Profiles in Diversity Journal has selected Nelson Mullins Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Katerina “Kat” Taylor for the magazine’s 14th Annual Diversity Leader Award, which recognizes those who work every day to expand and improve diversity, inclusion, and equity in the workplace and beyond.

“The organizations and individual leaders whose efforts are featured in the Journal’s upcoming issue represent the best of the best when it comes to putting diversity, inclusion, and equity at the center of every decision they make regarding recruitment, hiring, mentoring, recognition, support, and promotion,” said Profiles in Diversity Journal publisher Jim Rector. “These organizations, and their individual diversity leaders, have created, and continue to support and champion, an intentionally open and inclusive culture. Even in a field populated by organizations that care about and support diversity, inclusion, and equity in the workplace, the class of Diversity Leader Award recipients for 2022 clearly stands out.”

“This is great news for Nelson Mullins,” Taylor said. “Our firm’s Managing Partner Jim Lehman along with our Chief Diversity Partner Mike Brown and Deborah St Lawrence Thompson, who leads the firm’s DEI Committee, have created a space to safely innovate and activate policies and programs that drive forward our DEI efforts and initiatives.”

Taylor is among 10 leaders in the public sector and private fields, including other Big Law firms, chosen for the 14th Annual Diversity Leader Award. In 2021, Taylor led the way with a series of wins for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Nelson Mullins. After holding conversations with firm management, she and other stakeholders secured approval from the Executive Committee to expand its group to nine voting members, now including three women and one Black attorney. Nelson Mullins held its first Diversity Retreat for members of the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee in August.

The following initiatives were approved in 2021 by the Executive Committee, under Taylor’s leadership: a Cultural Holiday, which allows all employees to take paid time to celebrate a day important in their culture; a DEI Credit Policy that allows attorneys to receive billing credit for time spent on DEI initiatives; and approval for pursuing a Mansfield certification, which is an ambitious certification granted to law firms that achieve equitable and inclusive workplaces at high levels and specified rates. Also, for the first time in firm history, diverse attorneys met their annual firm goals at the same rate as their counterparts. Taylor plans to expand and build upon these programs in 2022.

Taylor joined Nelson Mullins in March of 2021. As the firm’s first Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, she is focused on three pillars. First, she engages individual diverse attorneys to coach them for personal ownership of their careers and provide specific guidance for individual success. Second, she engages individual partners who control client relationships, supervise individual attorneys, and manage matters in order to involve diverse attorneys in client work, business development opportunities, and career progression. Third, Taylor engages in refining institutional programs of the firm to develop structures, policies, and programs that support diverse attorneys, including consideration of the unique challenges and potential institutional barriers they may face.

Taylor has been honored and recognized by both the Atlanta Business Chronicle and Georgia Trend Magazine as a top 40 under 40, and Atlanta Business League’s 100 Most Influential African American Women in Metro Atlanta along with many other recognitions. Actively engaged in the community, Taylor serves on the Emory University Board of Visitors, Grove Park Foundation Board, 21st Century Leaders and chairs the New Life Community Center Board in DeKalb County. She has a BBA in Marketing from Texas Wesleyan University and an MBA in Finance from Argosy University.

Established in 1897, Nelson Mullins is an Am Law 100 firm of more than 930 attorneys and government relations professionals with 30 offices in 14 states and Washington, D.C. For more information on the firm, go to www.nelsonmullins.com.