Om Chitale, MBA 18, has won the school’s first Kellie A. McElhaney Equity Fluent Leadership award for championing diversity and inclusion initiatives at Haas and beyond.
Chitale, the former director of diversity for Berkeley Haas’ Full-time MBA Admissions, received the award at the Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership’s “EGALapalooza” diversity celebration last Friday.
The award, named for and funded by EGAL’s founding director Kellie McElhaney, recognizes members of the Haas community who have made significant contributions toward building an inclusive and equitable community at Haas and beyond.
“Om walks through life with a halo of light and love and acceptance and has left a profound impact on our community,” McElhaney said at the event, which brought together about 75 students, faculty, and staff, at Spieker Forum in Chou Hall.
“Om walks through life with a halo of light and love and acceptance and has left a profound impact on our community.” — Kellie McElhaney
While a student at Haas, Chitale and classmate Liz Koenig, MBA 18, co-founded the student-led class called Dialogues on Race. He also led the charge to create EGAL’s first Investing in Inclusion Pitch Competition. After graduation, he founded startup Teachers of Oakland, with the aim of sharing first-person stories from the city’s public school teachers to social media. He later joined the full-time MBA Admissions’ team as its first director of diversity.
McElhaney noted that Chitale was “a real thought partner” who encouraged cross-campus collaboration between students, faculty, and staff on DEI initiatives.
“It’s incredible to be part of this [Haas] community with people who are pushing the envelope, questioning the status quo, and taking action,” said Chitale, who recently left Haas to serve as LinkedIn’s senior program manager of Inclusion Recruiting Partnerships. “This work [DEI] has ripples of impact and so I encourage everyone to continue to take action,” he said.
Other notable EGALapalooza guest speakers and performers included Derek Brown, PhD 23; Ashley Rabinek, director of merchandising at Old Navy; Verse Gabrielle, associate director of full-time MBA Admissions; and singer and songwriter Dominique Gomez.