Liliana joined Inclusive Employers in March 2023 as Senior Inclusion and Diversity Consultant.
She is originally from Italy, and she holds a master’s degree in intercultural relations. She lived and worked in different countries, and across sectors and cultures bringing together an interesting blend of lived and learnt experience.

Since living in the UK, she has worked as an equality, diversity and inclusion professional at a global level as well as in the public sector. Her subject matter expertise covers strategy development and implementation, stakeholder engagement and consultation, design and delivery of capacity building interventions at all levels, equality impact assessment, audit and policy work, data collection and analysis, and internal and external communications.

More recently, she has been broadening her expertise to apply principles of equity and inclusion towards best practice for environmental justice and sustainability.

What do you enjoy about your role at Inclusive Employers?

It’s a very dynamic and full-on role, where no day is the same and learning and development is just part of the job! I enjoy interacting with members and clients, as this equips me with greater insights into industry specific trends, shared challenges, and current best practice across sectors. It feels like every project, every piece of training and consultancy, every call, etc. prepares me for the next one and I am always going to the next level.

What has been your biggest achievement to date?

Hard to pin one, if anything because to me life is – or rather, should be! – about realisations and evolution throughout.

I come from a working-class family: I have always been vocal about social justice, and I have always challenged bias, inequality, and systems of oppressions. I remember being told in my teens and early twenties that I was ‘a bleeding-heart idealist’ (una buonista idealista) and that I would never make a living out of my activism, ethics and values. Look at me now…

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

I lived and worked in Germany for a few years, and on my last day at work in Berlin – before moving to Hong Kong! – a colleague hugged me and told me: “Lass dich nie von jemandem verdunkeln”.

This roughly translates into English as: “Don’t ever let anyone bring you down”. I felt very touched and found those words a powerful piece of personal and professional advice – and an important life reminder, too.

Tell us something about you that we might not know.

Well, I have been vegan for about a decade. This is something I always make sure people know and understand about me, because it is quite a big part of who I am and how I live my life, as a conscious consumer (as much as I can), an informed individual, and a person who has a profound love and respect for the natural world.