Effenus Henderson

Effenus Henderson is President and CEO of HenderWorks, Inc. and Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. He served as Chief Diversity Officer for Weyerhaeuser Company, Federal Way, Washington until his retirement in December 2013. In this role he advised the CEO and senior management team on diversity, inclusion and affirmative action related matters. He has over 40 years of vexperience in a variety of human resources roles and responsibilities.

He is an internationally recognized diversity thought leader and has been invited by numerous companies and organizations to share his expertise. He has provided advisory support on diversity to the US Federal Government’s EPA office, Office of Personnel Management, US Forest Service, State Department and the USDA.

He has addressed members of the General Assembly of the United Nations on intercultural and interreligious diversity, and also addressed a high level panel of the Alliance of Civilizations in Madrid, Spain in 2008, Istanbul Turkey in 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2010 and Doha, Qatar in 2011. He was a keynote speaker at the 9th and 10th Forum at Fez Morocco (2012, 2013) and at the 2nd World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue held in Baku, Azerbaijan (2013). He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Dialogue Foundation, located in Melbourne, Australia.

He has served as Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Standards Project sponsored by the Society of Human Resources which will lead to national standards, approved by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in the areas of lead diversity professional competencies, diversity programs, and diversity metrics. In September 2016, he was named convener of the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee on Human Resources (TC 260), Working Group 8 to co-lead the development of global diversity and inclusion standards.

He has served on numerous boards including the International Society of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals (ISDIP) where he is a member of the founding board, the National Urban League Board where he has served as a national trustee and president of the Council of Affiliate Board Members. He is also a past chair of the Attrition Retention Consortium, a national group studying turnover trends in Corporate America. He has served as member of the Board of Advisors, School Business, Florida A&M University.