Albers Names O. David Jackson as New Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Albers Names O. David Jackson as New Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Organizational leadership specialist O. David Jackson has been appointed as the new Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at the Albers School of Business and Economics.

'Promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion is the first of Albers’ three strategic initiatives planned for 2021-23', said Albers Dean Joseph M. Phillips. 'As Assistant Dean for DEI, David will take our commitment to this initiative to a higher level. His knowledge of Albers comes from various perspectives: as an alumnus of our Leadership Executive MBA program, an advisory board member for our Center for Leadership Formation (CLF), and as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Management and CLF.'

'David brings many years of human resources experience, which include independent consulting and nine years at Microsoft, to his new role,' Phillips continued. 'We all look forward to working with him.'

Jackson is the founder and chief strategist of Houston-based Jaxx Strategic Partners, a professional services firm focused on building individual and organizational capacity. As a former adjunct professor for Seattle University's College of Education, School of Theology and Ministry, and Albers, he taught courses in human resource management, business and people analytics, leadership practices and organizational development, and contemporary ethics focused on DEI. 

From 2006 to 2014, he held the position of Client Aligned Director in the Human Resources division of Microsoft. In this role, Jackson led the strategic people and talent business agenda for the Information Platform and Ad Monetization business units within the Application and Services Group (ASG). He also provided coaching and analytical insight to executive and senior leadership teams on people strategies within a high risk/reward environment.

From 2006 to 2011, he was a Human Resources Director at Microsoft where he built and led the strategic and tactical HR agenda for the company's Bing Search R&D organization. In this position, he served as the HR strategist for the core HR functions and collaborated with global partners to support distributed engineering development teams in the US, China, India, and Western Europe.

Other jobs that Jackson has held include CEO and Managing Partner for startup management advisory firm Altruist Partners, Director of Staffing for New York-based Scholastic Corporation, Director of Staffing for New Jersey's Emdeon Corporation (formerly WebMD), HR Business Leader for Abt Associates in Chicago, and Personnel Management Specialist at the U.S. Department of Labor's headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Jackson has a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, Organization Development, and Adult Learning from Seattle University. He earned his Leadership Executive MBA at Albers, and majored in political science at Howard University for his undergraduate studies.