Speakers

Lawyer, change agent and culture builder, Valerie Kennedy’s professional career has spanned the business, higher education, and government sectors. Currently, she serves as the Chief Diversity Officer in the Office of the District Attorney, Bronx County where she sits on the office’s AI Policy Review Committee. She is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Technology has been a constant thread in her career. As a legislative counsel to the late Congressman Tim Valentine, the ranking member on the Congressional Technology Committee, Valerie, who grew up in the Research Triangle Park area, focused on legislative policymaking in health care generally and its intersection with technology with an emphasis on rural areas. She also worked closely with leaders in the pharmaceutical industry on key legislative imperatives and policy imperatives related to diagnostics, ethical testing, diversifying clinical trials, and pricing.

Following her time on Capitol Hill, Valerie served as a senior lobbyist for Switzerland-based Hoffmann-La Roche Pharmaceuticals focused on issues pertaining to the Roche Diagnostics division, which developed at home and on-site technologies for clinical testing, and lobbying for its Pharma Division.

Upon leaving Washington DC, to head to New York City, closer to Roche’s headquarters, Valerie pivoted to the law firm sector and worked on series of high-profile matters such as the MCI-WorldCom litigation and the Time Warner-HBO merger through positions at Skadden Arps and Cravath, Swaine and Moore.

Her experience prepared her well for an in-house role at CUNY as Counsel to the President and Chief of Staff at its Medgar Evers College. In that role, she reviewed academic integrity and data privacy policies, oversaw institutional and EEO compliance, labor, and employment issues. She worked closely with the legal technology team and was a member of academic technology work group.

After her tenure with CUNY, Valerie served as an appointee to the Mayor’s Office of Appointments under the De Blasio administration overseeing diversity matters. In that capacity, she worked closely with the Mayor’s Office of Data and Analytics on reports focused on DEI analytics for city agencies. She then moved to the New York City Economics Development Corporation as its first diversity chief where she worked with a range of teams from the Real Estate, Technology, and Strategic Investments groups on how to integrate equity principles into operational and strategic functions.

She has presented at numerous workshops and panel presentations on how to adopt a more operationally focused approach to DEI based on organizational values, workforce analytics, ethics, and a professionally responsible culture. Valerie is an honors graduate of Brown University and received her law degree from the University of North Carolina.