Global speaker and President and CEO Lenora Billings-Harris will deliver the commencement address during Averett University’s Winter 2022 Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 10, at the University’s E. Stuart James Grant North Campus, 707 Mt. Cross Rd. in Danville.

Averett will confer the degrees of nearly 120 students between the Averett Online and the university’s traditional programs this commencement. The graduating class of 2022 includes 17 veterans and two international students from Bahamas. All of the graduates were born between 1963 and 2002.

These graduates will hear from Billings-Harris, who specializes in helping organizations create and implement strategies to make diversity, equity and inclusion into competitive advantages by disrupting bias in the workplace. With more than 25 years of experience in the public and private sectors, she is known for having developed a unique style of presenting sensitive topics in thought-provoking, non-judgmental, positive and upbeat ways.

Currently serving as president and CEO of UbuntuGlobal, a few of her clients include NASA, the Ritz Carlton Hotels, Mercedes Benz, West Point, Disney and Best Buy, as well as numerous professional associations and universities. She serves as an adjunct professor for the business schools of two universities, including Averett.

A two-time author, Billings-Harris is included among the Top 100 Thought Leaders on Diversity by the Society of Human Resource Management and is listed as one of the Top 30 Diversity & Inclusion Leaders You Must Follow in 2022. She is a past president of the Global Speakers Federation and, in 2018, was inducted into its Speaker Hall of Fame.

Billings-Harris has presented to audiences in more than 45 countries on six continents, plus in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. She is a proud alumna of Hampton University and the University of Michigan.