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RUTH WHITE BIO
Ruth C. White, PhD MPH MSW RSW
Dr. White recently transitioned to full-time self-employment as a therapist, speaker, writer and teacher, after a two year stint as Advisor on equity, diversity, and inclusion at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where she has taught as a sessional lecturer in the Factor-Inwentash School of Social Work. She teaches Organizational Culture and Organizational Change in the Leading Change executive education program at Rotman.
Prior to working at Rotman, Ruth was Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Carbon Five (now merged into West Monroe Partners).
In the last role of her full-time academic career Dr. White spent 7 years as Clinical Associate Professor in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, where she taught leadership, management, program evaluation, and social policy to MSW students. Ruth gained tenure (2009) at Seattle University, where she taught social policy, data analysis, research methods, race & ethnicity, global social welfare, and community organizing to BSW and sociology students. In addition, she led an interdisciplinary study-abroad program in Belize for 5 years, and founded/managed a successful health improvement program in maternal and child health in rural Njeru, Uganda for 5 years. Dr. White has also taught at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, Simmons, and Fordham University. Her experience as a social worker has included stints in child welfare, addictions, corrections, and residential treatment settings in Canada, the UK and the USA.
With more than 20 years of speaking to thousands of people in a wide variety of sectors across the globe, Dr. White has built a reputation for thought-provoking keynotes, lectures and workshops that lead to paradigm shifts, organizational change and personal growth. As a consultant, workshop facilitator & public speaker her clients have included JPMorgan, Indeed, PwC, Aetna, Premera Blue Cross, Protiviti, NAACP and more.
Her groundbreaking research on the LGBTQ+ community in Jamaica, led her to be an expert witness in more than a dozen cases to prevent queer Jamaicans from being deported from the USA. In that capacity she has worked with Yale, Columbia and NYU law schools, gay rights and immigration rights organizations, and prestigious legal firms.
Her current focus is on stress management, burnout prevention and recovery, de-stigmatizing mental health, and the provision of mental health services to marginalized populations.
Dr. White has a travel & wellness newsletter on Substack called Be Well and Wander, and has written articles for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Tracy Anderson magazine, HuffPost, and more. She is the author of 4 books including The Stress Management Workbook and Everyday Stress Relief. Ruth was educated at University of California-Berkeley, McGill University (Canada), London School of Economics and the University of Ottawa (Canada).
Born in the UK, Ruth grew up in Jamaica and Canada, and lived on the west coast of the USA for many years before recently returning to Toronto, Canada. Ruth’s wide range of accomplishments include: being a stand-in for Serena Williams as an extra; signed as a model with agencies in Paris, London, San Francisco & Toronto; SCUBA certifications in open water, Nitrox and drysuit; and, being a high school and college track star, including being Ontario provincial long jump champion as a teen.
Dr. White is the mother of an adult daughter, with whom she shares a passion for outdoor activities, especially hiking. An avid traveler, with a love for off-the-beaten-path wanders, her sense of adventure has led her to raft the Class IV rapids of the Pacuare (Costa Rica) and the White Nile (Uganda), hike to the top of Blue Mountain (Jamaica), and kayak from Orcas Island to Sucia Island in the Pacific Northwest Region of the USA. Her new passion for travel writing includes pieces in Conde Nast Traveler UK & US editions, and Adventure.
