Joe Gerstandt

Joe Gerstandt is a speaker, author, and advisor bringing greater clarity, action, and impact to organizational diversity and inclusion efforts.

Gerstandt has worked with Fortune 100 corporations, small non-profits, and everything in between. He is a featured contributor for the Workforce Diversity Network Expert Forum, and his insights have been published in Diversity Best Practices, Diversity Executive, HR Executive, The Diversity Factor, The American Diversity Report, the Corporate Recruiting Leadership Journal, Associations Now, and other print and online journals. He also co-authored the book "Social Gravity: Harnessing the Natural Laws of Relationships."

Gerstandt grew up on a family farm in NW Iowa, served four years in the United States Marine Corps, including participation in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, attended Iowa State University, and then spent six years working in management and business development for technology and communication companies. He then made a career change and went to work for a grassroots non-profit organization, where he found himself drawn to issues related to diversity and inclusion and became actively involved in that work. Gerstandt served as the Director of Education and Prevention Programming at the Nebraska AIDS Project, a Program Director at the National Conference for Community and Justice, and as the Diversity Director at Alegent Health.

Gerstandt believes we cannot continue applying a 20th-century approach to an increasingly critical set of 21st-century issues. A strong advocate for resetting the diversity and inclusion conversation, Gerstandt sees diversity and inclusion as often misunderstood. His keynote messages and interactive workshops bring greater clarity, action, and impact to existing and new organizational diversity & inclusion efforts.