Lori Nishiura Mackenzie

Lori Nishiura Mackenzie is a speaker, researcher and change agent in diversity, equity and inclusion. She is co-founder of the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, which creates impact research to understand the barriers to women’s advancement in order to build more inclusive workplaces and empower change agents. In her work, Lori fosters a “small wins” approach to change by supporting people to take bold yet doable actions.

Lori is a keynote speaker to a wide range of audiences, from executive teams to women’s summits. Lori was featured as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2017, and she was interviewed for the award-winning documentary, bias, which premiered in 2018. Her work has been published in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, BBC, San Francisco Chronicle, and brand eins. In 2020, Lori was awarded the CEDAW Human Rights Award, Education, from the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women. Prior to her current roles, Lori served as the executive director of the Stanford Clayman Institute for Gender Research. Lori brings 20 years of marketing strategy and business management experience at companies including Procter & Gamble, Apple, eBay and PayPal. She is a board member of the Alliance for Girls and Watermark and an advisor to the Center for Institutional Courage and Women’s Startup Lab. She has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. She is sheltering in place with her partner, a teenager, and two dogs, while gardening with renewed vigor.