Joe Santana
Chair of i4cp's Chief Diversity Officer Board
Joe Santana is driven to serve by a passion for developing high impact leaders. A former Siemens business executive and a former Siemens diversity officer, Joe is currently Chairman of the i4cp Chief Diversity Officer Board, CEO of Joseph Santana, LLC and a member of Faculty of Elevate at UC San Diego Rady School of Management.
Joe’s unique and highly effective approach as an executive group coach, consultant and educator are informed by his broad personal experience as a frontline business executive, which includes running a highly profitable, New York City-based, outsourcing business for Siemens Business Services where he increased profitability by leveraging the growing diversity in his workforce and job candidate pools. Later, appointed as Siemens’ first diversity officer, he applied his business and governance skills as the architect of the company’s rapidly successful 65,000-strong USA employee diversity and inclusion practice. His accomplishments in this role included launching a national governance organization; creating and implementing a D&I maturity and sustainability model; and establishing a platform that enabled the company to grow over 60 employee resource groups, three national networks, and 11 diversity councils closely linked to the business. In addition to increasing diversity, inclusion and engagement of the workforce, the business benefits that resulted from these efforts included increasing the company's ability to attract, secure and retain a growing portfolio of public business at both the federal and state levels as well as expanding on its already huge private client list.
In a parallel career as a thought-leading author, Joe also has written thousands of articles, including feature pieces for Diversity Executive Magazine and Insight into Diversity Magazine. Among his top area of focus were the personal development of diversity officers and employee group leaders. He has also has created insightful white papers and books that have been published in several languages across several continents, including Asia, Europe, and Africa. A sought-after speaker and media commentator, Joe has been quoted in numerous magazines and books, including Thomas Friedman’s 2005 bestseller The World is Flat.
