Lorie Valle-Yañez

Vice President, Diversity & Inclusion, MassMutual

Biography

Lorie Valle-Yañez joined MassMutual in June 2008 as Vice President, Diversity & Inclusion. Lorie is responsible for developing and spearheading an enterprise-wide diversity strategy and a multi-year game plan for MassMutual. As part of the Corporate Human Resources team, Lorie serves as an internal diversity consultant, advisor, and partner to the company’s senior leaders, department managers, and employees, with the goal of driving diversity and inclusion into MassMutual’s culture and operations in order to help achieve business objectives and propel the company forward in today’s increasingly complex, globally-integrated marketplace.

Lorie has over 15 years of experience in the diversity arena. She came to MassMutual from ESPN, Inc., where she was the Sr. Director for Diversity, Work/Life and Employee Services. In that role, she set the strategic direction for diversity, and successfully led initiatives to impact diversity, inclusion, engagement and wellness, garnering prestigious industry awards for the company along the way. Prior to working at ESPN, Lorie held various diversity positions with increasing responsibility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, where she ultimately took on the lead diversity position as Group Leader for Diversity and Work/Life Programs. 

Lorie is a member of the Diversity Collegium, a 25-member diversity "think tank" dedicated to advancing the field of diversity and inclusion.  She has been an invited speaker and workshop presenter at various diversity conferences and events, and has earned recognition for her work. She has served as a board member of the Urban League of Greater Hartford since 2006.

Lorie began her diversity training at birth. She is racially/ethnically mixed, multicultural, and the first generation in her family born in the United States. Her parents were immigrants from two different countries; her father was from the Philippines, and her mother is from Nicaragua. Valle is a blend of Filipino, Spanish, Maya, Portuguese, and Chinese ancestries. She was born in San Francisco and raised in the Hawaiian Islands where diversity and multiculturalism are a way of life.

Lorie holds a B.S. degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco.  A resident of West Hartford, Connecticut, she is married to Mario Yañez, a native of Chile, and has a son, James "Kimo" Sanborn, who is an artist and musician.