Hey, I’m Vessy

Vessy Tasheva She/They

Founder & CEO of Vessy.com (Diversity & Inclusion and Mental Health consultancy)

Originally Bulgarian and based out of Ireland, I work with clients across Europe and North America such as Soundcloud, Reward Gateway, Typeform and more, and now expanding to South America, Africa and Asia!

Recognitions:

• 2019 — named as one of 2019’s most influential D&I Leaders globally, by Hive Learning.

• 2020 — named as one of the UK’s most influential D&I leaders in 2020, by Hive Learning

• 2021 — listed in Top 50 D&I Influencers globally by Onalytica

• 2021 — Vessy.com was featured in Top 10 of Emerging Diversity & Inclusion Companies in Europe by Manage HR Magazine.

In April 2020 I launched a video course on Inclusive Leadership on SocialTalent, learning platform, where the course ranked as #2 in the Most Watched course for the month of May. 

In the last 11 years, prior to being a founder, I have worked as Chief Strategy Officer of a talent tech startup, as well as in various roles across product, marketing, and culture in companies between 4 and 800 employees. 

Currently, we are growing the Vessy.com team and hiring for 2 roles - meet our team below!

After completing a certified course in Psychotherapy & Counselling with PCI College in Ireland and authoring a paper on Intersectionality, Privilege, and Otherness in Psychotherapy, I am now studying in Trinity College in Dublin to complete a masters of science in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in order to examine D&I in the field of psychotherapy and to develop an intersectional approach to D&I through mental health as a unifying factor for all employees in an increasingly polarized world. 

I have authored:

How Diversity and Inclusion Leaders Can Drive Measurable Results, a whitepaper on OKRs in Diversity & Inclusion

2020 Diversity in the Workplace Report featuring 10 companies from 10 industries, such as NHS, Spotify, Blinkist and others

Victoria Napolitano • She/Her • D&I Strategist •📍São Paulo 🇧🇷

I have started my career in the Fintech industry as part of a very agile Talent Acquisition team, then I did a deep dive into the employee experience area working as a Human Resources Business Partner and last but not least, I have been part of a global Diversity & Inclusion team. 

I have had the opportunity to be part of one of Google's initiatives to empower and support historically excluded communities, especifically trans* women in São Paulo. As a result of that, you can watch the film Google produced that tells a little bit of my story as a transgender woman working in the Tech Industry in Brazil and how initiatives like Google’s can change lives like it did with mine.

I am driven by connecting with people from different backgrounds with different life experiences and I hope we can build a much more just and equitable place for everyone.

Dean O'Reilly • He/Him • People Analyst •📍Dublin 🇮🇪

Vice-President for Wellbeing at DCU Students’ Union, and former VP for Welfare & Equality at DCU Students’ Union.  During my BSc (Hons) in Psychology, I worked as a student advocate chairing Dublin City University’s LGBTQ+ Student Society. During that role, I discovered my passion for EDI work having been involved in the draft of DCU’s Student Gender Identity Policy, the rollout of DCU’s first Rainbow Week celebrating LGBTQ+ diversity, and raising over €8K for local LGBTQ+ charities.  I led as Editor-In-Chief for Vessy.com’s Diversity in the Workplace Report 2019, and 2020. As VP for Welfare & Equality on DCU SU, I worked with students directly on casework regarding mental, physical, and sexual health, as well as finance, accommodation, and equality. I created DCU’s Accessibility Policy for Societies alongside the Students with Disabilities Advisory Group, which I also founded. 

Ioanna Mincheva • She/Her • Program Designer •📍Sofia 🇧🇬

My experience ranges from serving as the International Officer of the Liberal Youth Association in Sofia, to being a guest researcher in Gender Studies & Social Movements in Masaryk University, Brno, as part of my Human Rights and Democratization MA, to my current work in education technology, STEM and learning program design.

The unifying thread in everything I do is a deep commitment to social change, uplifting communities, teams, and individuals to achieve more, to be more, to strive for more. I am well-versed in providing strategic direction to programs and projects, improving processes, communication & outcomes through leading by example and establishing structured channels of trust and communication. I am dedicated to letting differences shine, to turning them into the common thread that unites us. With a background in Human Rights and International Relations, a world traveler, and a queer person, I am deeply familiar with the innate sensitivity and unique cultural and mental awareness required to be at the forefront of D&I work.

Xiaowen Yan • She/Her • D&I Researcher • 📍Cork 🇮🇪 / Bengbu 🇨🇳

Graduated from University College Cork with a Master's Degree in Management Information with First Class honours. I received University Scholarship for Excellent Academic Performance twice. I grew up in China and can speak two languages - English and Chinese at a native speaker level. I have obtained Shanghai Interpretation Accreditation in Chinese and English and pass BEC C1 Business Higher exam. I worked as an investigation specialist in Amazon on the sellers side. 

Ayodeji Soyombo • He/Him • Analyst •📍Ibadan 🇳🇬

Ayo is a Research & Data Analyst, Sales and Client Experience Professional from Nigeria. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Mathematics and a Master’s degree in Statistics(Econometrics). Currently, he is running a Doctorate programme in Financial Management at the Atlantic International University, USA.
He is a speaker and has passion for helping people understand their purpose in areas of career and relationships. He has facilitated several workshops on Financial Literacy and undergone several trainings in human capacity and development.Ayo has worked with Aiico Insurance Plc as an underwriter, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (now Nigerian Exchange Group PLC) as Client Experience Officer, also with several organizations as compliance officer, Marketing Executive and Data Analyst cutting across several sectors like Insurance, Capital Market etc.He is a member of the Nigerian Institute of Management(NIM,Chartered). He has authored four academic papers, published in reputable journals.

Kameliya Tomova • She/Her • Transparency Strategist •📍Sofia 🇧🇬 / Berlin 🇩🇪

With a background in sociology and international NGO management, Kameliya is well-versed in the areas of good governance, organisational integrity and effectiveness, culture change and diversity and inclusion. In the past, Kameliya has worked on elevating the governance capacity of numerous high performing non-profits through in-depth research, benchmarking analysis, policy evaluation, consultations and the development of action plans, helping those organisations improve their efficiency and effectiveness through transparent and accountable practices. In addition, Kameliya has extensive experience in strategic outreach, NGO compliance, investigative research, report writing, financial controlling and grant proposal writing. In her free time, Kameliya is a mountain climber and a tree-hugger, activist at heart, driven to cross swords with the unjust. With roots in both Berlin and Sofia, she is fluent in English, German, and Bulgarian.

Corina Butler-Demeo • She/They • D&I Strategist • 📍Springfield, MA 🇺🇸

Corina is a Deaf Queer and disabled person based in the US. She is a graduate student at Northeastern University studying business, D&I, and data visualization. Corina is passionate about advocating for accessibility in technology products, as well as the inclusion of systemically marginalized people amongst organizations. Corina has a unique toolkit of skills that include research & analytics, marketing, sales, consulting, data science programming, graphic design, and leading employee resource groups. With these set of skills and their unique lens, Corina has been able to guide diversity initiatives towards inclusive and accessible models in their hiring practices, employee relations, user/customer experience, and product design. Corina is an urban farmer during the summer months, and enjoys cooking, and spending time outside hiking with her dog, Cali.

Dominik Cheliński • He/Him • Analyst • 📍 Maastricht 🇳🇱 🇵🇱

Dominik holds a double Masters degree in Work & Organisational Psychology and Social Statistics. Despite the young age he already gathered experience in the HR offices across Europe and the business spectrum in companies such as Amazon, Accenture or Philips. He got to know both the soft and hard aspects of HR as he worked in analytics, recruitment and administration offices. He aims at designing and executing solutions which are simple, effective and measurable. If you don't see Dominik reading some literature or analyzing datasets, you will most likely find him with people, in the kitchen, in the swimming pool or outside in nature.

Watch Vessy’s Berlin talk:

Vessy gave this talk in Berlin, Germany at Zalando HQ on September 26th, 2019:

Video Course: Inclusive Leadership

Now available on SocialTalent

Recording of my talk at Career Hive 2019: (in Bulgarian)

Dnevnik: 3 of the Career Hive speakers