What Does Inclusivity In NAHA Look Like?

AI Generated image. A person's history and culture affects how someone percieves an essential oil. It's vital we invite many different expressions of cultural faces at the governance table.

Our bylaws ask members to vote for individuals. Yet, for the first time, we are witnessing the emergence of an organised leadership platform. That development has prompted me to reflect more deeply on what we mean by representation, inclusion and leadership within an international professional organisation.

Over the past five years, through the work of the International Directors, and the International Director Co-ordinator, NAHA's international membership has expanded to around 7,000 members. We are no longer simply a North American organisation with international members; we have become a genuinely international community.

If NAHA's membership has become significantly more international over the last five years, how should that transformation be reflected in the way we think about leadership?

Inclusion is an appealing word. It suggests openness, fairness, belonging, and progress. Yet I am increasingly concerned by how often it is used without definition. What exactly do we mean when we describe ourselves as inclusive? Inclusive of whom? Inclusive in what ways? And perhaps most importantly, what evidence would demonstrate that inclusion is being achieved?

For an organisation that identifies itself as international, these questions matter.

When a platform chooses to stand collectively, it is entirely reasonable to consider not only the qualifications of its members but also what the composition of that platform communicates about leadership, representation, and vision.

Every inclusion reflects a decision. Absences also inform the story.

NAHA's membership spans countries, cultures, languages, ethnicities, economic circumstances, and lived experiences. We are also an organisation made up predominantly of women. As such, conversations about leadership cannot be separated from discussions about representation, power, access, and equity, since not all women experience disadvantage the same way; a woman's other circumstances… race, nationality, class, disability, language… shape what she encounters.

Access is a feminist issue.

Often diversity initiatives focus on one single characteristic at a time. Gender equity efforts can sometimes improve outcomes for women while leaving those facing multiple, overlapping barriers comparatively underrepresented. Meanwhile, some women who face additional barriers because of race, disability, nationality, language, immigration status, class, religion, neurodivergence, or cultural background remain marginalised even within supposedly inclusive spaces.

These overlapping experiences have become widely discussed under the term intersectionality, first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Whatever language we choose to use, the underlying principle is that people experience opportunity and disadvantage differently, and leadership benefits when it recognises those differences.

The challenges faced by a woman working in her home country may differ from those faced by an immigrant woman. The experiences of an able-bodied practitioner may differ from those of a disabled practitioner. The barriers encountered by a woman from a racially dominant background may differ from those encountered by a woman from a racially marginalised one.

Further, these experiences cannot be understood in isolation. Identities do not simply add together. For example, a disabled woman of colour does not experience racism and disability separately; those experiences interact to shape a reality that is different from either experience considered alone.

Nowhere is this more evident than across borders: the realities of practitioners working outside North America may differ considerably from those within it. If we genuinely believe these experiences matter, then we should expect to see evidence that they have informed how leadership is imagined, selected and supported.

My concern is not whether the individuals involved in the platform are talented, experienced, or committed. I assume they are.

This is not a question of competence. It is a question of representation.

When a deliberately assembled leadership team for an international organisation draws upon a relatively narrow range of demographic, geographic and professional experiences, we should feel comfortable asking what understanding of inclusion informed those choices.

That, in turn, raises two further questions. If a leadership team is intentionally assembled before an election, what principles should guide its composition, and what should members look for when assessing the team's collective vision?

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not arguing that people from similar backgrounds are incapable of caring about inclusion. Rather, I am suggesting that a group of people who share similar backgrounds, professional networks or lived experiences may unintentionally mistake their own experience for a universal one.

Intersectionality reminds us that none of us can fully understand every barrier through our own experience alone. Representation is not a mere formality. It shapes the questions we ask, the problems we recognise, and the solutions we consider. Making room for journeys different from our own broadens our understanding of the communities we exist to serve.

As a profession, we often speak about empowerment. Aromatherapy enables many women to build businesses, educate others, support families, and contribute to their communities. It is also connected to global networks of cultivation, production, trade, and traditional knowledge, much of which depends upon the labour and expertise of women around the world — women whose plants, practices, and communities we draw from, and to whom we owe more than gratitude.

If we celebrate that reality, then we must also be willing to examine whether our leadership structures reflect it.

So, I would like to ask our candidates, current leaders, and members to consider the following:

• What do we mean by "inclusive" in practical terms?

• What evidence would demonstrate that inclusion is being achieved?

• Whose voices are consistently absent from leadership conversations?

• What barriers prevent members from participating fully?

• How should an international organisation ensure that international perspectives influence leadership?

• If leadership is presented as a team, what should that team seek to represent?

These questions are not intended to divide us. Rather they are intended to strengthen. Elections are moments of choice, but they are also moments of reflection. This is one of the greatest opportunities we have to consider not only who should lead NAHA, but what inclusivity in NAHA might look like and what kind of organisation we hope it will become.

Outside of my thoughts about inclusivity in NAHA, you can find more reflections about the elections for new board members for the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy

NAHA Elections How To Elect A Leader