“…that, to me, is success and each day you have another opportunity for it.” | An Interview With Brittany Hart

Meet Brittany – Impact collaboration partner.

We interviewed Brittany to hear more about why she chose this line of work and what success means to her.

Let’s start with you telling us a bit about who you are and what you do.

I am a Human Capital Management Professional/consultant with expertise in Human Capital Analytics and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy from the Washington, DC metropolitan area. I began my career working for the American Psychological Association (APA) studying workforce trends in Psychology and STEM, and managing survey design and implementation. From there, I transitioned to the professional services industry working in human capital strategy and analytics.

What made you decide to work with Impact?

In short, the people and the mission. The piece of Impact’s mission that resonates with me is around representation in leadership – ensuring that the leaders of an organization are representative of their broader base, whether that base is employees, members, constituents, etc. From a people perspective, I met Lucy early in my consulting career when she was leading Diversity and Inclusion at Booz Allen Hamilton, so when I was approached by a trusted colleague to share my expertise with Impact, I knew that I had to accept. What an exciting opportunity to collaborate with people that you respect and admire, doing something that is truly meaningful to you and has a positive impact on others.

What is your ‘why’—both professionally and personally—that drives you in this line of work?

I would say that service to others is my ‘why’. Using my time, skills, and resources in a way that has a meaningful outcome for others is something that has always been important to me. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a child trauma psychologist and as I navigated through college, I realized that the clinical/counseling path wasn’t my true career passion. From there, I resided myself to the fact that I wouldn’t directly fulfill my ‘why’ professionally and I was okay with that because I was interested in the work that I was doing and liked the people that I worked with. I spend a lot of my time volunteering in various capacities and that is fulfilling for me. In the last few years, however, I have been able to do work that I feel is in service to other PEOPLE and not just to an organization, so while it doesn’t look the same way I expected as a high school student, I am in a position where I can fulfill my ‘why’ both personally and professionally and that is invigorating!

If you weren’t working in this field, what would you be doing?

You know, it’s funny. My mom recently found a paper that I wrote in the 10th?grade about the experience of being black in America and why equity is important. So, while I never expected to directly translate my interests into my career, this is always important to me. I think I can honestly say that the work that I am doing today is the work that I want to be doing. I have quite literally morphed my I/O Psychology and African American Studies interests and degrees from undergrad into my current career and if you asked me this 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have expected it. With that said, if we’re talking pie-in-the-sky dream job, it would probably be something like an F1 racer.

What is your definition of success?

I don’t have a large lofty definition of success. In the grand scheme of things, when you lay your head on your pillow each night, and you are proud of what you’ve accomplished that day and you’ve left someone or something better than you found it, that, to me, is success and each day you have another opportunity for it.