Can You Buy Your Credentials as a DE&I Practitioner?

The promise of prestige, a polished magazine feature, and the glow of industry recognition is tempting. But there’s no vetting process. No assessment of your work, evidence of your impact, or understanding of the discipline. Just a price tag. If you can afford it, you can have it.

In a world saturated with awards and rankings, this is a growing business model. But it’s one that has serious ethical implications – especially in fields like Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, where trust, integrity, and expertise matter deeply.

When people can pay their way to the top, we dilute the meaning of true expertise. Clients, organisations, and the public are led to believe that someone is a DE&I expert based on shiny accolades, not substantive credentials. And worse, buyers of these titles might not be delivering good work – just good PR.

This undermines the credibility of the profession and creates space for superficial interventions that fail to address the deep, structural inequalities DE&I work is meant to tackle. In short, it allows profit to masquerade as progress.

Being an expert in DE&I isn’t about appearing in glossy magazines. It’s about understanding people – how they think, interact, and are shaped by systems, stereotypes, and history. It’s about working with organisations to foster true belonging and equity.

It takes years of study, research, and evidence-based practice. Real DE&I work requires:

• A deep understanding of human behaviour: How bias is formed, how it shows up, and how it can be interrupted.
• Systems thinking: Knowing how inequality operates across the employee lifecycle – from recruitment to promotion, from performance evaluation to redundancy.
• Intersectionality and nuance: Understanding how different minority groups are impacted in distinct and overlapping ways.
• Change and organisational development: Knowing how to shift culture and behaviour in complex, resistant systems.
• An evidence-based approach: Using data, rigorous evaluation, and research to guide action – not guesswork or assumptions.

And perhaps most importantly, it requires humility – a commitment to learning, unlearning, and improving.

The practice of selling credentials undermines those who’ve put in the hard work, and it exploits a profession grounded in doing what’s right. It preys on a field striving to create safer, fairer workplaces – and turns it into a business opportunity for those who know how to play the visibility game.

To clients: please look beyond the badges and the awards. Ask practitioners about their methods, their evidence, their experience. The real credentials can’t be bought – they’re built over time, earned through impact, and grounded in integrity.

DE&I work matters. It changes lives. But only if it’s done with rigour and authenticity. So next time you see someone celebrated as a “top DEI voice,” ask yourself: was that recognition earned – or bought?