Zen Saunders

Inclusion and Employee Experience, North America Leader · Dow · company speakers →

Zen Saunders (she/her/they) currently serves as the North America Leader for Inclusion, Diversity and Employee Experience. In this combined role, she is responsible for driving and implementing the I&D + EX strategy and providing expertise, consultation, and support to business, functional, and ERG leaders and EX change champions in the region. She collaborates with the businesses and functions on inclusion and employee experience interventions that lead to measurable results and long-term culture change. She also manages relationship support for I&D+ EX partnerships and represents Dow externally consistent with the region’s outreach and thought leadership initiatives. In her previous role, Zen was the Regulatory Affairs Leader (LA, AR, AL, GA and KY) advocating for Dow’s interests in several strategic industry associations in the Gulf Coast. She was responsible for supporting permit approvals, advocacy for state regulations, ensuring site support for various regulatory changes and negotiating enforcement settlements. In a vote by her industry peers, Zen was awarded Most Valuable Player of the Louisiana Chemical Association Environmental Committee in 2019 and 2020 and was also nominated to be Top 20 under 40 in the Baton Rouge Business Industry Report in 2017. Zen serves as the Louisiana Operations Disability Employee Network Site Implementation Leader, was a co-leader for the Louisiana Operations Global African American Network and has worked closely with the other ERG Site Implementation Leaders on numerous collaborative inclusion and safety initiatives. Zen is the former team leader for the Louisiana Sustainability team and is one of the Global Co-Leaders for the Valuing Nature team. She also currently serves on the Florida A&M University Recruiting team and Dow Political Action Committee National Steering Team. Zen holds a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Melon University, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Syracuse University. Zen and her wife, Iman, have two daughters Mya and Yah Ella. In their spare time, the family enjoys hiking, karaoke and spending time with family in San Francisco and Belize.

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