TITLE: Senior vice president

COMPANY: Toyota Motor Europe

BASED: Brussels

AGE: 46

NATIONALITY: Canadian

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Kylie Jimenez holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Before joining Toyota in 2012, she worked as a human resources executive at international companies, including Johnson & Johnson and General Mills. At Toyota, her positions have included director of HR at Toyota Canada and regional HR officer for the Latin America and Caribbean region, based in Brazil. Jimenez joined Toyota Motor Europe in 2021 as vice president people and innovation. She added responsibility for IT, corporate affairs, public relations, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in July 2021, and in 2022 was also named chief diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer.

REASON FOR WINNING

More and more automakers are making diversity, equity and inclusion efforts a cornerstone of their corporate strategy. At Toyota Motor Europe, DEI is an especially important focus because of Europe’s “diversity advantage.” Kylie Jimenez is responsible for leading DEI activities and program across a range of areas, with the goal of becoming a global Toyota benchmark.

Setting goals for 2025 and 2030 – “these things take time,” she says – Jimenez is working across three pillars: leadership commitment, including sponsoring women to ensure promotion and growth; talent, with a focus on attracting women to the automotive industry by overcoming stereotypes (50 percent of recent campus hires are women); and culture – focusing in inclusivity to ensure that TME employees feel as if they belong and can bring their authentic self to their job. Other efforts include a global DEI conference, the first within Toyota Motor, and a diversity advisory board that includes outside executives to drive accountability and challenge Toyota to redouble its efforts.