About Cheryl Kern

Cheryl Kern draws on 15 years of experience in the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) space as the DEIB vice president at MillerKnoll, where she leads global DEIB strategy development and execution. Since joining the company in 2021, Kern has led initiatives with wide-ranging positive aligned to the organizations priorities. Her focus on including key stakeholders, listening to the voice of the business and inspiring DEIB advocates has resulted in key contributions and impact. The art and science of aligning strategies, structures and systems are essential to her impacting DEIB.

Prior to MillerKnoll, Ms. Kern served as the director of D&I at Lockheed Martin. She spent four years at the company, during which time she led prioritized initiatives focused on leadership and employee engagement, and driving accountability focused plans . Highlights include supporting its employee resources groups’ (ERGs) transformation into business resource groups, which improved resource group leader engagement scores by 5 percent and launching advanced technology platforms to deliver BRG ROI. Her team led the strategy to transform the company’s D&I learning approach, integrate virtual offerings and boosted participation in optional programs by C-suite level executives by 20 percent. She led the organizations ‘Women in the Future of Work’ initiative, and secured multi million dollar investments to implement a multi-year strategy focused on shifting paradigms related to women’s advancement.

A member of the Women’s Business Collaborative and a Dress for Success Worldwide board member, Cheryl Kern has received various commendations for her DEIB work. The National Diversity Council named her a DEI Influencer in 2021, and DiversityGlobal Magazine listed her among its Top 10 Influential Women in Diversity the following year. In 2023, Ms. Kern earned a Corp! Diversity Business Leader Award.