Clear Peak Communications

Before retiring in July, 2004, Toni L. Riccardi was a Partner and the Chief Diversity Officer for PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (PwC). Toni was responsible for the firm's national diversity and work-life strategies, program and benefits development, metrics as well as EEO and AA. She was also a member of PwC’s 13 person US Management Commitment, the group responsible for the day-to-day operation of the firm.

As Chief Diversity Officer, Toni developed firm-wide consensus and support for diversity and worklife initiatives. Those initiatives included mentoring and networking programs for women and minorities as well as a number of affinity groups know as Networking, Minority, Parenting, and GLBT Circles. Diversity training and communications were also developed for and regularly incorporated into each of the line of service organizations. Diversity metrics were introduced as part of the firm’s Balanced Scorecard.

Under her direction, PwC gained national recognition for its successes. PwC was twice named one of the Top 10 Companies for Working Mothers by Working Mother magazine. Universum Research’s recognized PwC as one of the Top 50 Places to Work for Minorities. DiversityInc. magazine named PwC as one of the Top 50 Best Companies for Diversity as well as one of the top 10 companies for Asians and for women. PwC was also named one of Fortune magazine’s Best Places To Work. In addition, Toni was recognized with the Corporate Leadership Award from Diversity Best Practices, and was named the 2002 Public Accounting Partner of the Year by the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting.

Toni joined PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1989 to direct the firm's campus recruiting and college relations activities. In that role, she helped establish an MBA recruiting initiative and created an eight-week instructional accounting course for liberal arts students and MBAs in partnership with the University of Southern California. In 1991, she moved to and later led the human resource development function that brought innovative resources to the organization including the first all-employee survey, a redesigned orientation program, 360 feedback/appraisal system, and the firm’s first international business course in collaboration with Harvard and INSEAD. In 1996, Toni assumed responsibility for re-engineering the firm's US human resource function including bringing the firm's first global human resource information system on line. She was admitted to the partnership in 1998.

Prior to joining PricewaterhouseCoopers, Toni directed external affairs for the Simmons College School of Management. In prior years, she managed campus and student activities at Cornell University and at Northwestern University.

Toni holds an MBA from the Simmons College School of Management and a BS in Art from Southwest Missouri State University. She received an Administrative Fellowship in Student Personnel Administration from the University of Minnesota. She also attended the Bryn Mawr College summer program for Women in Higher Education Administration and the Aspen Institute’s New Leaders Program.

Toni serves as a member of several boards including the Board of Trustees of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago; the Simmons College Corporation, the Advisory Board for College of Arts and Letters, Southwest Missouri State University; the Corporate Advisory Board of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting; the University of Chicago Women’s Board; the Advisory Board for the Diversity Institute at Bennett College; the Simmons College Corporation and the Chicago Arts Partnership With Education.

She is one of the authors of a new book published by WILEY/Jossey-Bass. The book, Enlightened Power’s: 40 Voices Reveal How Women Are Transforming the Corporate, Public and Cultural Landscape was published in April, 2005.

Toni is currently enjoying what she calls, the “big pause.” She is taking a year off to enjoy life, yoga, and write her next chapter. She has also started her own company, Red.