Yabome Gilpin-Jackson

Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, PhD, is an award-winning organizational development leader and scholar who centres equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in all she does. Throughout her career, which has spanned the public, private and non-profit sectors, she has helped people and organizations build capacity for transformational change to advance EDI and belonging in workplaces and society. On January 5, 2022, Yabome was named SFU’s first Vice-President People, Equity and Inclusion.

Yabome served as the chief people officer for the British Columbia Lotteries Corporation, executive director of organizational development for Fraser Health, and regional lead of organizational development for Vancouver Coastal Health, as well as a leader of several provincial leadership development and engagement healthcare committees. She is also the founder of Supporting Learning and Development Consulting Inc., which has helped mission-driven organizations, including SFU, UBC and Lululemon, advance leadership, organizational development and processes for systemic and social change. 

She has overseen the development of comprehensive people, workforce planning and EDI strategies at BCLC and designed processes and events to advance reconciliation at Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health. In partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, she also introduced a transformational leadership program for the public service in South Africa to restore relationships between white South African settlers, Black South African Indigenous communities and African immigrants.  

Yabome has published numerous books and journal articles and is a well-known presenter on the topics of global EDI, leadership and Black identity. In 2018, she received the prestigious Harry Jerome Professional Excellence Award in Canada and in 2021, BCBusiness named her runner-up Woman of the Year: Equity and Inclusion Champion. 

She holds an MBA and undergraduate degrees from the SFU Beedie School of Business where she received the Dean’s medal. She also holds an MA and PhD in human and organizational systems from Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at the Beedie School of Business.

To learn more about Yabome, listen to her talk at TEDxSFU on how to get past disconnection to social change, or visit her blog where she recently wrote about adapting through COVID-19 into 2022.

Read our interview with Yabome.