Inside DHL's leadership-led DEI push - and why it's working

Every so often, a project can crop up that – quietly literally – has the power to change one person’s and people’s lives. And for DHL veteran Roxi Corp, that project was one that was initially given to her in 2020.

“I was offered a stretch assignment to lead on how we look at inclusion,” says Corp, who at the time was VP HR at DHL Supply Chain – the arm of the logistics company that employs around 180,000 people globally.

She adds: “At the time DHL wanted to start, in earnest, to have meaningful conversations about what inclusion meant. But what soon became apparent was that the scope of the project was so large, but the ROI potential for tackling it was so great, that this required full-time commitment.”

This realisation came, she adds, within the first year of her starting her assignment, but – thanks to support from the board, less six months after this, Corp was officially DHL Supply’s Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion.

Today, this grand title sees her report into HR at both DHL Supply Chain and the wider DHL business, on all things inclusion-related, including looking after its 23-strong Employee Resource Groups – known as Alliances @DHL Group. These groups encompass those promoting gender equality, race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ issues, and the careers of military veterans. But while her scope will not have gotten smaller in the five years that’s ensued, what really comes across is a level of humility around what she is doing, and that she is still very much aware of the feeling she first had when she started out in this arena – that the DEIB landscape is so large, and has so many touch points – that it is almost impossible to affect unless it’s broken down into more manageable parts.

“In the same way it became apparent inclusion should be a full-time concern, it also quickly became clear to me, that to really make a difference in the whole inclusion area, focus would be essential.” She adds: “I felt we had to start with the things that would really move the dial. That’s why the main area of my work has concentrated on working with our leadership population.”