Korn Ferry appoints Alina Polonskaia as diversity and inclusion leader

LA-based human capital consultancy Korn Ferry has brought in Alina Polonskaia as its Global Leader of Diversity and Inclusion Solutions. Formerly Mercer’s global leader of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Executive Peer Networks, Polonskaia has deep expertise in the areas of organizational transformation and diversity initiatives. She will be based in Korn Ferry’s Toronto office.

In her new role at Korn Ferry, Alina Polonskaia will help clients align their strategy and talent to drive better performance. She will also be responsible for designing structures, practices, roles, and responsibilities that facilitate structural and behavioural inclusion.

Numerous studies have correlated diversity with improved financial performance: a 2018 McKinsey study, for example, found that firms in the top quartile for executive team gender diversity were 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability; those in the top quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity had a 35% likelihood of outperformance. As such, firms are designing inclusion policies and implementing diversity strategies – either in-house or with the professional support of consultancies like Korn Ferry.

Before joining Korn Ferry, Polonskaia led HR consultancy Mercer’s Diversity and Inclusion peer networks of cross-industry diversity leaders, which included numerous companies from the Global Fortune 1000 and FTSE 100. Before that, she was a Principal at the firm for two years, supporting clients in the areas of organizational design/effectiveness/change, as well as D&I.

Prior to her time with Mercer, Polonskaia was a Principal at management consultancy Oliver Wyman, which is a Marsh & McLennan company alongside Mercer. While there, she likewise focused on solving organizational challenges. Some of her notable projects included helping a large pharma company manage a large-scale organizational transformation, and helping redesign a global retail organization. Polonskaia served as a Senior Associate at the firm before being promoted to Principal.

Polonskaia started her consulting career as a Senior Consultant at IBM Global Business Services, where she tackled client challenges in the areas of change management and training & education.

“I am very excited about the impact Alina will have for our firm in the D&I space,” said Mark Arian, CEO, Advisory, Korn Ferry. “We are committed to helping clients have a positive impact on their workforce with newer and better approaches to diversity and inclusion. The addition of Alina will only help accelerate our efforts in this space."

Polonskaia holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, as well as a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Irkutsk State University in Siberia, Russia.

Within Canada, Korn Ferry has offices in Toronto, Ottawa, and Calgary. The LA-based firm has over 100 offices worldwide, and is a partner to 98% of Fortune 100 firms.

In other Korn Ferry news, the company recently launched two new talent acquisition products – which leverage predictive analytics and deep data sets to determine the best candidate for a given role.