Dr. Velda McRae-Yates

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Dr. Velda McRae-Yates

Director of Enterprise Staffing & Support, HR Division, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Dr. Velda McRae-Yates is a Business leader and Human Resources expert and entrepreneur with more than twenty five years in the field. Her experience is across multiple market sectors including Higher Education, Healthcare, High Tech, Research & Development, Construction, Finance and Nonprofit Media. Dr. McRae-Yates is adept at strategic visioning, diversity & inclusion, process improvement, performance management, organizational assessments, information systems integration, compensation, staff development, training and more.

In March 2022, Dr. McRae-Yates was appointed Director of Enterprise Staffing and Support for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, HR Division. Previously, she served as the Secretariat HR Officer Executive Office of Education Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She formerly served as the Executive Director of Human Resources at Massachusetts College of Art & Design and managed the Commonwealth Compact.  Their mission is to retain professionals of color in Massachusetts, increase their visibility for board appointments, commissions, and employment.  McRae-Yates has designed and delivered Diversity & Inclusion Strategies Conference, worked with industry sectors in building awareness, recruiting for candidates, and providing roundtable sessions for candid conversations on making Massachusetts a more welcoming environment.

Dr. McRae-Yates currently serves on the Board for Acre Family Day Care (a nonprofit state agency providing women a pathway to economic independence through the creation of licensed home-based family child care businesses), Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center, and as Co-Chair of the Marketing, Promotion & Engagement Committee for the Women of the Harvard Club Leadership Committee.  She also works with the Council on Aging in delivering training on Behavioral Interviewing Skills for employees in transition.

She was Chair of the Diversity Committee that initiated the Annual Diversity Dinner, now a flagship annual event, with the Northeast Human Resources Association, as well as Chair of their Special Interest Committee.  Other memberships and volunteer engagements include, National Association for African Americans in Human Resources, former member of the Association for Affirmative Action Professionals, The Boston Consortium, and the New England Higher Education Recruitment Consortium, and former facilitator for the Boston Management Consortium.

Dr. McRae-Yates has also taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Bentley University, Springfield College, Berklee College of Music, and Lesley University.  She has done consulting projects in the healthcare and nonprofit arenas, and presented at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity, Northeast Human Resources Conference, and career symposiums, and published work on Institutionalizing Diversity.

Dr. McRae-Yates holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Organizational Behavior, a Master of Science in Applied Management from Lesley University, and a PhD in Organizational Development and Change with a focus on institutionalizing diversity from Union Institute and University. Dr. McRae-Yates is also a Cornell Certified Diversity Practitioner, and is certified to administer the BarOn Emotional Intelligence Quotient Inventory from Multi-Health Systems, Inc., Ontario, Canada.