Corey Ponder

Corey Ponder is an empathy practitioner and educator with over 11 years of professional experience helping innovative companies and individuals build empathetic, inclusive, and diverse spaces. Drawing on a distinguished career as a policy analyst with the CIA and as a privacy policy advisor and partnerships professional at Facebook (now Meta Platforms) and Google, Corey brings a rare blend of institutional expertise and emotional intelligence to his work. He specializes in self-awareness, empathy, and interpersonal skills, empowering organizations to cultivate more committed, productive, and engaged workforces. Corey has successfully scaled inclusion initiatives at the CIA and Facebook and has delivered impactful talks on allyship and empathy for leading organizations including Google, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Fitbit, Expedia, InnovatorsBox, and General Assembly. He has developed and facilitated workshops on empathy, allyship, bias, privilege, and race, and his thought leadership has been featured in Fortune Magazine's raceAhead newsletter, Women 2.0, and Change Catalyst's Leading With Empathy Series across essays, podcasts, and articles. Corey holds a Master's in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor's in Political Science from Vanderbilt University.