Bernard C. Coleman III is a senior fellow for inclusive leadership at American Progress and the vice president of People at Swing Education, where he leads the People function. He is also a contributor to Inc. magazine.
Prior to joining Swing Education, Coleman served as the head of employee engagement and chief diversity officer at Gusto. In this role, he led the employee engagement team, which encompasses diversity, equity, and inclusion; employee relations; and people integrity, governance, and compliance functions. He drove systemic and holistic diversity and belonging programs throughout Gusto, collaborating closely with various people program areas to enhance inclusion and diversity.
Before his tenure at Gusto, Coleman led diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) efforts at Uber as the global head of inclusive engagement, working to embed these principles at scale across a company of more than 28,000 employees globally. He was instrumental in helping evolve Uber’s culture and successfully accomplished several landmark initiatives, including publishing Uber’s first two diversity reports, developing the first diversity and inclusion scorecard, establishing the first Diversity Advisory Council, and creating Uber’s first comprehensive diversity and inclusion workshop.
Coleman also directed diversity and human resources initiatives at the Hillary Clinton for America campaign, serving as the first-ever chief diversity and human resources officer for any U.S. presidential campaign. He has held senior-level roles at the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Society for Human Resource Management, and the government of the District of Columbia.
Coleman’s insights have appeared in various media outlets, including Forbes, Inc., Time magazine, TechCrunch, and HuffPost. He holds an MBA from Trinity University, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Hampton University, and a strategic diversity and inclusion management certification from Georgetown University, and he is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. Coleman is also an alumnus of the American Council of Young Political Leaders and serves on the Reproductive Freedom for All board.
Recognized for his leadership and contributions, Coleman has received numerous awards and honors, including being named one of Untapped’s “Top DEIB Leaders of 2022,” receiving the “‘Walk the Walk’ Diversity Equity & Inclusion Leadership Award”; being recognized as one of the 2021 Business Insider “Top 33 Innovators in HR”; receiving the “DiversityFIRST™ Leadership Award” in 2019; being named a 2018 American Council of Young Political Leaders fellow; and being recognized as one of Black Enterprise’s “Top Executives in Corporate Diversity” in 2018. He was also named one of the “Top 50 Multicultural Leaders in Technology” in 2017 by the National Diversity Council, one of Hampton University’s inaugural “Forty Under 40” honorees, and The Network Journal’s 2017 “40 Under Forty” honoree.