogue, and first-generation and low-income student support services. She co-teaches Intergroup Communications with cultural psychology pioneer, Prof. Hazel Markus as well as Solidarity and Racial Justice, and Advanced Facilitation Skills.

Ms. Blackmon and her team have trained over 10,000 staff, students and faculty at Stanford as well as highly popular sessions at universities, conferences and corporations nationwide. This year, they launched their Engaging Difference Framework an innovative model of inclusion practices and principles rooted in intervention research at Stanford and beyond.

Her training, activism and youth development work have been featured in two books: Black Youth Rising by Dr. Shawn Ginwright; and Learning to Liberate by Dr. Vajra Watson and cited in countless national forums including The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The New York Times.