Sharon Harvey Davis

Sharon Harvey Davis was born as the only child of Preston and Josephine Harvey in St. Louis, Missouri on August 7, 1956.

Sharon was baptized as an infant at All Souls Catholic Church of Overland, Missouri and received her first communion and confirmation at Holy Rosary Catholic Church of St. Louis. At the age of 16, Sharon told her parents that she felt touched by the church service she attended with her grandfather in Aberdeen, Mississippi and wanted to change to the United Methodist Church. She was able to convince her parents to join her and the family joined Union Memorial United Methodist Church where she participated in the youth group and as an adult served in several leadership roles. Later in her life, Sharon and family joined Salem United Methodist Church where Sharon was an active and committed member.

Sharon's father, who was active in the civil rights movement, made a commitment to his family that they would not live in a segregated neighborhood and that his daughter would not attend a segregated school.

Sharon's first home was in Breckenridge Hills, Missouri and she moved at the age of 7 with her family to Florissant, Missouri where Sharon and her parents had to overcome red lining, verbal and physical threats as the only Black family to live in Florissant, Missouri at that time.

Sharon's elementary education was in the St. Louis Catholic Archdiocese. In high school, Sharon chose to ride along with her mother each day from Florissant to University City High School where Sharon's mom was an elementary and middle school English teacher. The choice was made to allow Sharon to learn in a more diverse educational setting than was available at the time in her local school district.

Sharon continued her education at Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science Degree and St. Louis University with an Executive Master's Degree in International Business and Cornell University as a Certified Diversity Professional/Advanced Practitioner, Diversity Management. After completing her undergraduate education at Washington University, Sharon began her career working in Human Resources at A.G. Edwards (Wells Fargo Financial Advisors) and continued working up the corporate ladder at McDonell Douglas, Dayton Hudson Department Stores and Inroads. After returning to school and the completion of her Master's Degree at St. Louis University, Sharon landed at Adam's Mark Hotels (HBE Corporation) as Assistant Personnel Director. Shortly after she began, the corporation was hit with a large discrimination lawsuit by the NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Sharon was tapped first as Director of Diversity and soon after promoted to Vice President of Corporate Affairs responsible for minority supplier program, community affairs, corporate spokesperson and diversity hiring and outreach. After the discrimination lawsuit was settled with the U.S. Department of Justice, Sharon had designed, implemented and had oversight responsibility for the consent decree to design, deliver and manage diversity training to nearly 10,000 employees at 26 locations. Prior to the diversity training, Adam's Mark Hotels were given an F ranking during the NAACP annual published rankings. Two years later, after the diversity training was completed, Adam's Mark Hotels received a B ranking by the NAACP.

Sharon completed her career at Ameren where she was hired to start the first diversity program at the corporation. While at Ameren, Sharon held the positions of Diversity Manager, Diversity Director and culminating with Vice President, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion reporting directly to the CEO. Sharon built a nationally recognized, award-winning DE&I program. After joining Ameren Sharon launched many new programs including the Inclusion Cruiser bringing DE&I training to outlying Ameren locations and community events, Employee Resource Groups to support veterans, women, minorities, multi-generations, the disabled and LGBTQ employees in the workforce, annual corporate wide diversity training that is shared and available to the public at no cost and a diversity communication effort than included an internal and external diversity website. Under Sharon's leadership an Ameren Diversity Ambassador Program was developed that includes over 200 Ameren employees who volunteer to provide diversity peer training and support corporate DE&I initiatives. Sharon created the Diversity Festival and Celebrate Ameren corporate family events that allowed employees and their families to spend a day learning and participate in fun, learning activities about DE&I. These events were attended by over 5000 Ameren employees and family members. Under Sharon's leadership, Ameren was recognized with several national awards including ranking as the Top Company for Utilities, Top Company for Black Executives, Top Company for Veterans by DiversityInc, Black Enterprise SO Best Companies for Diversity, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Best Place to Work for LGBTQ with a Corporate Equality Index score of 100%, Top Military-Friendly Employer by G.I. Jobs Magazine and Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion.

Sharon served extensively in her community serving as a board member of Teach for America, St. Louis Public School Foundation and St. Luke's Hospitals. Sharon served as Board Chairman for NCCJ (formerly National Coalition of Christians and Jews) and FOCUS St. Louis. Sharon has had the privilege of being the mother to Preston and Corinne (Cori). The greatest joy in her life was watching them grow into beautiful adults. The delight of being their mom was always greater for Sharon than any hardship, annoyance or inconvenience. Preston and Cori were a gift to her every day.

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