Jennifer Bailey
Chief Administration Officer, Cognosante
As Cognosante’s chief administration officer, Jennifer Bailey is responsible for ensuring Cognosante drives equity and innovation to support its internal and customer-facing teams.
Executing on a strategy set by Cognosante Founder and CEO Michele Kang, Bailey approaches diversity, equity and inclusion as a business and cultural imperative to drive innovation, productivity and customer satisfaction. Bailey cites Kang’s “phenomenal leadership” as the driver behind Cognosante’s responsibility to find and develop talent with diverse backgrounds and perspectives and credits Cognosante’s executive support as a key reason the DE&I initiatives are successful.
Prior to 2020, when the need for DE&I programs became more urgent, Bailey was already infusing equity into existing business practices. From expanding benefits to offer mental and financial wellness services to integrating employees from Cognosante’s acquisition of J.Lodge — a company with an over 90% disabled population.
With the support of Kang and the leadership team, Bailey also led the establishment of Cognosante’s HBCU Partner Alliance and Women in STEM Alliance — career readiness and power skills development programs for students from designated partner institutions.
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To keep pace with the demands of a diverse workforce and competition for top talent, Bailey now oversees the expansion to recruiting channels with greater diversity, regular salary audits to ensure equitable pay, and leader training to promote inclusive hiring and combat bias in the workplace.
Bailey continues to deepen Cognosante’s internal commitment to equity and inclusion by formalizing and launching five new identity- and affinity-based employee resource groups that support veterans, Black employees, women employees, program managers and employees with disabilities. Cognosante continues to raise cultural awareness of the importance of learning how employees’ differences make for stronger teams.