User:Christelle Pandanzyla/sandbox

Janet Ikpa is the Global Diversity Events at Facebook. She came into tech by way of education and is intentional about applying education theory to (tech) industry practice, and building authentic relationships with everyone she meets. Her specialities are, strategic planning and execution, recruiting, diversity initiatives, conference engagement, project management, program and management, connecting the dots to the bigger picture.

Education
Janet received her masters degree in Higher Education & Student Affairs from Indiana University, and earned her bachelors in Sociology and Anthropology (minor) from UC Santa Barbara.

Career
Janet Ikpa leads the diversity events strategy at Facebook. She partners cross-functionally with recruiters, employee networks, the diversity team and the business to design and execute the vision for high-touch, community events around the world. Janet leads by being open and intentional, moving fast whilst bringing bold ideas to the table, and driving towards impact through meaningful social change.

Prior to Facebook, Janet was the Senior Manager of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team at Hired. She lead and executed Hired’s diversity and inclusion strategy, and ensured it was aligned to business goals, in partnership with business leaders, employee networks, and strategic partners. She focused on increasing the level of inclusion and diversity awareness ; commitment and strategic action to attract, hire and develop underrepresented communities in tech.

Prior to joining Hired, Janet was the first Diversity Strategist & Program Manager at Twitter and co-lead of @Blackbirds, Twitter’s employee resource groups for members of the African diaspora. Janet also played a key role in creating and executing the recruiting strategy and building programs for the university programs and recruiting at both Twitter and Google.

In 2017 she has been recognised for her work by being listed in the Huffington Post as one of the 100 Women in Tech to Follow on Twitter.

Voluntary work
From 2001 to 2016, Janet Ikpa was an advocate, representative, fundraiser, and advisor of Invisible Children.