Biography

Alfred Ramirez is Principal Consultant/Owner of Diverse Strategies, where he develops diversity inclusion and recruitment and retention strategies for private, non-profit, and government entities. Provide training, coaching, focus groups, and group facilitation, in addition to community collaboration, leadership, program, and organizational development.t As a management consultant he specializes in developing and improving the impact of national, regional and local organizations and programs across diverse socio-economic arenas and constituencies. Through one-on-one training or in group settings, he specializes in creating or implementing diversity and inclusion strategies; recruitment and retention plans; and executive and organizational leadership development strategies. He is an expert at facilitating groups and meetings and organizing and managing focus groups. Helping forge successful partnerships between traditional and nontraditional partners, Mr. Ramirez is a frequent keynote speaker, trainer and facilitator for public and private organizations, businesses, K-12 schools, universities and communities nationwide that want a dynamic review of their current strategies and goals or to improve their performance in achieving their objectives. His areas of expertise include individual, community, and organizational leadership and capacity building; business development; multicultural diversity; program evaluation; public policy development; action research; and advocacy. Mr. Ramirez's abilities stem from leadership positions in a number of areas. In the Clinton Administration, he served as special assistant to the President as associate director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel; senior advisor at the Corporation for National Service; and executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. He achieved Senior Executive Service (SES# designation. Mr. Ramirez began his career as faculty adviser and assistant director of admissions and minority recruitment for Columbia University. He was special assistant to former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros and a corporate recruiter and human resource specialist at Transamerica. He developed young minority leaders as managing director for INROADS Los Angeles. He also directed a $3-million Mattel Foundation initiative to involve parents and community members in their schools. He served as president of the National Community for Latino Leadership, a national leadership organization in Washington, D.C., prior to being recruited to Iowa to serve as executive director of a non-profit corporate-government-educational-community partnership focusing on community-wide diversity and inclusion issues. He then worked as principal consultant for diversity initiatives at ACT, Inc. educational testing, and later, president of the Greater Quad Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GQCHCC). As Vice President of Government Relations and Diversity for Group O, a marketing, supply chain and packaging solutions optimization company, based in Milan, IL. Mr. Ramirez was responsible for identifying and developing key initiatives, relationships and opportunities across government, diversity and enterprise environments that aligned to and delivered on the company's business strategy and growth goals. As a key corporate leader, he managed and executed the programs and tactics to support existing and new strategic account development. A W.K. Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Fellow and a National Urban Fellow, he was selected as one of Hispanic Business Magazine's 100 Influentials and was selected by the Des Moines Register newspaper as one of Iowa's Top Influentials. His bachelor's degree in Political Science and Urban Studies is from Columbia University and his graduate studies are in Public Administration at Bernard M. Baruch College, City University of New York. He currently serves on the boards of the Illinois Governor's Business Enterprise Council, the national Community Training and Assistance Center CTAC, National Latino Children's Institute, the Johns Hopkins University Leadership Management Program, and the local Two Rivers YMCA and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He also served on the boards of Iowa Public Television, the Iowa College Access Network, the Academy for Educational Development (AED) New Voices Leadership Program, Iowa Commission of Latino Affairs and Linn County Non-Profit Resource Center, Cedar Rapids, IA. Originally from East Los Angeles, California, he currently resides in East Moline, Illinois.