Meet DeEtta Jones

Founder and CEO

DeEtta is a go-to strategist on equity, diversity, inclusion and workplace transformation. She brings 30 years of experience developing practical tools to build managerial effectiveness and making structural and sustainable organizational change.

DeEtta’s career began in college when she became a social justice activist. She worked closely with Indigenous communities to shed light on historical injustices and misrepresentation. In her early 20s, her work as Director of the Human Rights Advocacy and Education Office focused on community education and mediating complaints of discrimination in housing, public accommodation, and employment. Her work was in the wake of the murder of Matthew Shepard, a man beaten and left to die hanging from a fence. Committed to transformation, her attention and agenda focused on education and policy change that resulted in City ordinances to protect members of the LGBTQ+ communities from hate crimes. Every step thereafter opened doors for people from underrepresented groups and positioned herself as a model of what next-generation should reflect.

Today, DeEtta is the Founder and CEO of DeEtta Jones and Associates (DJA), a consulting firm that equips leaders and organizations with an integrated and sustainable strategy that centers on values of inclusion and equity. DeEtta believes that we are at a defining moment. Organizations and their leaders are being held accountable for new standards of equity, inclusion, and excellence. To this end, the most impactful changes are not reactionary or episodic: they are intentional, ongoing, and enterprise-wide; strengthening strategy, systems, and culture within an organization.

She brings research-based rigor and knowledge of contemporary best practices to her clients. She presents to tens of thousands of people annually, working with hundreds of organizations across many industries, and around the world.

Before launching DJA in 2005, DeEtta was director of organizational learning services and director of diversity for an international not-for-profit, director of human rights advocacy and education for the City of Fort Collins, CO, and coordinator of multicultural training and education at Colorado State University. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on leadership, management and equity, diversity, and inclusion at two R1 universities.

DeEtta holds a BS in Psychology, was in graduate programs at Colorado State University and The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and has MBA from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to actively volunteering in her community, she is on the Board of Perspectives Charter School, serving over 1,600 students and their families on Chicago’s South Side; is on the Executive Committee for the National Small Business Association; and is a member of the Forbes Business Council.