Crystal Rénae Braboy is an inspired HR professional, with a dozen years of hands-on knowledge and expertise in employee relations, performance management, leadership training and development, and people operations and strategies. With a never-ending dedication to people and progress, she prides herself on being a leader who fundamentally respects the human experience, and finds creative ways to align individuals’ innate gifts with an organization’s key needs.
Crystal earned her Master of Arts degree in Communications from DePaul University in 2010 and graduated summa cum laude; her B.A. is in English Literature. She is an HRCI-designated Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) as well as SHRM-SCP certified. She is a certified Diversity Professional (CDP) through National Diversity Council. Crystal is also currently pursuing her WorldatWork Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) certification. Interestingly, Crystal worked for years as a hip-hop journalist and created some of her most important work in that space for VIBE Magazine. These days, Crystal busies herself serving as a proud mentor to several first-generation college-bound seniors from underserved communities through her work with Chicago Scholars, and has dedicated her life to advocating for equity of access and opportunity in both the education and healthcare realms.
Crystal currently serves as Planned Parenthood of Illinois’ Vice President of Human Resources and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this role, Crystal leads PPIL’s efforts toward cultivating and fostering an inspiring work culture that is driven by the leveraging of similarities and differences, and strengthened through the transformative pursuit of eliminating inequities. In this age of ever-evolving workplace practices and norms, Crystal is focused on ensuring that PPIL is well-prepared to respond to changing workforce dynamics, and that their business decisions are well-aligned with the social outcomes that the 100-year-old organization strives to create. As a nationally-recognized Planned Parenthood Federation of America Mind Sciences on Difference: Our Brains on Race™ facilitator, Crystal’s facilitation expertise includes:
- Leading discussions on how our unconscious brains operate and acknowledging our society’s racial paradox
- Evidence-based strategies to prevent and override implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat—including interventions at the interpersonal and institutional level
- Communication strategies to reduce racial polarization.
In addition to her important work for PPIL, Crystal is also the founder of Human Resources Practitioners of Color, which has a 10-person board, and over 2,00 members. By providing a supportive community for human resources practitioners of color, Crystal and her organization are able to help HR professionals find success and satisfaction in all aspects of their work.
In great honor of and tribute to the host of revolutionary individuals who poured into her own life, and who inspired her towards a life rooted in the pursuits of social justice and black excellence, Crystal does all that she can to serve as a positive example and an aide to the next generation of leaders who will come behind her. As an advocate of truth and justice, she is most passionate about advancing race and health equity in our society, and believes that centering traditionally-silenced voices in equity work is critical. Daily, she strives to create physically and psychologically-safe spaces for those voices to be lifted, and for the knowledge and teaching that is brought forth by these communities to be put to use to improve the ways that our workplaces – and society as a whole – operate.
