Veza Global

Manpreet Dhillon has been doing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) work since 2005, “before it was a field,” says the founder and CEO of Veza Global. Dhillon, who was previously a human resources consultant, launched her Vancouver-based company in 2017 after coaching women from culturally diverse backgrounds who faced challenges moving into leadership and entrepreneurial roles. “I realized that the work we're doing is a lot bigger than just me, so I needed to grow a team,” she says.

Veza helps organizations integrate EDI into their supply chains, products, programs, marketing and customer interactions. So far, the 10-member team has worked with 28 B.C. and 11 global clients, often in long-term engagements. Veza's past customers include local network HR Tech Group, Vancouver agtech firm

Terramera and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

For HR Tech Group, Veza created a resource hub to help its 175 members with their EDI efforts. After auditing 16 B.C. tech companies, the company built one of the only assessment tools for measuring EDI from an organizational rather than an employee perspective.

Veza also developed a program for the Immigrant Employment Council of B.C. that helps skilled immigrants who lack Canadian work experience advance their careers. The initiative, which launched in early 2020, “is geared to get them to a place of having the confidence to look at their transferable skills, so that they're prepared for the interviews, they're prepared for getting a job in the field that they were in,” Dhillon says.

This year will be about EDI accountability, she predicts–and that's where Veza's assessment tool comes in. “We're getting version 2.0 out there because more and more people are looking at different ways of measurement and how to hold companies accountable.”