Updated: October 26, 2020
2020 Outstanding Women in Business
Outstanding Women in Business: Zolezzi-Wyndham makes inclusion her life’s work
Photo | Matthew Wright
Valerie Zolezzi-Wyndham
When Valerie Zolezzi-Wyndham made the decision to leave her position at Worcester nonprofit Community Legal Aid to found a diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy, she was nervous to step out on her own.
“It was scary to quit my job,” said Zolezzi-Wyndham.
But, she said, as an immigrant from Mexico who left her family back home to move to the United States, she already had quite an independent streak.
“You have a dream and you sort of stick with it for a while, and eventually you just have to go for it,” she said.
The path to founding and leading Promoting Good was not direct, though, and was in many ways defined by exactly those kinds of leaps of faith.
Born and raised in Mexico City, she first lived in the U.S. as an elementary school student, accompanying her father while he pursued his MBA. She returned to Mexico for high school, where she attended a British International School with 45 peers, many of whom were from different countries.
“It was just an amazing time to learn how to be friends with people who are really different from you, and to really be accepting of who each of us were,” Zolezzi-Wyndham said.
Zolezzi-Wyndham returned to the U.S. to study political science and French literature at Boston College, where she met her husband.
She returned to Mexico for a stint in banking before returning to the U.S. to work in distribution in Los Angeles.
“I really believe strongly in the power of working across sectors,” she said. “And so I wasn't certain that I wanted to stay in banking. I wanted to try some other kind of business.”
That curiosity eventually led Zolezzi-Wyndham back to the classroom, where she earned a law degree from Boston University School of Law.
“Even though I loved the business, I felt like there was a calling that I had to commit myself to doing good in the world,” she said.
And so, Zolezzi-Wyndham landed at Community Legal Aid, where she worked her way up managing attorney.
AiVi Nguyen, a partner at Worcester law firm Bowditch & Dewey, who sits on the Edward M. Kennedy Health Center board with Zolezzi-Wyndham, said Zolezzi-Wyndham developed a brilliant CLA program where medical providers help patients find legal help.
“She's one of those people – it's shocking to me that her name isn't splashed around a lot more than it is because she's one of those fly under the radar, quiet leaders,” Nguyen said.
While Zolezzi-Wyndham’s work at CLA was impactful, she began to feel her expertise might be better served elsewhere.When someone asked her if she knew who might be a good resource for diversity, equity and inclusion work, it was as though a light turned on.
“I was like, well, wait a second, I could do that work,” she said.
She left CLA and launched her new venture in the fall of 2017.
“No one else leaves a great job at CLA to pursue a new business in a field that people think, you know, I'd say five years ago, old white dudes, were thinking that diversity and inclusion is like a fad,” Nguyen said of Zolezzi-Wyndham.
Moving forward, Zolezzi-Wyndham is focused on growing Promoting Good. Already, she has accrued enough clients – including UMass Memorial Health Care, Worcester Art Museum, Fallon Health and the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services – she’s hired contract workers to help her.
She pulls her inspiration from her clients, especially those who promote DEI in the face of a President Donald Trump Administration order prohibiting some DEI training in the federal government.
“I am inspired by these employees and organizations that are standing up to the executive order, other distractions, and behaviors that get in the way of equity,” she said.
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Anonymous
October 26, 2020
It is very commendable all that you have achieved thus far and I wish you a lot of continued success in Promoting Good!!!
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