DALLAS, TX — TerraVance Global Solutions CEO Bradley Whitmore announced Sunday morning, in a LinkedIn post timed to coincide with International Women’s Day and described by his communications team as “authentic” and “something Brad really wanted to do,” that he is promoting Diane Chen, 44, to the newly created position of Chief Diversity and Inclusion Impact Officer — a title that is eleven words long, comes with a corner office that was previously a storage room, reports to a committee rather than to the board, carries a salary that sources describe as “competitive” without specifying competitive with what, and was conceived, according to two people familiar with the matter, at approximately 8:45 Sunday morning after Whitmore’s assistant sent him a reminder about International Women’s Day.
“Diane is an extraordinary leader,” Whitmore wrote in the post, which has received 847 likes and 63 comments, most of which say “Congratulations Diane!!” with varying numbers of exclamation points. “Her passion, her vision, and her commitment to building a more inclusive TerraVance make her the perfect person to lead this critical new initiative. On this International Women’s Day, I am proud to take this step toward a more equitable future for our company and our industry.”
Diane Chen’s LinkedIn comment on the post reads: “Thank you, Brad. Looking forward to the work ahead.”
It has 214 likes. No exclamation points.
Reached separately by Supposedly News via a mutual contact who confirmed she was “willing to talk but carefully,” Chen described the promotion as “an opportunity” and “something I’m approaching with open eyes” and, after a pause that lasted long enough to be its own statement, “we’ll see.”
The TerraVance Leadership Structure, For Reference
TerraVance Global Solutions has twelve C-suite executives. Prior to Sunday’s announcement, eleven were men and one was a woman — the Chief Legal Officer, Sandra Park, who has been at the company for nineteen years and who did not receive a LinkedIn post on International Women’s Day, which is a detail that Park’s assistant confirmed “was noticed.”
Following the promotion, TerraVance has thirteen C-suite executives. Eleven are men. Two are women, one of whom leads a function that did not exist forty-eight hours ago.
The company’s board has nine members. Eight are men. One is a woman. The board composition is not mentioned in Whitmore’s LinkedIn post.
The company’s gender pay equity data is not publicly disclosed. A spokesperson said the company conducts annual internal pay equity reviews. The results of those reviews are also not publicly disclosed. The spokesperson said this was standard practice. This is correct. It is standard practice. Standard practice is part of the problem, which is one of the things International Women’s Day was established to address, which brings us back to the LinkedIn post.
The Role Itself
The Chief Diversity and Inclusion Impact Officer role, as described in the internal announcement distributed to staff at 11:00 a.m. Sunday, will be responsible for: developing a diversity and inclusion strategy, building partnerships with external organizations, leading employee resource group coordination, producing an annual DEI report, and “serving as a visible champion for TerraVance’s commitment to equity.”
The role does not have budget authority over hiring decisions. It does not have a seat on the executive leadership committee. It does not have direct authority over compensation policy, promotion processes, or the pay equity review whose results are not publicly disclosed. It has a storage room that has been painted and furnished and which Sandra Park, walking past it on the way to a meeting Sunday afternoon, described as “a very nice room.”
Chen will present her initial strategy to the committee the role reports to in ninety days. The committee meets quarterly. Its composition has not been announced.
Brad’s Journey
Bradley Whitmore, 57, has been CEO of TerraVance for eleven years. In that time, the company has grown from 400 to 2,400 employees, expanded to seven countries, and increased revenue fourfold. He is by most accounts an effective operator and a decent person who, by his own admission in a 2024 profile in a business magazine, “could do more” on gender equity and who has been meaning to address the leadership pipeline issue for “a couple years now.”
“Brad means well,” said one TerraVance employee who asked to remain anonymous because they are employed there. “He genuinely does. He’s just been meaning well about this particular thing for a long time and the meaning well hasn’t fully translated into the doing well. Which is a problem that is older than Brad and bigger than Brad but is also, at TerraVance, currently Brad’s problem to solve.”
Whitmore, reached for comment, said he was “committed to this work for the long haul” and that he believed in “structural change, not just symbolic gestures.” He was asked how the new role advances structural change given its lack of budget authority or board representation. He said that was a “fair question” and that he would “have more to share soon.”
Diane Chen will start in her new role Monday. The storage room has a window. She requested a standing desk. The standing desk has been ordered. It will arrive in two to three weeks.
The work, she said, will start before the desk does.
Supposedly News believes her.
Millicent Hearsay, Culture Desk, has covered corporate gender equity announcements for six years. She has noticed that the quality of the LinkedIn post and the quality of the underlying commitment have a correlation coefficient she would describe as ‘not strong.’ She wishes Diane Chen well. She means it.