Paola Cecchi Dimeglio
J.D.,LL.M,MS.c,PH.D.
Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio, Ph.D., LL.M., MS.c, J.D., is a leading authority on helping senior leaders make more inclusive decisions for themselves and their organizations, having advised some of the largest for-profit and non-profit companies in the world. An award-winning expert on behavioral and data science, big data and AI, race and gender, and leadership strategy, she holds dual appointments at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (WAPPP) and Harvard Law School (CLP), where she serves as faculty chair of the Executive Leadership Research Initiative for Women and Minority Attorneys. At Harvard Law School, she is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Legal Profession. She is the CEO of People Culture Drive Consulting Group, a strategic data-driven and behavioral-science consulting firm with offices in the U.S., Europe, and the U.K.
Dr. Cecchi Dimeglio is behavioral and data scientist (Big Data and AI) and a lawyer. As a decision science, organizational behavior and gender/race specialist, she is advising some of the largest for-profit and non-profit organizations in the world. By enabling organizations to tap into insights from behavioral science and related fields allowing senior leadership to make better and inclusive decisions for themselves and their companies. She works with executives from Fortune 500 firms, governments, and top professional service firms, including Magic Circle law firms and AmLaw 100. She has developed several software and SAAS tools and owns several patents.
With over two decades of experience, working with some of the largest organizations in the world to change behavior at scale, she has designed and tested many behavioral interventions to effectively steer decision-making for inclusive organizations. She has advised and implemented major behavior change efforts across a range of public and private organizations, services, and topics, to foster better decision-making, inclusive leadership, and diverse teams.
She has authored over 60 articles, which have appeared in leading scholarly journals and the popular press, and has published several books, including International Franchising and her forthcoming book, Diversity Dividend, to be published by MIT Press in 2023.
Her research has been featured in Business Insider, Harvard Business Review (HBR), MIT Sloan Management Review, The American Lawyer, and at legal websites, including Bloomberg Law and Thomson Reuters Legal. She has been cited in numerous newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and the Washington Post.
Dr. Cecchi Dimeglio is a monthly contributor to Forbes (Forbes.com). For three years, she was a columnist for Thomson Reuters, writing on AI/Big data and gender & diversity, and wrote “Dear “Dr. Paola”, a monthly column.
Her research and articles have won awards from federal agencies and others, including an award from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services for her behavioral and data visualization tools, and the 2017 Azbee Awards of Excellence National Winners.
She has advised the U.S., E.U. and U.K. governments and the UN and the World bank on various topics related to her expertise. Dr. Cecchi-Dimeglio chairs the committee on Law and Gender for the UN Global Compact, PRME initiative (WGGE). She was a member of the Advisory Council of the American Bar Association, advising the President of the American Bar Association on diversity challenges. She was nominated as Expert-Coordinator for several projects on dispute resolution, lawyers, and gender that were funded by the EU and the UN. More recently, she has advised the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on AI and Algorithmic Fairness and on its HIRE Initiatives.
In addition to her work in academia, Dr. Cecchi Dimeglio founded and is heading a specialized data-driven and behavioral-science consulting firm with offices in the U.S., Europe, and the U.K., focusing on improving organizations' decision-making processes to level the playing field (People Culture Drive Consulting Group (pcdconsultinggroup.com)). In this role, she has been working with some of the largest organizations in the world to design and implement behavioral interventions to solve private and public policy challenges and to guide better decision-making, foster inclusive leadership, and create truly diverse teams. She has advised leading tech companies, Fortune 50 and 500 Companies, non-profit organizations, global law firms, around the world on improving their strategic planning, decision-making, talent strategy, and data planning.
She also has developed software and SAAS tools that help debias performance reviews, and for which she owns several patents.
Dr. Cecchi Dimeglio serves as a non-profit board member of organizations that support access to healthcare, education, and legal services. She is also a senior advisor to the European Association of Judges for Mediation (GEMME). Dr. Cecchi Dimeglio earned a J.D., LL.M., M.Sc., and a Magistére-DJCE degree in Common and Civil Law. She also has two Ph.D.’s in Social & Economic Sciences (Summa Cum Laude), which involved study at universities in France, Belgium, and the U.S. (Stanford University). She has held a postdoctoral appointment at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School. Before joining Harvard, she practiced law for Landwell & Associés (now PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd.) and Baker & McKenzie.
