CHICAGO – In 2025, corporate America is experiencing a sharp and troubling reversal.
Once-public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have quietly evaporated. DEI jobs—often held by Black and Brown women—are being eliminated at an alarming rate. According to Revelio Labs, the attrition rate for chief diversity officers in 2023 was 33% higher than for other C-suite roles, and companies are not replacing them. Between 2020 and 2024, mentions of DEI in S&P 500 earnings calls dropped by over 30%. The pressure to appease anti-DEI political sentiment has reshaped boardrooms, even as the workforce grows more diverse.
This is not just a rollback. It’s a reckoning.
But amid the fallout, there’s a vital leadership perspective corporate America cannot afford to ignore: the insight and experience of Caribbean American women.
Dr. Kerry Mitchell Brown, an organizational theorist and leadership strategist who has spent over 20 years working with Fortune 100 companies and major institutions, argues that the leadership crisis we’re witnessing isn’t just about representation. It’s about values, strategy, and vision.
And Caribbean American women, she says, bring a model of leadership that is culturally intelligent, community-rooted, and radically adaptive—qualities that are not only timely but essential.
Leadership on the Edge of Collapse
“We are in a moment of extreme organizational contraction,” says Dr. Brown. “Companies are cutting not just programs, but purpose. And when purpose is deprioritized, leadership loses its anchor.”
In the past 18 months, headlines have chronicled the quiet gutting of DEI programs across tech, finance, healthcare, and higher education. Big-name firms like Meta, Amazon, and Disney have reduced their DEI teams or restructured them entirely. DEI investments in some sectors have dropped by over 50%.
This pullback doesn’t just harm underrepresented employees—it weakens organizations’ ability to respond to demographic shifts, social change, and internal demands for equity.
What’s needed now isn’t nostalgia for pre-2020 values, but a reimagined model of leadership—one grounded in cultural fluency, strategic storytelling, community vision, and sustainable resilience.
Dr. Brown believes Caribbean American women offer exactly that.
Why Caribbean American Women Matter Now
1. Cultural Intelligence Enables Systems Navigation
Caribbean American women often navigate dual realities—functioning within U.S. corporate norms while carrying the traditions, histories, and expectations of diasporic life. This cultural duality produces what Dr. Brown calls “applied cultural intelligence”—a capacity to interpret complex systems, read organizational dynamics across lines of difference, and lead with emotional acuity.
“It’s not a soft skill,” she explains. “It’s a business imperative. Cultural intelligence helps leaders anticipate shifts, connect across silos, and innovate from the margins.”
In an era where AI and data may dominate the headlines, the human ability to connect meaningfully across cultures is fast becoming one of the most decisive leadership assets.
2. Community-Centered Leadership Builds Organizational Trust
While American corporate leadership often prizes personal ambition and individual branding, Caribbean traditions emphasize communal strength, legacy, and responsibility.
Caribbean American women tend to lead with a vision that extends beyond quarterly metrics. This orientation toward the collective doesn’t dilute performance—it enhances it. Research consistently shows that leaders who build trust, prioritize belonging, and operate with long-term community investment in mind produce stronger, more resilient teams.
“Leadership that centers the community creates organizations that last,” Dr. Brown says. “In this volatile economy, trust is your currency.”
3. Scarcity Has Always Been the Training Ground
Long before terms like “lean startup” and “resilience” became business buzzwords, Caribbean cultures were modeling them through necessity. Dr. Brown notes that many Caribbean American women learned how to innovate amid constraint, organize amid chaos, and adapt without access to capital or institutional support.
“In every system, there are barriers,” she says. “But we’ve always known how to turn scarcity into invention.”
That mindset is critical in 2025, as corporations shrink their budgets, delay DEI initiatives, and retreat into defensive strategies. The leaders who know how to do more with less—and still stay anchored in values—will shape what comes next.
4. Storytelling Is Strategy, Not Sentiment
Storytelling is not a side skill—it’s a leadership lever. Caribbean American leaders often bring an intergenerational legacy of oral tradition, which becomes a tool for influence, inspiration, and culture-shaping.
“In today’s business landscape, leaders who can’t communicate vision don’t survive,” Dr. Brown says. “And in an AI-saturated workplace, human storytelling is a differentiator.”
Telling the right story—about why your work matters, what your team values, and how your leadership adapts—builds cohesion and fuels transformation. It’s also an effective way to resist invisibility in environments that often ignore the narratives of women of color.
5. Radical Self-Care Is Not Optional—It’s Organizational Strategy
Burnout isn’t a risk for Caribbean American women in leadership—it’s an expectation. The pressure to overachieve, outperform, and prove worth in historically white spaces is intense. Dr. Brown speaks openly about her own experience with collapse and recovery.
“Radical self-care is a political act,” she says. “It’s also smart leadership.”
Setting boundaries, resting without guilt, and refusing the martyrdom model of leadership is not just about survival—it models healthier workplace culture. As wellness and mental health become central to talent retention and productivity, leaders who prioritize well-being are doing the hard but necessary work of rehumanizing business.
The Path Forward
Dr. Brown’s RISE Framework—Redefine Success, Innovate Disruption, Synergize Roles, Evolve Continuously—offers a roadmap for Caribbean American women to lead from where they are, with what they know, and with integrity. But it’s not only a tool for them. It’s a wake-up call for organizations that say they want innovation, yet gut the very programs and people who bring it.
“Too many companies are collapsing under the weight of their own cowardice,” Dr. Brown says. “This is a time to double down on principled leadership—not retreat from it.”
The leadership playbook is changing. The question is whether companies will recognize who’s already writing the next chapter.
