Tuesday Keynote: Ritu Bhasin
Ritu Bhasin, LL.B., MBA is the Founder and CEO of bhasin consulting inc. (bci) and an award-winning speaker, author and internationally recognized expert in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), authentic leadership, anti-racism and personal empowerment for people from equity-seeking communities.
Since 2010, Ritu has worked with hundreds of top organizations and senior leadership teams around the world, and as a professional speaker, she has presented to hundreds of thousands of people globally. Ritu is also a certified cultural competence coach and a certified neuro-strategies coach who has personally coached over a thousand people, and very shortly she will complete a trauma professional certification program. As a passionate advocate for authenticity, inclusion and empowerment, Ritu has won numerous awards for her work, including The Women’s Center Leadership Award, the South Asian Bar Association (SABA) Diversity Award and the City of Toronto’s William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations. She regularly appears on national television and radio in the U.S. and Canada as an expert on leadership, inclusion, personal empowerment, authenticity and antiracism.
Ritu’s Amazon-bestselling book, The Authenticity Principle, was released in the fall of 2017. She is also the co-author of the ground-breaking research study, Sponsor Effect: Canada, with the Center for Talent Innovation (now Coqual), which examines the experiences that People of Color, Indigenous peoples, and women have with advocacy and sponsorship in the workplace. She is currently writing her second book, which is slated to be released in 2023.
Before founding bci, Ritu spent ten years in the legal profession, first as a civil litigator and then as the director of legal talent for the preeminent Canadian law firm, Stikeman Elliott LLP.
Ritu, who is also a yoga and mindfulness teacher and practitioner, lives in Toronto, Canada, but travels all over the world to eat, swim, hike, dance and work.