The Metropolitan Opera has announced that Marcia Lynn Sells will be the company’s first-ever Chief Diversity Officer.

Among her responsibilities in the new position, Sells will be tasked with implementing a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) plan which will be at the core of the company’s hiring, artistic planning, and audience engagement activities. She will also be charged with identifying the company’s systematic and structural inequities while working with the marketing and development departments on broadening the company’s base.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Met’s very talented team, which is clearly committed to dismantling racial inequalities within the institution,” Sells said in a press release. “I look forward to expanding the work that the Met has embarked on to create a more inclusive workplace that values the diversity of its staff and the audiences it serves. As someone who started out as a dancer, it feels like a wonderful homecoming to return to a performing arts organization, especially one that is determined to elevate all voices and identities.”

Sells previously worked with such organizations as Columbia University, the NBA, Reuters, and the Dance Theater of Harlem. Sells also has a law degree from Columbia and served as an Assistant District Attorney for the state of New York.