Inizio announced this week that Stefanie Christmas will serve as its new global head of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I).

In the new role, Christmas will be responsible for developing an organization-wide DE&I strategy as well as “working with individual business unit leaders to deliver operational alignment and accountability.”

Christmas joins Inizio from Vynamic (an Inizio Advisory company), where she founded the firm’s DE&I efforts in 2016. While there, she also co-developed Vynamic’s DE&I Consulting Service to assist clients with establishing a DE&I strategy.

Before that, Christmas was a consultant with Accenture.

“Having previously worked for Vynamic for seven and a half years, I am looking forward to taking up a new challenge working as part of Inizio’s extended executive team,” Christmas said in a statement. “During my time with the company, I’ve worked with some phenomenal companies across the biotech, biopharma and pharmaceutical sectors. Having worked transformational initiatives to embed DE&I in organizations, I can’t wait to get started and make my mark in my new role.”

The hire comes months after Inizio announced that it would acquire Evolution Road, a digital innovation company. As part of the deal, Evolution Road will become part of Evoke, a 2022 MM+M Agency 100 honoree and the marcomms business unit of Inizio. Inizio said that Evolution Road will boost Evoke’s “commercial innovation offering, digital health solutions, and end-to-end omnichannel suite of services.”

“Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of a central Inizio value; we empower everyone. We strive to be a business that our team is proud to be a part of,” Inizio CEO Paul Taaffe said in a statement. “Throughout her career, Stefanie has been highly successful in helping organizations take their DE&I offering to the next level, which will be a big asset at Inizio. It’s also great to appoint Stefanie from within the Inizio family, showcasing the opportunities across the group when it comes to our team’s career development. I wish Stefanie the best of luck in her new role and I’m excited to see what the future holds”