The Situation
A coalition of leading energy companies—nationally recognized players across generation, transmission, and distribution—approached our team to design a comprehensive DEI strategy that would go beyond compliance or isolated programming.
These companies operate in a sector that, at the time, faced increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable equity and inclusion outcomes—not only because of public expectations, but also because of federal and state regulatory frameworks tied to supplier-diversity goals.
The coalition’s leadership made clear that this work was about building cultural infrastructure: a durable, strategic foundation for inclusion that could support future initiatives such as a robust supplier-diversity program.
The Challenge
The energy sector sits at the intersection of regulatory oversight, infrastructure investment, and community trust. Prior to 2025, federal expectations around inclusive procurement and DEI alignment in federally funded projects were both clear and enforceable.
The coalition recognized that simply layering DEI training on top of existing systems would not meet these expectations. Fragmented programs would lack staying power and fail to influence measurable outcomes. They needed a deeply integrated strategy—one that aligned inclusion with leadership accountability, operational norms, and business metrics.
A further complexity was designing this strategy for multiple companies simultaneously, each with distinct organizational structures but shared industry pressures and strategic imperatives.
The Engagement
Our team began by mapping structural and cultural dimensions across the coalition: decision-making processes, leadership routines, communication channels, and team dynamics. We partnered with national DEI practitioners to blend their inclusion frameworks with our behavioral operating system, ensuring the work was measurable, adaptive, and anchored in operational reality.
Key components of the engagement included:
- Establishing a shared DEI vision across participating companies, emphasizing leadership behaviors and performance alignment.
- Embedding inclusion into operational touchpoints such as project scoping, vendor engagement, and cross-team collaboration.
- Aligning cultural change levers with supplier-diversity preconditions—particularly around transparent procurement practices and inclusive sourcing language.
- Designing metrics that tied inclusion to performance outcomes, including retention, engagement, innovation, and vendor diversification.
The Results
Within six months, the coalition transitioned from intention to a fully articulated implementation roadmap. Executives became active champions of inclusion as a business driver. Teams reported stronger communication, clearer expectations, and increased psychological safety in cross-functional work.
Most significantly, the coalition built the organizational readiness to scale supplier diversity. This readiness translated into a follow-on engagement with one coalition member to build and launch a comprehensive supplier-diversity program—an outcome intentionally seeded in the original DEI strategy.
The Impact
Embedding inclusion within the culture and performance system positioned these companies to meet and exceed both regulatory expectations and community commitments. By treating inclusion as an operational lever—not an auxiliary initiative—they built a resilient foundation for:
- Supplier-diversity expansion, enabling measurable increases in contract opportunities for diverse vendors.
- Regulatory alignment, under the frameworks in effect prior to 2025.
- Organizational resilience, as inclusive practices improved adaptability and innovation in a rapidly changing energy market.
- Community trust and economic impact, strengthening local economies through equitable procurement.
Regulatory Context Note
This work was completed prior to January 2025, under a regulatory environment in which federal DEI and supplier-diversity requirements were well established. Since then, federal mandates and funding requirements have shifted significantly and are currently in flux, reducing or eliminating many of the compliance obligations tied to federal contracting.
By contrast, state and local programs remain in effect. Across the mid-Atlantic and other regions, supplier-diversity and inclusive procurement goals are not only active, they’re being modernized and strengthened through updated procurement statutes, certification programs, and accountability measures. This divergence between federal and state policy means that companies seeking state and local contracts continue to face meaningful DEI expectations, even as federal mandates evolve.
Strategically, this underscores that DEI and supplier diversity are no longer driven by federal compliance alone—they are critical levers for competitiveness, eligibility, and partnership at the state and local level.