Hamlin Grange is a diversity and inclusion strategist and President and Co-Founder of DiversiPro Inc., a workplace diversity training, coaching, and consulting company. DiversiPro was established in 2000. The firm’s clients include major private corporations, not-for-profit organizations, television networks, health care providers, education, law enforcement and other organizations looking for ways to meet the challenges and reap the rewards of a culturally diverse marketplace.
As a diversity change management consulting firm, DiversiPro works with managers and their teams in projects related to the integration of cultural diversity into their work and work force.
Hamlin is a sought-after keynote speaker and diversity trainer. He speaks eloquently and passionately about the power of diversity and the benefits of creating inclusive environments that value the perspectives and life experiences of everyone. He argues convincingly about the importance of running diversity on “all Six Cylinders”.
Hamlin has served on a number of important boards and agencies including: The Toronto Police Services Board, a Trustee of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Board of the YMCA of Greater Toronto. He is a former Member of the Consent and Capacity Board, an independent provincial tribunal whose mission is the fair and accessible adjudication of consent and capacity issues, balancing the rights of vulnerable individuals with public safety. He is a former member of the board of Canadian Women in Communications. He has also been an external advisor to the Ontario Ministry of Corrections as part of its Human Rights Project.
Until recently he was Board Chair of the Responsible Gambling Council which focuses on prevention of problem gambling through research, information and awareness.
A prime example of the Canadian Immigrant Story, Hamlin was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Toronto.
Hamlin attended Central Technical High School in Toronto where he was a star track and field athlete and was elected Student Council President. He was a member of Canada’s National Junior Track and Field Team, competed for Canada in Europe and the United States and was a Canadian junior record-holder for the 400M hurdles for several years.
Awarded an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Colorado, Hamlin graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism. He did minor studies in African American Studies and Research Methodologies.
After working as a reporter at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, he returned to Canada as managing editor of Contrast, a black community newspaper based in Toronto.
Before starting a career as a diversity and inclusion consultant, Hamlin had an outstanding career as a journalist. At CBC Television, he was Assignment Editor, Municipal Affairs Reporter, host, interviewer, and news anchor. He was also a reporter at Global Television and the Toronto Star. Hamlin has hosted two popular television current affairs programs: Workweek, on CBC Newsworld and TVOntario and the CBC’s More to the Story. Hamlin was a co-host of Good Evening Jamaica, a radio program heard across Jamaica and around the world over the Internet.
His passion for equity in media led him to establish Innoversity and the Innoversity Creative Summit, which for more than a decade brought together creators and producers from diverse backgrounds with key decision makers in the Canadian media to share ideas and showcase the vast array of talent available to Canada’s mainstream broadcasters. Many people credit Innoversity for helping to change Canada’s media landscape .
Along the way, Hamlin has won awards for his journalistic, voluntary and athletic activities. He has served on important public boards and has helped to shape policies and practices that have created inclusive and productive environments. One of his favourite experiences, however, was being named “Father of the Year” by a local Toronto organization. After having successfully raised two teenage daughters, he told his audience, he believed he deserved the award.
