Biography

Matthew C. Whitaker, Ph.D. is the Founder and CEO of Diamond Strategies, LLC., a Better Business Bureau A+ rated, NSDMC certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), and trend-setting justice, equity, diversity, inclusion (JEDI), leadership, Interest-Based-Resolution (IBR), and community relations firm. Diamond Strategies is the Winner of the 2023 Best of Tempe (Arizona) Consultant Hall of Fame Award, and has partnered with Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, faith-based institutions, and government.  Dr. Whitaker is also Executive Director of the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Phoenix. He is an award-winning educator, author, community engagement specialist, motivational speaker, and founder of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, winner of the 2014 Arizona Diversity Leadership Alliance (DLA) Inclusive Workplace Award, at Arizona State University, where was a professor of history for 15 years.  Dr. Whitaker earned a B.A. in Sociology, B.A. in History, and an M.A. in History, at Arizona State University. He earned a Ph.D. in History, with honors, at Michigan State University, and recently completed an Executive Certification Program in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Cornell University.

Dr. Whitaker founded Diamond Strategies, L.L.C. in May of 2016, to operationalize what he had long done in his writings, classrooms, speeches and service to the business, non-profit, and municipal worlds, use his unique sociological and historical training (most DE&I professionals have transactional business and HR backgrounds or clinical training) to help individuals, organizations, and communities, learn and leverage our diverse past and present to promote healing, social cohesion, productivity and profitability. He is deeply authentic in style and delivery and utilizes his diverse familial background to reach and teach those who have more homogeneous experiences.

For these efforts, he was given Arizona Diversity Leadership Alliance’s 2016 Diversity and Inclusion Leader Award, and the Arizona Collectors 2020 Frederick Douglass Social Justice Award.  He specializes in U.S. history, comparative Black history and life, civil rights, race relations, social movements, diversity, equity, and inclusion.  He has edited three books, including Hurricane Katrina: America’s Unnatural Disaster, and he is the author of Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West.  He has also authored award-winning articles, penned over 40 opinion pieces, and is currently completing a memoir entitled The Undisputed Truth: A Revolutionary Journey to Black Manhood.  

Dr. Whitaker has consulted, spoken, and lectured in Australia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, England, Ghana, and Ireland.  Has been featured on CNN, NPR, PBS, WVON, KEMET, and was given ASU’s 2015 Pioneer Award for working to improve African American life, community and culture.  He is also a co-founder of the Healing Racism Public Dialogue Series, winner of the 2008 National League of Cities Promoting Inclusive Award, and he was given the City of Phoenix 2006 Martin Luther King, Jr. Living the Dream Award.  He is a trustee of the New Life Center of Arizona, a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Community Advisory Board and can be followed on Twitter @Dr_Whitaker, Instagram @drmcw, and LinkedIn @drmatthewcwhitaker. Diamond Strategies can be follow on Twitter @dstrategiesllc, Instagram @dstrategiesllc, and LinkedIn @diamondstrategiesllc.