Diane Forbes Berthoud, PhD, MA
Chief Inclusive Excellence and Institutional Effectiveness Officer and Vice President
Diane Forbes Berthoud was named the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) chief inclusive excellence and institutional effectiveness officer and vice president in December 2025. She brings more than 25 years of progressive academic and administrative leadership experience in the areas of assessment, organizational change and transformation, leadership development, and strategic planning and implementation.
In her current role, Forbes Berthoud leads the Office of Inclusive Excellence and Institutional Effectiveness, overseeing the implementation and advancement of the University’s strategic plan, data-informed planning, organizational learning, capacity building, and evidence-based practices to expand access and opportunity, foster belonging, and support an environment in which every member of the UMB community can thrive.
Forbes Berthoud previously served as UMB’s first chief equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) officer and vice president (CEDIO/VP), assuming the role in July 2021. During her tenure as CEDIO/VP, UMB was named a Forbes Best Employer for Diversity for four consecutive years — 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 — and received the Executive Alliance Honor Roll Award in 2023 and 2024.
Before joining UMB, Forbes Berthoud held several key positions for the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) for a decade, most recently associate vice chancellor for EDI. In that role, she led the management of the university’s first Strategic Plan for Inclusive Excellence, directed central aspects of an accountability process involving senior leadership, provided leadership in developing accountability data dashboards to track key metrics, and oversaw the creation of an EDI inclusion best practices resource and diversity strategic planning toolkit to guide the planning and implementation processes.
Before that, Forbes Berthoud oversaw academic planning, strategic planning, and implementation as an academic director and lecturer of UCSD’s 4,000-student Sixth College. She served on the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women, developed and enhanced the global education program, and was honored with a UCSD diversity award for outstanding efforts in advancing the school’s academic and institutional inclusion and access goals.
Forbes Berthoud also was a founding faculty member of the RISE San Diego Urban Leadership Fellows Program, a partnership with the University of San Diego to advance leadership and workforce development and civic engagement, and she was recognized as a 2020 San Diego Woman of Distinction by San Diego Woman Magazine for her contributions to higher education, the community, and society.
Forbes Berthoud has considerable history in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., region, serving as an affiliate faculty member at George Washington University; visiting professor at George Mason University; lecturer and doctoral fellow at Howard University; senior fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park; and associate professor and chair in the Department of Communication at Trinity Washington University. Forbes Berthoud also is a researcher whose scholarship focuses on the intersectional processes of organizing and explores creative ways to expand leadership theory and scholarship. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, and she has published book chapters in organizational and leadership studies, pedagogy and higher education, and the psychodynamics of groups and organizations.
She also served as lead consultant in a countywide organizational effectiveness and diversity initiative in Montgomery County (Md.) government, where she led an assessment and planning process to improve organizational effectiveness and strengthen engagement, access, and success for thousands of employees. And she has served as a consultant with the American Psychological Association, a United Nations agency, and Ombudsperson at the U.S. Capitol.
Forbes Berthoud earned PhD and MA degrees in organizational communication and social psychology from Howard University as well as a BA in communication and a certificate in Spanish translation and interpretation from Barry University. She holds a management certificate from the University of California, a certificate in mediation from the National Center for Conflict Resolution, an edX certificate in Leadership from Harvard University, and is a graduate of the UC-Coro Systemwide Leadership Collaborative.