115: A conversation with Taisha Nurse, Global Senior Director, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, McDermott

ShownotesOn The Elephant in the Room podcast it has been my endeavour to spotlight leaders from the global majority. I recently had the privilege to speak with Taisha Nurse, Global Senior Director, Diversity Equity and Inclusion at McDermott. As a senior HR practitioner she has been responsible for building Centre’s of Excellence across multiple geographies before moving to her current role in 2020. A role she loves the most and believes that her various experiences have prepared her to navigate the web of challenges and opportunities she faces in the course of her work.The focus of the conversation was on an industry well known for its lack of diversity, and to her her views a female leader on all things DEIB/A. We covered many interesting topics including 👉🏾 The challenges to finding success in her DEIB/A role in an industry that isn’t traditionally recognised for gender diversity👉🏾 Cultural intelligence and steps to building an inclusive culture (one culture) in a global organisation👉🏾 The role of managers and leaders in building safe work spaces👉🏾 Her definition of leadership👉🏾 Measurement and evaluation of DEIB/A efforts in an organisationI name checked @Pamay Bassey when Taisha spoke about being a learner for life❤️❤️“It's probably my most favourite job in my 20 plus years is it definitely keeps me on my toes, but it allows me to stay in the sphere of being a learner for life. Every day, I'll have a conversation, I'll read something. I'll have an experience. And I think, wow, I didn't see it from that perspective. And so it's really putting me in a very open mindset. Even though I sometimes resist it, I want to be kind of in my comfort zone, but it puts me in this open mindset to see the world through someone else's eyes, when I'm thinking of a strategy, a campaign, the training that's required, being able to sit and think, okay, this is the audience, how are they going to receive it?”To listen to the episode, head to comments for Links 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾Episode TranscriptSudha: Thank you, Taisha, for being a guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast today. Wonderful to have you here. Taisha: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to today's dialogue with you. Sudha: Brilliant. So to start with give us a quick introduction to who you are and what you do. Taisha: So my name is Taisha Nurse.I am currently the global senior director of diversity and inclusion at McDermott. McDermott is a global engineering procurement construction and installation organisation. So we're in energy, let's say. But my background is I have over 25 years of HR experience. I am an American born, so I started my work experience in the US. However, only worked in the US for two years, I then transferred to London, still in investment banking. I've worked in the Caribbean in telecommunications and now at McDermott in energy for the last 10 years. I've worked across most of the centres of excellences in HR. So mobility, HRAS, compensation and benefits, recruitment, and also worked as an HR generalist.So the scope of my HR experience is quite broad, but I would probably say I'm