Valda Boyd Ford

Valda Boyd Ford is the founder and CEO of The Center for Human Diversity, an organization that provides companies with the tools and knowledge necessary to respond to changing demographics and increasing diversity. She gives over fifty presentations a year to various groups around the country on topics of cultural competency, intercultural communication, creating safe and productive work environments, and delivering better service to a wider range of people.

Ford started her humanitarian career as a nurse, acquiring master’s degrees in public health and nursing administration along the way. This career choice took her from Saudi Arabia to the Netherlands and eventually to the Caribbean, but the trip didn’t stop there. She spent months in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka, where she provided free vision care to refugees while working with Unite for Sight, an agency for which she would later become the Director of Refugee Initiatives.

In many of the places nursing took her, Ford spent as much time teaching and building community programs as she did providing healthcare. She created a vast health services company in the Caribbean. She developed programs to educate children in the refugee camps about nutrition and eye safety. And she trained local healthcare workers to identify visual and learning defecits. Wherever Ford went, she found something to improve, and whatever she couldn’t find, she created.

As a nurse, world traveler, teacher, and speaker, Ford brings a wealth of experience to any discussion she enters into and any project she tackles. Her book, Don’t Touch the Monk, will share some of that wealth with you.