BOARD MEMBER
Vice President of Diversity Equity Inclusion Sodexo
Tony Tenicela is the Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) in North America for Sodexo. He is responsible for leading DE&I initiatives to help foster an inclusive workplace culture and ensure that Sodexo attracts, develops, engages, advances and retains a high-performing workforce that reflects the communities we serve. This includes shepherding the development of strategies, action plans, partnerships and thought leadership to drive accountability and outcomes through data and metrics. Mr. Tenicela also leverages Sodexo’s DE&I expertise as a competitive advantage in the marketplace by bringing added value to our clients and consumers, enhancing the brand, and growing and retaining our business.
Mr. Tenicela is a member of the Sodex Global Human Resources Leadership Team and the North America Diversity Leadership Committee. Sodexo is the global leader in Quality of Life services. Operating in 64 countries, Sodexo’s 420,000 employees serve 100 million consumers each day through On-site Services, Benefits and Rewards Services, and Personal and Home Services. Sodexo is committed to supporting diversity and inclusion and safety, while upholding the highest standards of corporate responsibility and ethical business conduct.
Prior to joining Sodexo, Mr. Tenicela serve as the Global Leader for Marketplace Diversity and Workforce Engagement Services at IBM. In this role, he led the development of IBM’s global customer facing organization to leverage IBM’s experience in DE&I and talent management to strengthen customer relationships and identify new business opportunities in forty five markets. This ground-breaking work included serving as a trusted advisor to numerous C-Suite executives on a wide range of HR topics and selling IBM’s consulting portfolio of offerings to multinationals and local enterprises in all geographies. Prior to joining IBM, Mr. Tenicela was a founding employee o Worldview Systems, where he contributed to the development of the Travelocity™ travel service.
In honor of his accomplishments, Mr. Tenicela was awarded the Diversity Leadership Award by India’s World HR Congress, named one of the world’s Top 5 LGBT Executives by the Telegraph in the United Kingdom, and listed as one of the Top 50 LGBTQ Legacy Leaders by Business Equality Magazine. Mr. Tenicela has been a keynote speaker at notable venues, such as the White House and the United Nations. Mr. Tenicela has served on the boards of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) Foundation, OutPerform, and the Guidewell Multicultural Advisory Council.
Mr. Tenicela holds an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, a MA equivalent from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Tenicela is fluent in English and Spanish and conversant in French and German.