Dr. Arvenita Washington Cherry
Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Maximus
Maximus has become an industry leader in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, thanks in large part to the leadership of Dr. Arvenita Washington Cherry.
She became the first-ever DE&I leader for Maximus, when she joined the company in late 2020, as the U.S. faced a pandemic and experienced heightened racial divisiveness. Since then, the company has instituted a wide range of initiatives and programs aimed at opening up communication with employees and educating them on the importance of DE&I.
Recently, Maximus achieved significant progress by actively evolving its employee engagement programs with broad support across the business. The company successfully facilitated over 40 DE&I workshops, engaging approximately 2,000 employees. Furthermore, Maximus launched its seventh Employee Resource Group within just two years, garnering an overwhelmingly positive response.
“A meaningful and life-changing DE&I journey that we all can commit to is lifelong learning and developing authentic relationships across differences, which includes learning about other people’s experiences, stories and histories,” Washington Cherry said.
Why Watch
“My team and I are heavily focused on partnering with our talent acquisition team on recruitment efforts that support having a diverse workforce at all levels of our organization,” Washington Cherry said. “Our shared goals and efforts are truly exciting, and I can’t wait to see how much we continue to accomplish together.”
As an example, Maximus launched The Greater Impact Experience, a collaboration with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In September, it hosted the first “Let’s Talk About Greatness HBCU Corporate Industry Day” mixer, attended by over 100 HBCU students. This event introduced the upcoming 2024 initiative, the Maximus Legal Fellowship Program, designed to provide HBCU and Washington, D.C.-area law students with training and practical experience in a corporate setting.