Lesley Slaton Brown becomes new chief DE&I officer of NBA

• Aparna Sreevalsan
• 6 January, 2023

THE NBA (National Basketball Association) has appointed Lesley Slaton Brown as their new chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer.

She will assume her new position on Feb 1.

She had worked at HP (Hewlett Packard-American multinational information technology company) as a vice president in charge of diversity before joining the NBA.

“I’m honoured to join the NBA at such an impactful time for a business that has a unique influence on our culture,” Slaton Brown said. “I’m excited to bring my passion, knowledge, and deep understanding of best-in-class strategies to the industry.”

She will collaborate with the NBA’s 30 clubs and league office “to implement and advance DE&I processes, including the recruitment and retention of diverse talent, the development and enhancement of employee resource programs, and setting and assessing metrics for success,” the league stated.

Slaton Brown is from California, USA and did her Bachelors in Communications from Boise State University, Idaho, USA.

Her list of achievements at HP includes creating a Racial Equality Task Force as part of the organisation’s response to George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

Basketball is another sport with which Slaton Brown is familiar; she participated at Boise State.

She is also the co-founder and board member of Curated Pathways to Innovation, a personalised learning platform to broaden and engage young women and underrepresented minorities in the STEM+C (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics along with Computing) pipeline in the Silicon Valley and beyond.