Podcast: Felicia Nurmsen: Disability, Technology, and Meaningful Work

(c) 2026 Luis A. Marrero. Boston Institute for Meaningful Purpose

Most people find their sense of purpose through work. For disabled people, the door to that work too often hinges on a single conversation: asking for an accommodation. It should be simple. A tool, a schedule change, a different way of doing the same job. Instead, employees disclose into a void, requests stall, and managers improvise. Felicia Nurmsen has spent 25 years inside Fortune 500 companies and global institutions fixing what breaks between disabled talent and meaningful work, and her message is direct: disability employment fails because of design, not capability.

In this conversation, Felicia and Luis explore what happens when work is designed for the people who actually do it. Why accommodation is still the most misunderstood conversation in employment, how technology, including AI used carefully, can make the process easier instead of harder, and why Felicia built Accompli+, a system designed to turn accommodation from a process people fear into one that empowers the employee asking and the employer answering.

About Felicia

Felicia Nurmsen is the founder of Inclusion Without Illusion, where she helps global employers make work accessible and accommodation workable. Over 25 years she has led disability employment and accommodation strategy for organizations including Toyota, Hilton, Kaiser Permanente, Raytheon Technologies, Sony, and ManpowerGroup, and previously served with the National Organization on Disability. Her disability training for the United Nations Development Programme was adopted into UNDP's global learning system and delivered across every country in the programme.

Felicia is the creator of Accompli+, an accommodation case management system built to make the accommodation process clearer and more empowering for employees and employers alike. An AI Certified Consultant, she writes the Loud & Clear newsletter and speaks internationally on accommodation, accessible technology, and competitive integrated employment.

Felicia can be reached at

Felicia M. Nurmsen

CEO & Founder

(1) 978-424-3336

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