Husch Blackwell issued the following announcement on Jan. 31.
Husch Blackwell is pleased to announce that Andre Khan has joined the firm as its new Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I). Khan’s arrival marks the expansion of the firm’s DE&I team and its ability to tap into the talent pool of major metropolitan areas where it does not maintain a physical office presence.
Khan will join the firm’s Link office, a virtual office established in July 2020. Formerly, Khan served as the Vice President of Global Diversity & Inclusion Strategy, Governance and Reporting for TD Bank. He resides in West Palm Beach, Florida with his husband and 15-year-old daughter.
Khan will be charged with implementing Husch Blackwell’s DE&I strategies, including the integration of DE&I across all firm operations, such as firm governance, legal recruiting, professional development, marketing, procurement and human resources.
“We’re excited to bring Andre onto the team and expand the capabilities of our group,” said Amanda Garcia-Williams, Husch Blackwell’s Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, who joined the firm’s Link office in June 2021. “Andre’s experience driving diversity goals at the operational level will be important to our team. Additionally, his compliance background in the financial industry will provide our efforts the structure and rigor they need to succeed.”
“DE&I is not something I came to right away in my career, but more as the result of a professional and personal evolution,” said Khan. “I started out managing operations, audit, and compliance functions in financial services, and as I began to transition into more diversity-related roles, I understood maybe more readily than others how diversity programs could gain a lot of insight from the compliance world. Amanda and the leadership team at Husch Blackwell understood this straight away. Coming to the firm felt like the right move to make, and having the Link office as an option made it all possible.”
“It was always our expectation that The Link office would expand our access to talented professionals at every level of the organization, and that has proven to be the case,” said J.Y. Miller, the Husch Blackwell partner who serves as The Link’s office managing partner. “The Link has opened up opportunities for us to hire in smaller metros, like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Lansing, Michigan, where we are not likely to have physical offices, but it also allows us to compete for talent in major business centers such as South Florida and New York.”
The Link launched with 50 professionals and in less than two years has grown to become Husch Blackwell’s second-largest office with 323 lawyers and staff.
Original source can be found here.