Rita Hardiman

Rita Hardiman is Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Keolis Commuter Services (KCS) in Boston, MA, a subsidiary of Keolis N.A and Keolis, headquartered in Paris, France. Keolis is a global provider of transportation services in sixteen countries on four continents. In Boston, KCS operates the commuter rail service under contract with the MBTA. Dr. Hardiman’s responsibilities include all civil rights compliance for rail passengers and Keolis employees and all diversity and inclusion programs. She is also responsible for management of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program – a U.S. Department of Transportation program that promotes the utilization of small, minority and women-owned companies as vendors and suppliers to Keolis. Prior to joining Keolis Commuter Services in March of 2014, she served as Director of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer at a community college in western Massachusetts. For more than twenty-five years Dr. Hardiman worked as a diversity and inclusion consultant managing her own business, New Perspectives, Inc. She has worked in the private and public sectors with a broad range of organizations such as DuPont, CIGNA, ConAgra Foods, Microsoft Corporation, Aetna Insurance, The American Red Cross, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and numerous colleges and universities, including Michigan State University, the University of Wyoming, and the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Hardiman holds a B.A. in Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development, and an Ed.D in Psychological Education from the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Hardiman has published articles on multicultural organizations, foundations of social justice education, managing diversity in the workplace, collaborative approaches to organizational change in large systems, racial identity development, and facilitating dialogue groups on diversity.