DIAN Decade Episode 9: The Future of D&I, According to a Futurist

DIAN Decade Thought Leadership Podcast Series features a number of leading D&I experts that we have worked with over the years with Asian market knowledge. Each podcast will address a different topic, depending on the expertise of the featured expert.

Futurist, Margaret Regan, looks at how closely current trends have reflected her predictions as well as where she expects the fast-changing nature of the workplace and the marketplace to lead us. She further explores the future of diversity and inclusion and its implications for business leaders and D&I professionals.  

President and CEO, The FutureWork Institute

Margaret Regan is the President and CEO of The FutureWork Institute, a global consulting firm that translates future trends to transform organizations. Operating on five continents, The FutureWork Institute is a certified women-owned business (WBE) that serves as an incubator of innovation and change in addressing current and future workplace and marketplace issues. Its focus is on helping clients achieve a MindShift, a HeartShift and a SkillShift in creating a more inclusive and flexible work environment.

In her global work, Margaret has studied human resource practices in Japan, keynoted generational conferences in Asia and North America, worked in Paris on French-American mergers and global diversity summits, educated executive teams on cross-cultural differences, and conducted women's studies in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia. She has led projects that conducted employee research, focus groups and training in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Bangalore, Beijing, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Sydney, Mexico City, Frankfurt, London, Paris and other major cities.

Margaret was formerly a Partner and the Global Diversity Practice Leader for Towers Perrin, where she founded the diversity and work/life practices and led those practices, as well as the Global Reinventing HR Practice and the Global Human Capital Management Practice. In her earlier career, she was the first woman executive at two organizations. Margaret is also the Chair of the International MultiCultural Institute (iMCI).

Margaret has appeared on NBC-TV's Today Show, CBS This Morning, NBC Nightly News, and CNN, to comment on emerging workforce trends. She has been frequently quoted in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the South China Morning Post. She is featured on Close-Up TV as the CEO of "one of the most innovative businesses in the US," in Diversity Journal as a pioneer of the profession, in CNN/Money Magazine as the expert on future workplace trends and in Business Week for FWI's creative approach to "my-job my-way", "my-business our way" and "my perks my-way." Recently, she was awarded the Promise of Diversity Innovation Award for these innovative approaches to work and for her ground-breaking work on diversity education in the virtual world.

Margaret received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Brooklyn College, CUNY and completed her doctoral work at Fordham University.

Margaret Regan | FutureWork Institute | LinkedIn

We are grateful to Sean Gu from AudioLabHK for their production support.