Over the four decades since its founding, One To World has seen its target customer base of international students and scholars become more widespread across the globe, while diversity at the organization’s staff and leadership has not changed as dramatically.

When Jen Clarke assumed the Executive Director role in 2016, she personally made diversity a target within her staff and for the organization’s board. It was important to her to ensure that One To World mirrored as much as possible the partners, membership and international students and scholars in order to serve all the parties well. To do this, Jen paid close attention to opportunities that arose in hiring employees and interns, and for when Board of Director seats became available.

Since taking up this challenge, One To World’s staff has been transformed from 10 percent foreign-born to over 50 percent foreign-born. This has improved the organization’s ability to relate to the international students’ and scholars’ experiences and anticipate their challenges.

The board has also become more diverse, with directors representing 10 countries, and has resulted in half of the board coming from overseas compared to 28 percent previously.

Jen believes that these changes have made One To World better equipped to solve problems, identify opportunities and devise long-term strategies to help its customer base succeed.

Jen E. Clarke