Christopher Johnson, Chief Diversity Officer at the law firm Frost Brown Todd. In his role, Chris partners with leaders, supporters and champions across the firm to conceptualize and implement leading edge strategies that advance the principles of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Belonging at Frost Brown Todd. Christopher is focused on new efforts and initiatives that both amplify and recalibrate DEI efforts in line with the evolving nature of successful strategy in this area. In line with his DEI 2.0 action plan proposed earlier this year, reimagining DEI leadership and structure to broaden DEI accountability and deepen DEI acumen across the whole of the firm, taking a fresh look at client and community engagement efforts and focusing on elevating champions and allies across the firm are key tasks. Another top priority is the creation of a more robust data infrastructure for tracking performance and enhancing transparency related to key DEI performance metrics.
Christopher believes the best practices driving success include leadership pipeline initiatives, Mansfield Rule certification, and participation in the critical external benchmarking indexes to gauge progress and calibrate future direction. He also promotes organization-wide professional development and DEI workshops as well as intentional commitments to exposing talent of all backgrounds to opportunities to learn and grow in their roles. To this end, several attorneys who are now DEI leaders and partners are alums of programs like the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, among other community and industry partners.
FAVORITE QUOTE: “We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.” — Max de Pree