Wendy Lewis  

Wendy Lewis is CEO and Founder of AllySHIFT™, a strategic consultancy and advocacy platform specializing in organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Through AllySHIFT, she partners with corporate, nonprofit, and civic organizations to implement transformative DEI strategies that go beyond compliance to measurable culture change and inclusive leadership development. Her work focuses on empathetic leadership, allyship sustainability, and systemic change management, helping institutions embed equity throughout talent pipelines, supply chains, and community engagement practices. Lewis also serves as Board Chair of the Chicago Sinfonietta, a leading orchestra dedicated to diversity and community impact, and is the Executive Producer of the awardwinning documentary Beyond Their Years: The Incredible Legacies of Herb Carnegie and Buck O’Neil.  

Before founding her consultancy, Lewis served as Global Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Community Engagement for McDonald’s Corporation, where she launched the company’s first Global Gender Balance and Diversity Strategy and built enterprisewide DEI frameworks that shaped talent development and community partnerships worldwide. Earlier in her career, she spent nearly 30 years at Major League Baseball (MLB) — including leadership roles with the Chicago Cubs and the MLB Commissioner’s Office — where she developed leaguewide diversity initiatives such as the Diversity Economic Impact Engagement model and the Diverse Business Partners Program. Lewis earned her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of WisconsinOshkosh and a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, grounding her DEI leadership in both organizational strategy and human behavior.