Vanessa Lecorps

Senior Director of DEIB,
Chief Culture Officer
The Zuckerman Institute

Vanessa is the first Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Columbia's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. She partners with leadership to create, prioritize and execute impactful programs that advance the institute commitment to action. She also serves as the Chief Culture Officer, aligning efforts across the university as ZI moves toward best practices and continues the work of making the community even more inclusive.

Prior to this role, Vanessa was leading the Inclusive Leadership Practice enterprise wide at Citi. In this unique role, Vanessa partnered with colleagues in Learning globally as well as in Global Talent and Diversity to assess development needs, curate and/or co-create solutions and interventions in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion with the goal of developing inclusive leaders globally. She also led the firm's flagship women development program targeted at female directors globally. Vanessa offered advisory and mentorship across the organization and externally.

Vanessa has over 20 years of international cross-industry leadership experience in talent development, change management and organization development. She has worked in North, South, Central America, Europe, Southeast Asia and North Africa. She grew up in Haiti and is fluent in French, Creole, English and Spanish. She holds a PhD (ABD) in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, a MS in Organization Development from the University of San Francisco, a BS in Business Administration, with specializations in Industrial Management and Human Resources Management from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez.

She loves the arts and enjoys traveling. She lives with her family in Connecticut.