Effenus Henderson is President and CEO of HenderWorks, Inc. (www.henderworks.com ) and President / Co-Founder of Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (www.i4sdi.org ). He served as Chief Diversity Officer for Weyerhaeuser Company, Federal Way, Washington until his retirement in December 2013. He is an internationally recognized diversity thought leader and has been invited by numerous companies and organizations to share his expertise. He has provided advisory support on diversity to the United Nations, US Federal Government’s EPA office, Office of Personnel Management, US Forest Service, State Department and the USDA.
As President and Co-Founder of ISDI, he helps provide diversity and inclusion training sessions to Northwest Corporations including Nordstrom, Boeing, Alaska Airlines, Port of Seattle, T- Mobile, Weyerhaeuser, Costco, and others.
He has addressed members of the General Assembly of the United Nations on intercultural and interreligious diversity, and addressed a high-level panel of the Alliance of Civilizations in Madrid, Spain in 2008, Istanbul Turkey in 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2010 and Doha, Qatar in 2011. He was a keynote speaker at the 9th and 10th Forum at Fez Morocco (2012, 2013) and at the 2nd World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue held in Baku, Azerbaijan (2013). He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Dialogue Foundation, located in Melbourne, Australia.
He is a member of the United States Technical Committee 260 (human resource standards) for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and convener for the development of global diversity and inclusion standards.
His background includes development of diversity and inclusion change agendas, formation and oversight of employee resource groups, and training and skill building workshops and speaking engagements in over 18 foreign countries.
He was named one of the top diversity officers in corporate America by Diversity Best Practices / Working Mother Media and received its first Diversity Officer Leadership Award in 2007. He was among the finalists for the second annual global ORC Peter C. Robertson Award for Equality and Diversity Champions. He was one of 100 Global Diversity Thought Leaders invited by the president of the Society of Human Resource Management to a special forum
in April 2008 to provide a perspective on the future of global diversity and inclusion. He was named to Savoy magazine’s 2010 list of the Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America. He was the 2010 recipient of the National Urban League’s Collins Award for distinctive service and commitment awarded at the National Urban League’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Awards Gala in Washington, DC in July 2010. In May of 2011, he was named by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the “Top Executives in Diversity” for his outstanding business achievements. The World HRD Congress in Mumbai, India honored him for “Outstanding Leadership in Human Resource Management” in 2014. In June 2017 he was honored, along with Barbara Deane, with the Innovation and Inclusion Award in the Non- Profit Sector by the Society for Diversity, Inc. In 2018, he has been admitted to the prestigious Forbes Coaches Council.
He has served on numerous boards including the International Society of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals (ISDIP) where he is a member of the founding board, the National Urban League Board where he has served as a national trustee and president of the Council of Affiliate Board Members. He is also a past chair of the Attrition Retention Consortium, a national group studying turnover trends in Corporate America. He is also former member of the Board of Advisors, School Business, Florida A&M University. He is also a former school board member for the Federal Way, Washington School System.
He is a graduate of North Carolina Central University and the Stanford University Executive Program. He is a 1967 graduate of Carver High School in Mount Olive, North Carolina. He is married to Helen Skinner Henderson and they have three sons, Kevin Effenus (Latonda), Justin Keith (Kristen), and Marcus Edward (Keturah). They are the proud grandparents of six grandchildren – Hamilton, Johnathan, Ryan, Mila, Justyn Kai, and Miles.