Kimberly Walton (she/her)

A woman in yellow jacket smiling for the camera.
Founder (DEIA) consultancy, DiverseUSA, LLC
  • Picture8
    Promoting DEIA Best Practices for Implementation
  • Picture9
    Leveraging Differences
  • Picture10
    Community-Based Outreach & Partnership
  • Picture11
    Developing DEIA Strategies and Action Plans
  • Picture12
    Legal Strategies

Kimberly Walton is the founder of the nationwide diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) consultancy, DiverseUSA, LLC, serving organizations across sectors, professional service firms, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. Guided by core values of efficacy, fairness, and never wasting potential, Kimberly always embraces the opportunity to tackle complex DEIA challenges.

With more than 30 years of experience at the intersection of law, policy, and social justice, her true talent is that of fostering human connection, and envisioning and realizing large-scale policy.

Kimberly is recognized for her prolific design and implementation of effective, pragmatic DEIA strategies and advising clients on driving and managing necessary—sometimes painful— change through transparency and empathy. She is also a trusted coach to individuals newly appointed to senior DEIA leadership roles. She regularly speaks on DEIA-related topics at conferences and other events nationwide.

Thanks to her roots in public service and policy, Kimberly is involved with several non-profits supporting public agency goals, including becoming a fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), an independent, non-profit, and non-partisan organization established to assist the government in building more effective, efficient, accountable, and transparent organizations. She is also the Vice President of Executive Women in Government, an organization serving as a powerful force for advancing women in senior leadership positions in the federal government.

Kimberly is the former Executive Assistant Administrator for Enterprise Support at the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In that role, she was responsible for implementing processes that strengthen enterprise support services across TSA’s human resources, acquisition and procurement, training, logistics, and other critical enterprise support functions.

TSA Enterprise Support provides services to 62,000 employees, manages 14,000 pieces of Transportation Security Equipment nationwide to secure 2.2 million passengers; trained over 7900 new officers, spent 1.89 billion in contracting dollars; and managed over 15,000 computers. Enterprise Support consists of 7 offices and 1900 employees and has a budget of 1.9 billion. Enterprise Support oversees TSA’s offices of Human Capital, Acquisition Program Management, Contracting and Procurement, Security & Administrative Services, Training and Development, and Information Technology.

After joining TSA in January 2003, Kimberly served as the TSA Ombudsman, Deputy Special Counselor, and then Special Counselor, where she served as the principal advisor to the TSA Administrator on all matters involving civil rights and liberties, equal opportunity, disability, privacy, and diversity issues. In January 2012, she became the Assistant Administrator for Civil Rights & Liberties, Ombudsman, and Traveler Engagement (CRL/OTE).

Before joining TSA, Kimberly served as the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office and as Director of Civil Rights for the Department of Commerce. She also chaired the department's diversity council. Before joining Commerce, Ms. Walton was an attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In 2015, she created, developed, and launched Women Executives at TSA (WE@TSA) and Employee Advocacy Council that engages female executives and other interested employees to provide their unique perspectives on issues facing women in the workplace. She served as the President of WE@TSA until 2021.

Kimberly is a 2021 recipient of the Presidential Rank Award and a recipient of the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership. She has received a DHS Secretary’s Award for Diversity Management, TSA Silver Medal Award, and TSA Core Values Award. Additionally, she received the TSA Trailblazer Award in recognition of her pioneering efforts toward the advancement of women. While at the U.S. Department of Commerce, she received a Silver Medal Award and two Bronze Medals.

Kimberly is also a graduate of the National and International Security Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Kimberly holds a law degree from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. She studied psychology at the University of Tennessee and organizational psychology at Columbia University. She lives with her husband of 40 years and enjoys spending time and traveling with her two adult children and four grandsons.