From Click to Submit: Navigating the All New 2026 Annual Application 

Barbara Frankel is the Managing Director of the Insights division at Seramount, working on global and US diversity surveys, national thought-leader projects, and groundbreaking research on inclusion and DEI topics and how to create family-friendly workplaces. She was the leader of the recent Pledge to Progress research project, which details corporate America’s progress in combating racism in the year since the murder of George Floyd.

Barbara is a thought leader, editor, writer, manager, and consultant in global and US diversity management, business development and marketing, business journalism, and human- and civil-rights advocacy.

She previously was executive editor and senior vice president at DiversityInc. Barbara has served on the national Board of Directors of GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) and the global advisory board of WeConnect International, a nonprofit that helps women entrepreneurs be corporate suppliers, as well as Garden State Equality.

Amy Nakatani is the Senior Director of the Insight Analytics Team at Seramount, leading the administration, analysis, and reporting efforts for Seramount’s many DEI initiatives and indexes. This work provides benchmarks and insights that help companies assess their areas of strength and opportunities for improvement to further advance their DEI efforts and create a more inclusive workplace for their employees.

Prior to joining Seramount, Amy was the Director of Assessment, Measurement, and Insights in the Office of Data Analytics at the University of Colorado Boulder. In this position, she helped campus leadership utilize data to make informed decisions to help improve student and employee experiences. She has had a career in higher education that includes several director-level assessment roles as well as serving as a faculty member at CU Boulder and Carleton College.

Throughout her career in academia, Amy has had a commitment to improving DEI excellence in the workplace. At CU Boulder, she served on the Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Council and the Chancellor’s Committee for Women, and she co-led a large-scale Campus & Workplace Culture Survey initiative that was administered to all students and employees. With almost 18,000 responses, this survey provided critical data necessary for understanding the variation in experiences of people across diverse identities, followed by use of this understanding to develop action plans for addressing these inequities and creating a more inclusive campus environment for all.

Amy’s work at Seramount allows her to continue combining her two passions: using her quantitative analytics skills and helping to improve DEI efforts in the workplace.

Amy holds a BS degree in Computational Mathematics from Michigan State University and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. In her free time, she enjoys the Colorado outdoors as well as binge-watching a great TV series.