Natasha Mascarenhas
Aviva Canada

As diversity and inclusion lead at Aviva Canada for the past three years, Natasha Mascarenhas has been working tirelessly to build D&I into the company’s DNA.  “At Aviva, we embrace D&I because we believe in diversity of thought, promoting individuality and allowing people to be their whole selves at work,” she says.

Her efforts are starting to pay off. Mascarenhas has helped boost female representation at the executive level to over 40% and has improved the number of visible minority leaders who are part of succession plans for executive roles. She has also led the establishment of five inclusion communities, including Origins, a group that celebrates cultural harmony and the differences that unite employees based on race, ethnicity, faith, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“We strive to look at D&I from both an internal and external lens – thinking about our actions from a customer, colleague and community perspective,” Mascarenhas says.

In 2020, recognizing that there’s more Aviva Canada can do about racism and its own biases, Mascarenhas led the charge, organizing tough but meaningful conversations on Black Lives Matter with executives and employees and rolled out unconscious bias training to all 4,200 employees. Aviva Canada also signed up to the BlackNorth Initiative to eliminate institutional racism.

With an executive coaching accreditation from Royal Roads University, Mascarenhas also mentors many leaders and provides counsel on D&I across the executive and leadership teams.

“Having a mentor is very valuable, as they provide different perspectives based on their own lived experiences,” she says. “The mentors that I’ve had throughout my career have challenged me to think differently and encouraged me to move out of my comfort zone.”