Biography
Felicia A. Henderson is a consultant, researcher, public speaker, and author. Her work currently focuses on the psychodynamics of resistance to equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives in global organizations, with an emphasis on strategic planning and leadership development.
Her public speaking engagements focus primarily on fostering empathy across difference, developing everyday inclusion in organizations, creating leadership mindset shifts, adapting diversity & inclusion initiatives in local contexts, and increasing prosocial behavior and social support in the workplace.
Felicia began her career as a lawyer in the New York and Paris offices of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, a global firm, where she practiced for over a dozen years. She served on the firm’s Associate Liaison Committee and was a founding member of its Diversity Committee. In her advising engagements, Felicia combines critical thinking and problem-solving skills gained through law practice with sensitivity to the psychodynamics of human interactions.
She regularly collaborates with management scholars to enhance diversity management and leadership education. She has collaborated with INSEAD Business School in various capacities since 2019. She is currently a Lecturer and Programme Co-Director for the Advancing Diversity & Inclusion online programme. She was an Executive in Residence with the INSEAD Gender Initiative from November 2022 through spring of 2023. In 2020, she served as Senior Advisor to the taskforce charged with developing a multi-dimensional equity, diversity and inclusion strategy at INSEAD Business School.
Felicia also lectures on corporate law and governance at Sciences Po Paris, where she has been an Adjunct Lecturer since 2011. She has offered courses on comparative equality law, on organizational behavior, and on inequality and social change at Sciences Po.
She is the co-author of several business teaching cases and has published articles on leadership, corporate governance, and DEI topics for INSEAD Knowledge and Ivey Business Journal and essays on corporate governance and on gender equality and intersectionality in the Sciences Po Law Review. She regularly moderates or sits on panels about equity, diversity, and inclusion practice; social equality topics; and legal and higher education. Among her numerous speaking appearances, she has given two TEDx talks entitled The Courage to Uncover our Differences and Teaching Compassion to the Over-privileged.
Felicia graduated with Distinction from INSEAD’s Executive Master in Consulting and Coaching for Change (EMCCC), and holds a BA, cum laude from Duke University and a JD, cum laude from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Felicia served as Editor-in-Chief of Volume 20 of the Harvard Women’s Law Journal. Although she no longer practices law, Felicia remains a member of the bar of the State of New York. She is currently based in Paris.