DEI Directive

DEI Directive is a Charlotte, North Carolina-based software company that provides an inclusion intelligence platform for human resources and diversity, equity and inclusion professionals. The product gives organizations real-time access to workforce data intended to replace guesswork in people decisions.

The platform helps employers build a workforce data infrastructure that extends beyond gender, race and ethnicity to additional dimensions such as veteran status, LGBTQ+ affiliation and disability status. Rather than reporting only headcount composition, the system is designed to surface related measures such as promotion rates and pay parity, alongside indicators of employee engagement and turnover, community and employee underutilization, and equity gaps in practices and policies. Customers are intended to use these outputs to inform recruitment, retention and talent development decisions, to address disparities in hiring, performance evaluation, promotion and compensation, to allocate resources, and to reduce legal risk exposure.

Founding story

Founder Malobi Achike, an attorney born in Nigeria, raised in Malaysia and later based in Minnesota before moving to North Carolina, worked as an immigration attorney and spent 15 years in the legal technology sector. She left her job during the COVID-19 pandemic for family reasons; within a week, the murder of George Floyd occurred, and her assessment that corporate responses were insufficient led her to combine her corporate and technology background with DEI work. After early market research and conversations with chief human resource officers identified a workplace data gap, she founded DEI Directive and set out to build an MVP decision intelligence platform.

Business model

DEI Directive sells a software platform to employer organizations, positioned for use by HR and DEI functions that need workforce data infrastructure and reporting. Early development was financed in part by non-dilutive grant funding from NC IDEA, and grant proceeds were later applied to building a sales team for customer acquisition.

Traction

As of February 2024 the company reported a dedicated team of 11 and a stabilized product, and described itself as ready to scale after using grant funding to hire sales staff.