Evelyn Maria Espinal brings a wealth of experience to the Symmetra team with a proven track record of successfully designing and leading a global EDI strategy across one of the world’s largest multinationals recognised in the business world as a beacon on EDI.

She is an Afro-Caribbean Cis Gender Women with over 35 years of experience leading transformational change on HR, OD and EDI in multi-national fortune 50 companies across various industries. Across her 30-year career, she has worked in an unusually wide range of organizations and sectors – in consulting and in corporate roles at Unilever, Verizon, Novartis, J&J, Pfizer, and Blackrock. Evelyn brings a great breadth of HR experience with a spike in EDI, talent, strategy, learning and organizational development. She is energetic and engaging, with a high work ethic and a deep-rooted commitment to make a positive difference; she combines this with a strong focus on supporting her business partners and on delivering against agreed goals.

Evelyn joined Unilever in 2013 as Leadership Development Director and Chief Diversity Officer for North America. At Unilever, Evelyn has also served as VP HR Supply Chain for the Americas for 4 years before moving to Mexico in 2017 as the VP HR Mexico & Caribbean. In Mexico, she led a robust HR organization servicing ~9,000 employees in over 25 countries and 36 agencies across a billion-dollar business. She was instrumental in improving HR Core Operations, sponsoring digital transformation and driving the adoption of methodologies to accelerate innovation and unlock human potential. In her latest role she was appointed as the Global Vice President Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) in 2020 and till 2024 led Unilever’s new Strategy which is an organization-wide effort to achieve an equitable and inclusive culture that eliminates any bias and discrimination from its practices and policies.

Evelyn has earned a Master’s Degree in Applied Behavioural Science from American University with a concentration on Social Reform and Race Relations. This reflects her love of learning which gives her a valuable breadth of perspective on innovative practices which she leverages to bring new ideas to life. She firmly believes that success is powered by the diverse opinions, skillsets & life experience of the people who make the products, not just the ones who make decisions. Her work strives to enable an environment where all individuals are treated fairly & respectfully, celebrating their human uniqueness.

Evelyn lives in Central New Jersey with her husband of 23 years, Luis, and their 16 year old child Fern.