Carlson School Alumni Advocate for Workplace Change

In recent years, U.S. workers have been encouraged to “bring your whole self to work”—an idea aimed at encouraging creativity, participation, engagement, and honesty in the workplace. However, amid this shifting movement, life in the cubicles or on the factory floor can still seem unwelcoming or even hostile.

Businesses that want the best from and for their employees should take a different tack and create a more inclusive culture, say Thomas Cloyd, ’18 MBA, Jessica “Jessi” Lynn, ’23 MBA, Nick Alm, ’18 BSB, and Todd Williams, ’91 BSB. These four Carlson School alumni have built careers advocating for people who may not feel like they have a voice in corporate culture. They say they believe policies and protocols need to change—not just for personal reasons, but so businesses themselves can flourish, too.

Able and Willing

A career in healthcare had always held appeal to Thomas Cloyd, the son of a pharmacist and a nurse. His early career included a stint at Epic, the medical records software company, where he worked as a project manager and had a hand, via technology, in shaping patient care.

But when a spinal-cord injury at age 25 left him paralyzed below the chest, the professional became personal. As he struggled with even the most basic tasks, such as putting on clothes, Cloyd committed himself to achieving personal independence and charting a professional path that would help quadriplegics like himself.

Now in his mid-30s, Cloyd lives in the Bay Area and works as a strategic-alliance manager at Omada Health, a virtual-care company that helps people manage chronic conditions. “Helping people with chronic conditions is extremely important to me,” Cloyd says. “I think about the everyday experience of the people that we’re serving. I can empathize with them in a very deep way.”

Cloyd’s advocacy for people with disabilities is multifaceted. While living in Minnesota, he helped found a nonprofit that lobbied the state legislature to fund spinal cord injury research. In Oakland, where he now lives, he serves on the Mayor’s Commission on Persons with Disabilities, weighing in on matters ranging from the design of bus stops to an ordinance that incentivizes property owners to maintain elevators. 

But ultimately, Cloyd hopes to be part of a company that develops therapies to treat spinal injuries. “There are research advances in deep brain stimulation and other areas that give me hope that interventions will happen in my lifetime,” he says. “I want to make sure that those solutions make it to the market in a way that benefits end users.”

Speaking Out

Growing up, Jessi Lynn learned about the building trades while helping her father, a general contractor. So, it’s perhaps not surprising that she eventually forged a career in construction. 

But what might surprise old acquaintances is that Lynn, now in her mid-30s, has also become an author. In September 2024, she published her book, The Truth About Being a Woman in Construction, which spotlights the challenges, prejudice, and harassment she says she faced while working in the industry for more than a decade. She details how, as a seasoned construction manager, she was routinely passed over for promotions while male colleagues rose up the ranks. When she reported about being the target of verbal and even physical abuse, she says she was made to feel that she was the one at fault for the behavior. Other women, she notes, were similarly mistreated. 

Personal grievance, however, didn’t inspire Lynn to write The Truth. She hatched the idea during her last year at the Carlson School. By using her own experience, including interactions with her peers, she founded Pivot HIGHer+, a dedicated resource for women and non-binary people interested in the construction industry. Her hope is that this provides a new level of transparency and inclusion around the skills and financial freedom that can be created by working in the building trades. 

Improved work conditions could also address the workforce shortage across the trades, Lynn notes. U.S. Department of Labor data suggest that 600,000 construction jobs went unfilled last year—a figure that’s expected to grow in the coming years. Government estimates also indicate that fewer than 10 percent of all non-administrative construction-industry jobs are held by women. Lynn believes the trades can offer women plenty of financial freedom, but they won’t stay in the field if the culture doesn’t evolve by eliminating ongoing harassment, dismissive behavior, and fear for safety. 

“The book is a call to action for the construction industry to be more inclusive,” Lynn says. “But it’s equal parts frustration and hope. I wanted to share my experience, but also suggest ways that we can move forward.”

Cultivating Support

In June 2024, Nick Alm participated in 17 different Pride Month events, wielding a mic, sitting on panels, and captivating crowds with their sparkly outfits and insightful observations on how LGBTQIA+ folks navigate the workplace. 

It was exhausting, but also exhilarating for Alm, who, just a decade ago, was just one of two openly gay kids in a class of 700 students at Stillwater High School in Minnesota. “There was this pressure to compensate for what I perceived to be really wrong with me,” Alm says of their teenage years. 

Alm no longer views their LGBTQ status as a liability. Quite the opposite, in fact: They believe LGBTQIA+ folks can play a vital role in advancing the work of organizations, especially corporations and nonprofits. As the founder and CEO of Mossier, a Twin Cities–based consulting firm, Alm has advised a growing roster of companies, including Andersen Windows, General Mills, and North Memorial Health. 

Alm’s message? Inclusion is good for business—especially workforce development. But it’s more than a belief: Alm backs up their claims with facts and research. Notably, a recent Public Religion Research Institute survey found that more than 28 percent of Gen Z (ages 18–25) identifies as LGBTQIA+. “Are you committed to building the workforce of the future? If you are, this segment is too big to dismiss,” Alm insists. 

Employees do their best work when they feel supported in the workplace, Alm says, so firms that signal their support for the LGBTQIA+ community and back up that support with equitable policies will reap the benefits of having happy employees. Alm suggests firms offer an option for their workforce to self-identify as LGBTQIA+ as a way of measuring people’s comfort at the company. “If 2 to 3 percent of your workforce self-identifies as LGBTQIA+, that’s considered by today’s standards a pretty good number,” they say. “But when you think about where we’re going, it shows we have a long way to go.”

Strategic Transformations

A few years ago, Todd Williams returned to his alma mater to teach a class called “Race, Power, and Justice in Business.” The boldly titled course, which he co-developed and still teaches with Carlson School Professor John Budd, is on the “novel end of the spectrum” compared to traditional business school offerings, Williams says. 

Race and discrimination in business aren’t the sole focus of the class, he notes: “We talk about power dynamics, organizational structures, and various ways that companies can harness the power of difference to fuel their economic engines and drive revenue.” 

Williams has seen firsthand how prioritizing diversity can benefit businesses. He spent 30 years in corporate America, working for such blue-chip companies as Coca- Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Target Corporation, where, as director of merchandise segmentation, he led initiatives to highlight product relevance with Asian, African American, Hispanic, Jewish, and LGBTQIA+ consumer segments.

In 2019, he left Target and started TB Williams Consulting to help businesses leverage differences to boost engagement, productivity, and talent retention. “We really pride ourselves on helping organizations change in ways that align with their organizational goals,” Williams says. He acknowledges diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become a contentious topic in some circles in recent years, but he is encouraged by those choosing to stay the course. “We tend to find ourselves working with companies that are really, really strategic,” he says. “DEI is woven into the overall strategy discussion, rather than just part of employee training.”

In the classroom, Williams thrives on the moments when students begin to grasp the links between all identities and business success. “They’ll say, ‘Hmmm, I never thought about it like that before’ or ‘I didn’t realize companies did this much strategy around their talent or the way they impact communities.’ It’s exciting to see them make the connections.”

Photography by Dan Gunderson