Nikki Lanier Keynote Speaker

CEO & Founder of Harper Slade
Former Federal Reserve Executive
Named 2025 Enterprising Women of the Year

Enquire Add to shortlist

Nikki Lanier's Biography

Nikki Lanier is a leading voice on equity, race, and the future of work, with a career shaped by her deep-rooted commitment to social justice. Raised on the campus of Hampton University by parents immersed in the civil rights movement, she developed an early passion for championing Black communities. As a three-time Chief Human Resources Officer in both private and public sectors and a former executive with the Federal Reserve, Nikki brings unmatched insight into the intersection of race, economics, and workforce transformation.

As CEO and founder of Harper Slade—one of the nation’s fastest-growing racial equity advisory firms—Nikki focuses on creating environments where Black and Brown talent can thrive. She also founded the RAARE Woman Collective, a global coaching program empowering white women to become effective racial equity advocates. Her career spans diverse industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, education, and consulting, with executive roles at organizations like Philip Morris USA, Georgia-Pacific, ADP, Maricopa Community Colleges, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where she was the youngest and first Black woman appointed to the Cabinet in the state’s history. She has managed operational budgets exceeding $60 million and led HR departments of over 200 professionals, serving employee populations as large as 33,000.

Nikki’s leadership has been widely recognized. She was honored as one of the 100 Women to KNOW in America in 2024 and named Enterprising Women of the Year in 2025. Her insights have been featured in prominent media outlets, including Ebony, Forbes, Essence, USA Today, CNBC, and PBS. Nikki earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law, a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Hampton University, and holds a certification in Collective Bargaining from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Macroeconomics In Color

The browning of the working-class world, by 2045, will require the bold and unprecedented ascension of people of color into the middle class and beyond. This “fix” happens at work. The hiring, retention and full activation of minority talent must translate into increased wages and professional amplification for talent in the world’s workplaces. This conundrum transcends the “right thing to do” argument of the past and requires our demonstrative correction of the lingering impact of difference equating to deficit, especially related to wages. Doing so has significant macro-economic and fiscal policy implications that few are talking about. By 2045 and consumer base will be racially different than today, data suggests. As such, inclusion is an economic imperative for companies—rather than primarily a social justice issue. Drawing from her years of experience at the U.S. Federal Reserve, Nikki Lanier unpacks this demographic shift and explore what actions businesses can take now to embrace this change.

The Familiarity of Fear-the US Dynamics Today

2025 is not as much about making America great again as it is about making America familiar again; even if that familiarity works against my own self-interest. In life, we choose to follow one of two constructs, either fear-based constructs or hope-based constructs. Hope requires to put your faith in the unknown and the elusive. It requires you to step outside of yourself and imagine new possibilities and frameworks. Fear on the other hand, especially when idolized and personified, grounds us in what we know … that which is familiar. It positions HOPE as something that will oppress us and take from us. Fear of what may come requires that we over-rely on what IS and what IS is familiar and safe. So could it be that the change many of us want to see in the world, though desirable, invokes too much unsafety for most? This talk unpacks how to understand beliefs and fears first, before you react to them.

Deconstructing DEI: What Went Wrong, What's Still Left to Do, and How to Move Forward Beyond the Acronyms

In this keynote, Dr. Lanier critically examines the evolution of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives within organizations. She explores the initial intentions behind DEI efforts in 2020 and identifies uncommon pitfalls of the doctrine (how we approached it, the context we gave to it, who was charged to address it and the context in which it sat). Drawing from her experience as a labor and employment attorney and her tenure as a senior vice president with the Federal Reserve, Dr. Lanier provides insights into the systemic challenges, on the practitioning side, that have hindered genuine progress. She emphasizes the necessity for organizational leaders to reset just about everything we have been taught DEI means and embrace the opportunity to look forward and position organizations for greater innovation through human capital strategies, informed by the principles of DEI, not the acronym.

The Unique Opportunity for White and Black Women in Shaping Human Engagement Through 2045 and Beyond

Based on Dr. Lanier's international, widely acclaimed RAARE Woman Collective program, this keynote addresses the pivotal role that both white and Black women can play in transforming human to human engagements and foster genuine racial equity for the world. The RAARE Woman Collective is dedicated to empowering white women as advocacy leaders, recognizing their potential to influence their homes and communities in extraordinarily powerful ways. Dr. Lanier discusses the demographic shifts anticipated by 2045, highlighting the increasing importance of multicultural competence in leadership. She advocates for collaborative efforts between white and Black women to dismantle existing barriers and create equitable world.