Why Care?

“I encourage people in my books to please lean into your privileges, they give you a chance to show up as an ally, take advantage of all of them and I do but I simultaneously also understand the implications of what not having that access looks like. And even though I can't fix all of that, I also have a bit of responsibility to be a part of the solution.”

“The reframing that I do around that is that meritocracy is a myth, the fact that everyone wants to get a job on their merit. Sadly, we know that lots of people get jobs because of who they know not necessarily what they know. They get opportunities and extra opportunities because of who they are...”

(Leadership theories are being developed by white men and researched on those from white backgrounds). “I think the biggest risk is how subtly permeated this exists within our definitions of leadership, of the leadership that we value and trust…"

“The other problem that we have is that people disregard the nuances of, in this case, women. And one of my Forbes pieces that I wrote, which is called Women are not a Monolith, and we must stop treating them as such..."

"So quite often I find all that DEI activities and initiatives is operating without a plan. People don't know what they're aiming for, right? They may have read something on LinkedIn, or they experience something in their previous organisation, or they've read an article somewhere and they go, we should do this. And it kind of ends up being this big shopping list of activity that people are trying to navigate through and find..."

“And so, what we try to lift up in this book is ways for people to shift their mindsets from having that fixed mindset of thinking this is the way it is, it's the way it's always going to be, people won't grow, people won't change, it’s how it’s been for centuries, so maybe there's a way for us to ask these tough questions. For them to believe with optimism and competence and historical fact that people can learn and grow with the right tools. And then with that mindset, go further and say, if we have better managed diverse workforces and teams, we will have more optimal outcomes and make the business case, because it's hard to argue that."

“I think this is a question for the world of work overall, which is challenge versus consensus. I think it is something you have to acknowledge as a leader which is that you might have three points of view in the room. If you go for consensus, you might be getting half good of all three of them. How do you get the very best? because if you’ve got those three opinions, everybody’s worked quite hard to build their case, what you need is for everyone to understand that the competition is outside the company, not within the company and that you want to get the best answer.”

“I want to challenge the comfortable in all of us and in myself. I want to invite us to walk that path together because the comfortable amongst us is needed in the change equation so desperately for change to be sustainable, to be at scale, to be accelerated, to address the real pain and inequities in our society.”

In Episode 31, I am joined by Jennifer Brown, Founder and CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting (JBC), to discuss the challenges of being an inclusive leader, how to overcome these challenges, and what inclusive leadership means.

Jennifer’s DEI journey has spanned for over 15 years in public speaking, entrepreneurship, consulting, thought leadership, and writing. She is an acclaimed keynoter and podcaster, with her podcast The Will to Change, which has 15,000 listeners per month. She has received several recognitions, having been named Woman of the Year, Social Entrepreneur of the Year, one of the Top 40 Outstanding Women and so much more. Her sincere commitment and determination to DEI have led to her numerous successes as a best-selling author of two books, a shortlist winner of the O.W.L. Award, and a winner of the 2019 Nautilus Book Awards' Business & Leadership category. These achievements drawback to her mission of creating inclusive organisations where all of us can thrive, and, encouraging leadership and allyship at all levels with concrete behaviours and actions.

Jennifer offers insight into her DEI journey, and her shift from focusing on DEI representation to ensuring that diverse individuals are respected, understood, hired, and retained in their respective organisations. She shares her personal story, and delves into the importance of this, as an authority figure and as an LGBTQ woman advocating for her community. As she explains, there is an ease in hiding, and seeking what is comfortable but what we actually need is to challenge what is comfortable. Setting that tone and creating psychological safety will normalise open conversations about things that frighten us and are not so often spoken about. These include questions about privileges and invisibility, and the significance of utilising that as a way of fuelling our allyship with others.

Lastly, she speaks about the inclusive leadership continuum, which features in her book – How to be an Inclusive Leader. She describes that leaders tend to get stuck at each transition stage:

1) Phase 1 and 2, that is between ‘I don’t know what I don’t know’ and ‘now I know what I don’t know’. This is complex as they have to overcome resistance, apathy, cynicism, and skepticism..

2) Phase 2 and 3, from the ‘I know what I don’t know’ to ‘deepening my knowledge’. They will have to experiment and fail a lot to learn, which is quite overwhelming, and shame and guilt-inducing for leaders.

3) Phase 3 and 4, here the issue is being stuck in the perfectionism trap between aware and active ‘not knowing’ and ‘not having mastering of how things will turn out’. Leaders will find that they are more vulnerable, they will hold themselves accountable and train themselves to notice bias around them and speak up.

In Phase 4, leaders are advocates and that can be difficult to achieve. As such, leaders require support, patience, flexibility, resilience, forgiveness, and graciousness. It's not about having a short-term focus on calling people out and canceling them when they make mistakes, but about having a long-term view of nurturing the journey of others. This holds more power than pushing people out from contributing to the DEI conversation because of their privileges.

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Jennifer can be found on:

‘With multicultural women, we see that most of the time they are like, I will be just like everyone else, I will be talented and work hard and my work will speak for myself. It’s not easy for these women to deal with these issues. Being intentional about getting the assistance you need, setting your goals and moving up .. How do you use your difference as an asset and leverage it as an advantage for your company?’ 

In Episode 30, I am joined by Bonnie St. John, CEO of Blue Circle Leadership Institute, to discuss the specific barriers and challenges that multicultural women face in climbing up the corporate ladder, building trust across multicultural differences, and engaging leaders to support them. Bonnie’s interest in DEI has been shaped by her life experiences as a Paralympic athlete, a Rhodes Scholar, a best-selling author, a White House Official and an entrepreneurial businesswoman. For over twenty years, Bonnie has led seminars, workshops and executive coaching, and has circled the globe as a keynote speaker and Fortune 500 leadership consultant. Her desire to lead with the sincere intention to make a difference is evident through her journey to find her strengths and overcome prejudices. She was the first African-American ever to win medals in Winter Olympic competition, taking home a silver and two bronze medals in downhill skiing. Through her work as the CEO of Blue Circle, she has worked to deeply understand the barriers faced by multicultural women, designing a powerful development program that gets to the heart of a much-needed conversation. We explore five core components of the Blue Circle Leadership program that support women to overcome these barriers: 

- Trust and informal networking: navigating across differences to create a sense of trust and comfort that doesn’t come as naturally between a senior white male and junior multicultural woman. - Telling and selling your value: cultural differences for multicultural women mean that they don’t feel comfortable ‘bragging’. - Sponsorship: addressing the informal network issue, and ensuring multicultural women can equip others to speak out for them, making it easier for others to help them out. - Strategic networking: moving multicultural women to the next level by equipping them with mentors, sponsors, who can make an introduction and open the door for them. - Authentic Leadership: how multicultural women can understand what is unique about them and leverage it for their organisation. 

We discuss her book and the importance of using science to help teams be more resilient. The focus here is on the little things that we do that makes us more resilient immediately. As Bonnie shares, discomfort doesn’t only occur for white leaders who want to sponsor multicultural women, it happens both ways, even those who are from similar cultures feel uncomfortable due to expectations to stand in line and to adhere to cultural norms, almost more than the white male. As such, leaders need to move beyond discomfort and be intentional about providing support for multicultural women and working towards building an inclusive environment. 

Lastly, Bonnie speaks on the internal struggles she faced when she made the decision to specialise in helping multicultural women become leaders. This was primarily based on her desire as a businesswoman to succeed on a broader stage, and not on a small market that focuses on multicultural women. Despite this, her sincere determination to help those like her is evident through her work, helping forge the path for multicultural women who are stuck at the entry rungs in their career due to their ethnicity and gender.

“Let’s not focus on just the number of representations, let’s focus on creating an environment where everyone has an equal chance to succeed, the numbers will then work themselves out. We would truly have the best people in the best positions instead of advantaged privileged white men who might have advanced in their career because of privilege they didn’t even see, and that leads to the disparities that we see.” 

In Episode 29, I am joined by Paolo Gaudiano, Co-Founder and President at Aleria Research Corporation, and Chief Scientist at Aleria, to debunk the myths commonly associated with DEI. He is on a mission to help organisations become more inclusive, diverse, equitable, and successful. Notwithstanding, he is Chair and co-organizer of the annual Diversity and Inclusion Research Conference, and also writes about DEI on Forbes. Paolo shares the sophisticated simulation he has designed to capture the complex scenarios of organisational life and how bias leads to some inevitable outcomes. We explore the common DEI myths and backlash from majority groups and he explains why the support and investment of leadership is so critical to DEI success. 

Paolo’s interest in DEI is evident in his career journey, which has spanned over three decades in interdisciplinary research, teaching, entrepreneurship, consulting, public speaking, and writing. Through his work, he noticed that there was a huge gap between the experiences that people described based on their diverse identities and the solutions. Paolo’s passion for DEI is based on his desire to change the way people think of DEI, quantifying the links between individual behaviour and organisational outcomes. Through his research on measuring inclusion, Paolo identified two universal themes: 

• Respect or the lack thereof is by far the most common issue that causes people to feel uncomfortable and excluded at work. 

• Women, in all the different types of organisations (global, domestic, small or large) feel more exclusion than men. And this leads to a greater turnover of women and a tendency to ‘truncate their career’. 

Later in our discussion, he explains, the ‘zero-sum’ mindset gives rise to sentiments whereby the white majority feel that they are being pushed out. Particularly, he advises organisations to steer clear of the obsessive focus on increasing numerical representation of diverse individuals as those individuals will end up leaving when they feel excluded. Instead, there should be a focus on creating an inclusive environment where everyone has an equal chance to succeed. 

On this basis, he offers advice on why leaders should treat DEI as their number one priority. As he rightly explains, leaders should focus on understanding the impact of diversifying their human assets, they should know how to optimise it to get more efficiency out of it, as they do other assets in their company, such as financial and marketing assets. Lastly, Paolo speaks on the unique discomfort he faces when trying to balance the viewpoints of those who share similar diversity characteristics to him but have different views on DEI, to those who aren’t but are being faced with injustice. He explains trying to ensure that he addresses the issue in a way that will acknowledge the difficulties of each side, but also making them aware of the other perspective in a way that is not shaming or challenging their beliefs. 

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“There’s no pressure on you to be global - there’s pressure on you to think about who is around your table. To think about who you’re bringing in to start a strategy.”

The Inner Work of Inclusive Leadership

“We need to be able to be so attuned to what’s going out around you. And the only way to do that in a stable way is by being rooted in the way you are. In really understanding…OK, is this me? This constant evaluating.”

“Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not”

In Episode 26 I am joined by Sámi Ben-Ali, Vice President of Inclusion & Diversity at Wood, to discuss the importance of silencing the echo chambers, recognising that lived experience fuels individual perspectives, and how times of global crisis often put the focus on individual survival over the needs of the group.

Sámi’s interest in DEI started earlier in life than many of my guests. He grew up in a small town in the Northwest of England in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith household with his White Irish Catholic Scouse mother and his Arab Muslim Tunisian father. Diversity was always present and obvious in Sámi’s life, and this was only accentuated by Sámi going to university in America when he was 18 and feeling a lack of inclusion.

After spending some time exploring how these experiences have shaped Sámi’s view of what DEI should be - which is that of a holistic approach - the conversation moves to the importance of broadening horizons and actively trying to reduce the echo chambers we find ourselves in. These echo chambers are often restrictive and impact on our ability to debate and consider other viewpoints.

In times of global crisis, it often seems that people’s survival instincts take over and individual preservation is prioritised over helping out the group or wider society. This can often affect how people engage with DEI and undergo perspective taking. Indeed, we then discuss the power of perspective taking and understanding how lived experience impacts upon the viewpoints we develop.

We bring the episode to a close by discussing the importance of diversifying talent pools through the recruitment process. One of Sámi’s mantras is “Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not” and Wood certainly lives by this mantra too. Sámi talks us through all the brilliant actions that are being undertaken by Wood to ensure that the next generation of talent globally is diverse and included.

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“When it comes to creating that inclusive culture, frankly you’re either leading the way or getting in the way – because neutral doesn’t exist”

In Episode 25 I am joined by Devi Virdi, Group Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Centrica, to discuss how cultural intelligence is key to inclusive leadership, the importance of collecting employee data, and ‘the power of truth’.

Devi’s DEI journey is one flavoured by many different cultures, and journey is definitely an appropriate word. Devi has worked for most of her career in the travel and hospitality sector, working across various sectors and functions including HR, sales, marketing and operations. It was during a leadership role that Devi looked around the room and realised – no one else looked like her.

It was this feeling of ‘onlyness’ that initially empowered her to stand up and make a difference. We speak on what it is like to experience these complex feelings of being the only, and why it inspired Devi to become a change agent. She realised that many of their teams didn’t resonate with the cultures they operated in, and this highlighted the need for greater cultural intelligence.

Devi has a great passion for cultural intelligence (or ‘CQ’), and she elaborates on why she thinks it’s so crucial for leaders to understand, and why it is a key trait (along with many others) needed for inclusive leadership. She brought this passion to her role at Centrica and it led to establishing a ‘Shadow Board’ - providing diverse mirrors to the Centrica Board to help them better understand the diversity present in the company so they can strive for better inclusion in their decision making.

Part of understanding the employees at Centrica better includes regular data collection on their characteristics and experiences. Devi shares that asking the right questions is crucial to understanding what your employees need, and investing to meet this. We then talk about how to create the right environment to allow employees the safety to be able to answer these questions fully and honestly.

To finish our conversation I ask Devi what she thinks DEI will look like in 20 years’ time, and she answers that she believes it will lie greatly with further advances in technology allowing for greater inclusion, but only if these technologies are made with inclusive thought and voices.

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“Everyone has their personal passion points, and [DEI] conversation[s are] often looked at from a personal viewpoint. So it’s not really looked at as a business driver or a business conversation, it’s looked at as ‘I care about gender’, ‘I care about race’, ‘I care about disability because my child has a disability’ and you have to encourage the leaders to go outside the scope of their personal passion”

In Episode 24 I am joined by Geoffrey Williams, Vice President / Global Head Diversity Equity & Inclusion at Burberry, to discuss empowering the next generation of workers, the toxic cycle of “paying your dues”, and the cultural nuances in global DEI strategy.

As with many DEI professionals, Geoffrey didn’t start out in the field – in fact he hesitated to work in DEI when he was given the first opportunity so as not to be stereotyped. Starting out in the music and entertainment business, his increasing work with people led him to move over into Learning & Development in HR. It was during this role he bore witness to an unfair scenario that led him speaking up to the CEO. This culminated in Geoffrey being offered a DEI role to help rectify the situation, and after much research he realised DEI work was more than just giving speeches about discrimination.

After talking about growing up as a Black boy in the UK in the 80s and the role of his parents in teaching how to navigate this, we talk about Geoffrey’s current work with Rocking Ur Teams in empowering and educating the youth of today and making their career aspirations accessible. This progresses into a discussion over how the expectations of the current youth entering the workforce are different to previous generations, and how organisations desperately need to adapt if they want the best talent.

This adaption includes how organisations and leaders must break the cycle of “paying your dues” with entry level employees committing overtime, free labour and demeaning tasks because that’s what the leaders had to do. Geoffrey shares how leaders must be engaged with DEI beyond their own pet passion projects or characteristics relevant to them - he calls this leaders being “bubble bound” to their own social bubble and worldview.

As we bring the conversation to a close, we discuss the common response of “oh well that doesn’t happen here” that we both hear when talking about racism or other discrimination. Many people believe that discrimination problems in other countries don’t happen in their own country due to it manifesting in different ways. Geoffrey explains how this is a cultural nuance that must be adapted to by global organisations, but western leaders should be careful to do it sensitively and not prioritise their own western views.

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Geoffrey can be found on:

“When you start defining diversity in a broader sense, usually you will find a lot of people who are passionate about one element. Maybe they have experienced exclusion because they are a certain age, or have a certain number of years at the company, and they don’t feel like they’re taken seriously or listened too. Getting people engaged in one element is important, and that’s where the wave starts coming and the train leaves the station and can’t go back.”

In Episode 23 I am joined by Kristen Anderson, Vice Chair of European Women on Boards, to discuss the myth of meritocracy, how organisations can start their DEI journey, and how to gather buy-in from employees who may not immediately understand the need for DEI.

Kristen’s background is in Chemical Engineering, spending a lot of her career in the technical side of the food industry, working all over the world for big companies such as Kraft and Coca Cola, leaving her native USA to work in Australia, Germany, and China before settling in Italy. Working for Barilla in Italy, Kristen started her official DEI journey, joining their maiden DEI Board before eventually becoming their Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

We start our conversation with Kristen offering career advice on how to join the DEI field and make progress. She then offers advice for any organisation on how to start their DEI journey, emphasising to walk before they run. This includes advice on how to get that sought after buy-in from employees who may show hesitance towards DEI initially, by making it clear how inclusion is relevant and beneficial to everyone. Getting people interested in one element of inclusion, whether age, gender or race etc., is the first step to getting them to have a broader understanding.

Since her role at Barilla, Kristen has retired from the food industry and is now the Vice Chair of European Women on Boards – a non-profit focusing on gender diversity in decision making in Europe. We talk about the crucial work that EWoB does, including how they work with men as allies and believe including everyone is key to improving gender diversity.

Meritocracy is a concept Kristen and I both come across regularly in our work. We discuss the ‘myth of meritocracy’ and Kristen shares her idea of ‘mirrortocracy’ instead, how people reflect their biases and social bubbles instead of purely basing decisions solely in merit. Bias isn’t just something external though, Kristen shares her experiences of the female leaders she works with having internal biases against themselves where they often don’t realise their full capabilities.

We close the episode by discussing what organisations can do to increase their gender diversity and support female leaders, including the support EWoB provides leaders and organisations.

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“Often if some organisations or people feel that something is a ‘tick box’- it fails. We see that time and time again. So if you can, through passion and collaboration, create momentum, then that’s what’s gonna keep things going.”

In Episode 22 I am joined by Nina Goswami, Creative Diversity Lead for the BBC, to discuss the importance of inclusive storytelling, representation in the media, and the BBC's impactful 50:50 Equality Project.

Nina’s journey is one many journalists will be inspired by, climbing the ladder from reporter, to producer, to editor and then to her current role of creative diversity lead. She shares her story of why representation matters and how important it was to her as a young girl to see Moira Stuart, the UK's first female Black newsreader, on TV – feeling inspired by seeing a woman of colour reading her the news….”You can’t be what you can’t see”.

Nina’s interest in inclusive storytelling within the news-cycle grew as she discusses the failures in reporting with Grenfell and the initial COVID coverage. Ultimately this interest got Nina involved in the 50:50 Project, quickly becoming the project lead. The 50:50 Project focuses on making the BBC more representative of the population, starting with coverage reflecting the 50:50 split between males and females in the UK. Nina explains the data-led nature of this as well as it’s methodology.

Within the BBC, 750 teams have signed up to the 50:50 Project, with around 150 external partner organisations also taking the pledge. We discuss the different methodologies shown within these organisations, and how merely counting the data is not enough, it must also be shared and actioned.

Finishing our conversation, we turn to the future of the 50:50 Project. Nina shares that it is currently well into trial runs for both ethnicity and disability monitoring. The BBC as a whole follows a 50/20/12 model, striving for 50% women, 20% BAME and 12% disabled visibility, following national population distribution, but regional BBC teams will work towards proportions accurate to their regions.

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“I asked the team – Where should I go? What should I read? What should I look at? I had conversations with my own team members around certain areas that genuinely I didn’t quite understand…..I would have been the first person in the world to say ‘I do not see colour, I do not see gender’…..and it’s the most cliched, most inaccurate thing someone in my position could ever say”

In the first episode of Season 3, I am joined by Pat Phelan, Chief Customer Officer at GoCardless. As well as being our Season 3 premiere, this episode is a special one as unlike the majority of my guests, Pat isn’t a DEI professional, but rather a business leader who ‘gets it’ and truly role models inclusive leadership. During the episode Pat talks about the stages of self-awareness and reflection he went through to acknowledge his privileges. It’s a journey from self-admitted ignorance to inclusion, and why he thinks there is no single definition of a good leader.

We open the episode by discussing Pat’s life journey. He describes his early years as being quite unplanned, drifting where the winds took him – which included all the way over to Dubai to sell carpets! Eventually returning to London, he often found himself doing ‘leadership things in non-leadership roles’ as many leadership skills came naturally to him. This eventually evolved into actual leadership roles, putting him on the path to his current position.

Pat then acknowledges that on reflection, being able to move into a leadership position without really planning to, was a large example of privilege. Pat goes on to talk about his journey from being rather ignorant about DEI related topics, including the infamous “I don’t see colour” line, to becoming an inclusive leader. He describes GoCardless’s courageous response and conversations following the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 were a real catalyst for this growth.

The final section of our conversation, Pat explains what he feels it means to be a good and inclusive leader. Pat shares that he believes there is no one single defined way to be a good leader, but he outlines a collection of qualities that are important to good leadership. These include: self-reflection and introspection, normalising failure, self accountability, respectfulness and putting in the energy.

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“There was definitely a level of expectation that you felt, I use the word pressure because that’s exactly what it felt like at the time. Some people thrive upon that and go forward, I rebelled – I did the exact opposite. My rebellious bit was to go ‘I don’t want to pursue academia anymore, I want to go and work, I want my own financial independence’ and not to choose the cookie cutter path.”

In this very special bonus episode of the ‘Why Care?’ podcast, I am joined by Elvin Nagamootoo, Head of Product at Shell Energy, and my cousin! Elvin discusses his spectacular career journey, success outside of academia, and how being labelled as a ‘problem child’ during education affected his life.

Elvin opens the episode by talking about his troubles during schooling due to being labelled as ‘disruptive’, his struggle with certain subjects and feelings of being misunderstood. His different way of thinking, approach to learning and interpreting the world was much later explained through his dyslexia.

But why persist to follow an academic path when the system just wasn’t designed for someone like him? Despite the pressure of his family, culture and society to succeed via an academic route, he decided to forge his own path and pursue the world of work rather than university.

His career path is one of the most unique I’ve seen, and he walks us through his various jobs like being a Christmas Elf, before finding one that clicked – being a British Gas Engineer. From here he has had a long and illustrious career, including being part of the initial team involved in setting up Centrica’s Hive business, before becoming its Global Head of Product, and now his similar role at Shell Energy.

This leads us to discuss his experiences of ‘onlyness’, both because of his diversity characteristics, and when he first joined an office-based role, after many successful years ‘in the field’ as an engineer, and feeling like misplaced. He talks about how these feelings made him second-guess his career choices before he gained confidence in himself. These ‘sliding doors’ moments continue to impact his life and shape who he is.

We then talk about how his intersectional experiences of his identity and career path have affected his leadership style to become one that is inclusive, empowering and understanding of his colleagues. We then close the episode by discussing our hopes for our children’s experiences of working in the future.

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“2020, the year that changed everything in all of our lives around the globe. Whether it was the global health crisis and pandemic of COVID, or looking at everyone working under quarantine, or looking at some of the social-racial unrest that has happened around the globe. We started to go from diversity, to diversity and inclusion, to that year - we started talking about belonging, intersectionality and equity.”

In Episode 20 and the Season 2 finale of ‘Why Care?’, I am joined by a phenomenal leader, Shawna Ferguson, Senior Managing Director & Director of Global DEI at Wellington Management. Shawna joins me to talk about how to respond to backlash to inclusion programmes, DEI education programmes, talent retention, and why her word of 2022 is “courage”.

Shawna started her career in HR and it was whilst in this role that she noticed the ‘untapped talent pool’ – the people who were the lifeblood of her organisations but rarely got any official recognition for it. It was when she was working for a biotech firm, focussing on talent attraction at universities, that DEI started to grow in her consciousness. Crediting the talks she had with students, Shawna decided to pitch to her organisation a proposal to fold DEI practice into her university talent attraction, and her DEI journey was born.

Shawna shares her adoption of the acronym DEBI, bringing belonging into our common acronym in this field, and expanding the ‘I’ to also stand for intersectionality. Shawna explains her drivers for this and how promoting belonging is perhaps the most important part of her practice. Shawna also explains the rest of the acronym, particularly her thoughts on equity.

We then discuss Wellington’s incredible ‘Groundbreakers Academy’ programme (which I am proud to be part of), which was created out of Shawna’s internal research demonstrating a need to nurture and develop their employee’s skills, particularly for those in their ‘mid-career’ as there was a lapse in support compared to early-career development. This programme also nurtures minority employees at Wellington, and Shawna shares how this can sometimes cause backlash from majority groups, but then shares her tips on how she’s learnt to neutralise it.

We close the episode by discussing what Shawna believes the 3 focus areas of DEI should be for 2022:

1. Shifting mindsets towards seeing people as equal

2. Promoting accountability and assessing the outputs of DEI programmes

3. Investing in small businesses owned by ‘untapped talent’ to give these business leaders their “piece of the pizza”.

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“[Working in the DEI field] I learnt lots of things and things we should always remember –  One: we don’t know everything. One: We can’t resolve everything on our own...But most importantly, I learnt about myself.”

In Episode 19 of the ‘Why Care?’ podcast, I am joined by Pauline Miller, Chief Equity Officer, EMEA for dentsu, where Pauline is responsible for shaping and leading its DEI strategy and execution. We discuss the challenges of being an internal DEI practitioner, how to engage the C-suite and board of organisations, and the importance of celebrating the short-term wins.

Pauline shared that she has been interested in a career in HR since she was a teenager, but it was later in her career when she worked with employee networks in the US that captivated her to forge a career in the sector. We then discuss learning moments and Pauline shares her most impactful one, which is when she found herself going from accepting a meeting from a group about empowering girls, to sitting in a refugee camp in Ethiopia working with them in the short span of 4 months. The experience was formative in developing a passion for empowerment and a strong sense of self-confidence.

These lived experiences are important for informing how we practice as DEI professionals, but Pauline urges that you must account for and utilise the lived experiences of others around you and how they may differ from your own in order to successfully practice DEI.

DEI is often about the long-term goals of how we want the future of organisations to look in terms of inclusion, but these goals can take a long time to manifest. Pauline is a big believer in celebrating the short-term wins, both to inspire the organisation and keep morale high, but also to demonstrate to stakeholders the benefits of DEI strategy to an organisation.

We wrap up the conversation by discussing what is important for both effective DEI strategy and being an effective DEI practitioner, such as striving for continuous learning, joint accountability so everyone recognises the part they play, and pushing for DEI to remain a strategic imperative by organisations.

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“You would assume that because someone is in a virtual workplace that [non-inclusive behaviours] wouldn’t happen. Well forget it. Over 50% of the women that we spoke to said yes: in the past year they had experienced non-inclusive behaviours, and that was worse for women of colour and worse for LGBTQ+ women.”

In Episode 18 of the ‘Why Care?’ podcast, I am joined by Emma Codd, Global Inclusion Leader at Deloitte, to discuss organisational culture change policies, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on women in the workplace, the stigma around mental health at work, and the importance of inclusive leadership.

Emma started her career as a researcher for a corporate investigation and risk consultancy. She joined Deloitte in 1997 with the intention of only staying for a few years. Nearly 25 years later she is still there, loving her contribution as their head of global DEI strategy.

To start our discussion, I ask Emma to reflect on the changes she has seen in both gender equality and the approach to it over the span of her career. She shares that she has noticed that the most important thing is the everyday culture of organisations, because ultimately a poor culture is what makes employees leave. The culture change programmes Deloitte undertake have the unique challenge of spanning over 160 countries, so the internal research and reporting on workplace culture has to be detailed and considered.

It is thanks to this detailed internal research that Deloitte could monitor the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on its workforce. Emma found the effects it had on women to be staggering, with a 35% drop in wellbeing amongst female employees compared to pre-pandemic. Emma then shares the reasons for this and how this happened during remote/hybrid working. She explains that despite the pandemic “levelling us” and many people experiencing mental health problems, a stigma towards mental health still exists in the workplace that needs to be addressed.

We close the conversation talking about Emma’s impactful Deloitte video campaigns and how the key to their success was intersectional storytelling that was presented in short, easy to understand and to digest ways.

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“When [Muslim] women want to enter the workplace in places like the UK for instance, they may end up facing a triple penalty. The penalty of being a Muslim, the penalty of being potentially from a different racial background and also being a woman. It’s almost instead of facing the glass ceiling, you’re facing a triple glazed or a concrete ceiling which is almost impossible to penetrate.”

In Episode 17 of the ‘Why Care?’ podcast, I am joined by Rukasana Bhaijee, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lead, EMEA Technology at Google, to discuss being a Muslim Woman in various industries,  her identity as a British Muslim and as a hijab-wearer, and her views on the unique DEI challenges of the tech industry.

Rukasana’s professional journey is certainly one of the most unique I’ve ever heard. Following the completion of her A Levels, Rukasana started her career in the world of banking, first at Bank of England and then JP Morgan. After some time in this industry she took a decade out to be a mum, during which she reskilled as a complementary therapist with a focus on massage and worked part-time with the east London Asian community to promote ideas of wellness.

Following her therapy roles she “fell into” the world of HR at Queen Mary’s University and discovered DEI. She then spent some time at Ernst & Young in the professional services industry, before moving to tech giant Google. In 2019 she was recognised by the European Diversity Awards as an Inspirational DEI Leader.

We discuss our experiences of being first-generation UK-born children of parents who emigrated to the UK and how being caught between two cultures shaped our childhood experiences. We reflect on the lack of representation in the media for us as children, and when we first started to challenge the rather rigid gender roles of our parents’ cultures.

Post 9/11, Rukasana noted a visible change in the narrative about what it means to be Muslim in the UK, and how these conversations were not led by, or inclusive of, Muslims themselves. In response to this, Rukasana decided to “reclaim” her Muslimness and become more visibly Muslim by wearing a hijab. We then discuss her experiences of discrimination and otherness resulting from being a Muslim woman and the differences of before and after adopting the hijab, particularly when applying for jobs. Rukasana then gives tips on managing and overcoming systemic prejudices as an underrepresented person.

Rukasana shares Google’s unique DEI challenges and the impressive path they’ve taken to tackle them and develop an inclusive culture. We close the episode discussing the greater need for inclusive leadership across all industries, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic sent many organisations into “survival mode” which caused the focus on DEI strategies to slip.

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“Active allyship should end up meaning that whatever an active ally was trying to achieve becomes normal. That it’s normal to see people from various ethnic backgrounds, from various sexual orientations, genders, disabilities, family situations, etc. in positions of authority or seniority in organisations.”

In Episode 16 of the ‘Why Care?’ podcast, I am joined by Marc McKenna-Coles, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DIB) Strategy Lead at Spotify, to discuss employee networks, collecting diversity data, and active allyship.

Marc has a BA in Theatre and spent around a decade working with Disney in their stores and on Disney Cruises. He later moved into the banking sector and discovered employee networks, soon heading up RBS’s – now the NatWest Group – gender network. He has had several DEI roles in the financial sector before recently joining Spotify.

We talk about the necessity for DEI to exist and the importance of having conversations surrounding diversity characteristics. Marc shares that these conversations are important, not just for your own organisation or country, but for the whole world. He uses the example of Tom Daley’s speech about being a gay man at the Olympics after winning his gold medal, which will have reached people worldwide who don’t normally hear about LGBTQ+ people and will have started conversations where they’re needed the most.

We then discuss employee networks, why they exist, and their purpose. Marc shares he is a member of numerous employee networks where he doesn’t necessarily share the diversity characteristics that group represents, but does it to demonstrate how to show solidarity whilst being open to education. Marc then talks about intersectionality and how some companies are too eager to merge employee networks too soon to promote intersectionality, and instead it should be a measured and gradual blending process, especially in small organisations.

The conversation turns to being ‘future ready’ as an organisation: trying to predict societal trends in order to make sure your organisation is poised to keep up with society and address the modern-day concerns of its employees and consumers. Marc gives the example of making moves to represent non-binary and gender-nonconforming employees, as their numbers are predicted to rise in the future.

This episode is packed with tips and advice on how to be an active ally, which Marc explains is when people go beyond traditional ideas about allyship to be active rather than passive in their listening, talking and promotion of inclusion by uplifting and platforming marginalised people.

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“I was looking for something to aspire to, but I also knew – I don’t know why – it can’t be the situation where I can’t ascend to those things. What I see around me is not the true picture of the world. That’s what I just started to tell myself. Maybe there’s people here who think that’s the case, but I don’t believe it and I’m gonna set out to prove that’s not the case; that there are people like me who do things like own businesses, or they’re doctors, or lawyers or teachers even.”

In Episode 15 of the ‘Why Care?’ podcast, I am joined by Sheri Crosby Wheeler, Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for Fossil Group, Inc. We discuss how stereotypes and expectations based on diversity characteristics can filter into young people's minds and be internalised to create and fuel self-fulfilling prophecies.

We open the episode by discussing Sheri’s journey into becoming a DEI practitioner. Born in a small town in Texas, Sheri then spent a few years in Germany due to her military father’s station, before moving back to Texas to begin her education. Her small town in Texas had no Black professional role models for Sheri to look up to, so as soon as possible she moved to Atlanta to seek out professionals that looked like her.

Following this discussion about a lack of role models, we talk about how Sheri had no Black teachers in her entire education until her postgraduate Law course, and how having no role models (or even an understanding of lived experience) during education can have an adverse effect on a young person.

Sheri shares her personal story on how her teachers and guidance counsellors attempted to dissuade her from pursuing further education outside of Texas. She felt a weight of responsibility on her shoulders to ‘prove them wrong’ and pressure not return to her hometown and therefore be seen as a failure.

Working in the DEI field has its ups and downs, victories and losses, and we talk about these and how to prepare for the inevitable bad days. Sheri shares how it’s not just about changing the minds of people, but changing hearts too: ‘heart work’. Sometimes people will just not have the capacity to care about your work and you need to be able to identify where to focus your attention on those whose minds and hearts you can change.

We also discuss the unique challenges of DEI in the retail industry, including having a widespread employee base geographically, and empowering customer-facing employees to protect themselves and uphold inclusion. Fossil is currently focusing on building up communication and offering sharing and learning opportunities for its employees across the world. Sheri then gives insight as to why Fossil has been named one of the best companies for LGBTQ+ employees to work for by the Corporate Equality Index.

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“I am thoroughly delighted – and feel sad almost when I have a big cheer inside – when on the screen pops up a senior female executive from another organisation. I get a bit giddy. That just shows we’ve come a long way, but how far we’ve got to come.” - Charlotte

In a first for Why Care?, I am joined by two guests Charlotte Cox, President EMEA Pentland Brands and Pentland’s D&I Manager, Caroline Nankinga. Pentland Brands specialises in sportswear, with a number of well-known active sports brands underneath it including Speedo, Berghaus, Canterbury, Mitre, Kickers and Lacoste to just name a few! Charlotte and Caroline join me to discuss a range of topics surrounding the internal D&I of a global company, and the external D&I of designing products and marketing campaigns for a diverse and global audience.

As always, we open the conversation talking about what D&I means to Charlotte and Caroline and how it has impacted their journey so far. Caroline describes her experience of growing up in a multi-cultural city like London but still feeling very isolated as a minority person at school, university and the early stages of her career.

Charlotte shares her own journey as a woman in corporate Britain. When travelling for business, she has often found herself as the only woman in the room. We then discuss how Charlotte and Caroline’s stories, and my own, have a connection of ‘onlyness’ – the alienation of feeling like the only one in the room who has your characteristics.

We discuss what it is like to be a female business leader, and how important it is to use your own experiences as a reference when dealing with others. But equally important is gathering different perspectives, as your experiences may not be universal and may not necessarily lead to inclusion.

Charlotte continues this conversation to talk about how leaders must learn to recognise privilege and use it to be an ally and uplift others. She goes on to talk about how inclusive leadership requires effort to understand people, and if you make this effort you and your organisation will reap the benefits of an inclusive workforce.

We then connect D&I at Pentlands to Covid-19 and how people have had more of a reliance on outdoor activities for their own wellbeing. Charlotte connects this to Pentland’s Positive Business Strategy in taking social responsibility for meeting these new consumer needs. We talk about how brands impact society and how becoming a leading brand means having diverse consumer groups with a variety of characteristics, D&I simply becomes a consumer need.

Caroline expands on how this external D&I work by Pentland Brands is supported by internal D&I in the company, for example this year they created a new D&I Squad which contains members from across the company to support Pentland’s D&I roadmap. We go on to discuss the importance of creating bespoke D&I training materials for the organisation.

Finally, we close the episode by reflecting on how, despite the negatives of Covid-19, the pandemic has fostered new ways in which we communicate no matter the distance between us, that means global organisations like Pentland Brands now have a greater feeling of unity than ever before.

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“If you’re going through a recruitment process, instead of that idea of ‘how will this person fit into the company?’, it’s the question of ‘what will this person bring?’ How could they add into the culture of Innocent and into the way we do things?”

In this episode I am joined by Marta Pajón-Fustes, Head of Technical and Inclusion & Diversity at innocent drinks, to discuss Marta’s personal experience as a Spanish native living in the UK, and innocent’s innovative approach to Inclusion & Diversity.

We open the conversation by discussing Marta’s journey growing up in a small village in northern Spain, to moving to the UK and becoming a major change leader at innocent drinks. Marta shares the personal importance of her work at innocent and how human rights is at the centre of it, with innocent ensuring that even their suppliers have the same ethical values that it expects internally.

Marta shares a formative moment when two employees who job-shared applied for a promotion and how it raised questions on how Marta and her team should redesign the hiring process to accommodate for this. We have an insightful discussion about inclusive job design and the merits of job sharing in general.

We also discuss how we have personally experienced micro-aggressions and subtle acts of exclusion in our lives. Marta shares how the people who work at innocent are the backbone of their ‘people culture’ and the importance of managing a flexible, agile and reactive company culture. We then discuss Covid-19’s effect on this culture and how innocent maintained a “Whatever you need, just say. There is nothing out of the option here” approach to help the employees navigate the unique and challenging situation.

The conversation then turns to best practice in inclusive recruitment and how companies should focus on the idea of ‘culture add’ - what a candidate would bring to the role and company - rather than the idea of ‘culture fit’ - trying to squeeze a candidate into a particular gap.

We close the conversation by discussing innocent’s innovative process for measuring Inclusion & Diversity within the company.

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“Discussions are not just about the [employee] population who we have, it’s about their network, their families members, their friends. … It’s not just about the demographics we replicate, it’s about everybody else, because we are all diverse ultimately.”

In this episode I talk with Christian Hug, the Vice President of LifeWorks & Inclusion at Discovery, the company behind the popular television channels: Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science Channel and TLC. Christian reflects with me on the journey that lead him to his role, including the passion for travel and diversity passed down to him from his parents.

After opening the episode with our discussion about Christian’s remarkable journey in his career, we move on to discussing the changes Christian has seen in the approaches companies have had towards EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) strategies over his 20+ years’ experience in the field. This includes the rise of employee networks, such as women’s networks or LGBTQ+ networks, and the spark that the recent Black Lives Matter movement has endowed to the EDI sector causing a real growth in engagement.

We move on to discussing how Discovery wants its employees to “bring [their] whole self to work”. To do so, they use a Multicultural Alliance (MCA) Monday to bring conversations about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion into their employees’ working week, and we look at how this rotates around Discovery’s global regional groups to ensure it is not dominated by the US division.

Christian then expands on this topic, explaining how different regions and countries have different concerns, for example the UK has a greater focus on social mobility compared to the US and there are large conversations around skin tone in India. This means different approaches must be taken to tailor the discussions to engage regional employee bases. He expands on this further by discussing how some topics may have different stigma (or even legality) in different countries, such as LGBTQ+ issues, and how this must be considered whilst also not silencing the discussions.

Ultimately, this conversation develops into how to best manage a global EDI strategy for a multi-national company. Christian suggests that companies must have global principles on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion that are then interpreted and implemented at the local level for goals and activities.

We then finish the conversation with Christian leaving us his advice on how to find employees with the passions necessary for EDI, and how to nurture these employees into change leaders.

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“There is broadening acceptance in society, which means some of these identities that have been more at the margins have had the opportunity to appear and flourish. It doesn’t mean they haven’t been there - they’ve always been there. It’s just becoming more visible to those outside of the community”.

In this episode I talk with Bendita Cynthia Malakia, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Hogan Lovells, an international law firm, as she reflects on her accomplished career as a female, black lawyer who identifies as queer.

Bendita discusses her view that the commonly used abbreviation of EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) should further become JEDI, to incorporate Justice, which is especially pertinent to legal professions. She goes on to discuss how some professionals can view justice, equity and equality to be at odds each other, but this shouldn’t be the case.

We have an in-depth discussion on the LGBTQ+ acronym, it’s expansions (such as LGBTQQIAAP2S), and how it has evolved so quickly in the last decade. Bendita explains what each letter refers to, what these identities are and mean, how many people may use umbrella terms such as “gay” or “queer” instead, and the unique experiences and treatment that bisexual individuals face.

Bendita offers her advice on the best ways to respectfully approach minority groups without being offensive or burdensome, and how stating your pronouns has become a popular way to visibly show allyship, but may not be suitable for all scenarios or industries.

Finally, Bendita illuminates me on Hogan Lovells Bias Interruption pilot, in which she works with hiring teams to “provide a little bit of education….remind [them] of what our firm goals are and where they stand in respect to those firm goals…..give information about what they can’t do [in regards to bias]”.

We then close the conversation by talking about how individuals or organisations can start their JEDI journey and become change leaders. She encourages JEDI advocates to “stay in the game, stay in the deep end”.

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“To ignore reality for as long as people have is a cultural illness, quite frankly – a delusion”

In this episode Nadia talks to Andrew Fairbairn, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) London, a Charity set up engage young people from low socio-economic backgrounds and create opportunities for them that would otherwise have been unlikely for them to attain due to societal inequity.

Andrew discusses the intersectionality between ethnicity and socio-economic status which can doubly disadvantage these young people, resulting in a lack of access to professional career paths and low self-worth driven by their lived experiences in these domains.

He explains how SEO London aims to combat this by working on a daily basis with a broad spectrum of front office executives and HR leaders at global multinationals to offer placements to talented young people on the programme.  The programme encourages student self-belief, and provides them with the skills needed to thrive in the corporate world.

Andrew talks of the bigger picture. “It’s not about you, it’s about those who come after you”. He hopes that their work can go on to create a ripple effect of workplace opportunity for underrepresented groups and that a community of like-minded people will emerge who not only want to develop themselves but also the community at large.

Finally, Andrew leaves us with his thoughts on the intersectional impact of COVID-19 on those from ethnic minority and low socio-economic backgrounds and the importance of acknowledging this in order to create equity in our society.

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“The world is set up for neurotypical people and when someone who is neurodiverse tries to fit into that neurotypical world, that can create a lot of stresses and strains on them mentally, that then manifest themselves in kind of broader mental health issues. That is not to say that everyone who is neurodiverse has a mental health challenge as well, but there is a very strong correlation between the two.”

In this episode Nadia talks to Sean Betts, Managing Director at Annalect, the data, technology and analytics company within the Omnicom Media Group, who looks back at a highly successful career in the media industry. He discusses his experience of burn-out, depression and anxiety and describes what happened after his return after having time off for mental health reasons.

On a mission to break the stigma that people with mental health problems and neurodiversity face in the workplace, he has since not only been a vocal advocate and public speaker on the topic, but also created a storytelling and support site and organisation for the neurodivergent community and for those who have experienced mental health issues: Mihnd (see link below).

Sean explains what neurodiversity is and the challenges neurodiverse people are facing in the workplace. He highlights the benefits for organisations when hiring these individuals and how these efforts need a different approach in the recruitment process. Finally Sean leaves us with valuable advice for organisations and all of us, to get more comfortable in being uncomfortable and practice more listening and learning, as stigma comes from misunderstanding.

More about Sean and his mission to destigmatises mental health and neurodiversity:

“And then there is the opportunity to flip it on it’s head. Rather than seeing it as a burden or another thing to manage, inclusive leadership and driving a successful D&I agenda actually has the potential to be a huge source of energy.”

“You are far more likely to work with somebody that is experiencing suicidal thoughts than with somebody that is about to have a heart attack”

In this episode I have a powerful and inspiring conversation with Emma Mainoo, Partner and Head of Mental Health at Utopia, the culture-change consultancy I collaborate with, which works with businesses to create more purposeful, more inclusive, and more entrepreneurial cultures. She is the creator of the platform Surviving Sundays, a Mental Health First Aid Course instructor and a remarkable keynote speaker on mental health.

Emma shares with us her personal experience from being an extraordinarily successful Marketing and PR professional who has worked on award winning campaigns with leading brands, to experiencing life-threatening depression and a total mental breakdown and the subsequent healing process she went through. She now helps leading companies to address the increasing problem of tackling mental health issues amongst their workforce with her unique and taboo-breaking perspective.

Together we explore the impact of the pandemic on people’s mental health and we discuss the link to the #BlackLivesMatter movement and how it affected us. Emma explains some actionable steps organisations need to take to create a culture where people feel like they can speak out and people know how to reach in. You can also hear about Mental Health First Aid training and why it is now a necessity for any successful and creative organisation. I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned from this conversation and I hope you will too.

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“Most work-family policies and the whole way work is set up is still based on a really outdated model of what a family is.”

“The puzzle is solved when all sides are equal, and it takes time and patience.”

In this episode I talk to Christina Brooks, an exceptional talent acquisition expert with 15 years industry experience and Co-founder of executive search firm Ruebik, a name that represents an analogy of D&I and the famous cube game. Remarkably, her firm is the only executive search company to offer a one-year onboarding service and coaching programme to support the transition of a candidate with a diverse background. They have also developed a unique internal digital platform for talent pipelining.

Together we explore the challenges faced by organisations when they attempt to bring in diverse talent without dedicating the time to promote the right mindset and culture. We also discuss why diverse executive disruptors are needed in every industry. She gives us answers on what organisations can do in the short term to attract and retain this diverse talent.

At the time of recording, George Floyd’s murder was breaking news so it led to an insightful discussion on race and racism. Christina offers her insights about the challenges Black people face in the UK and she tells us about her volunteer work with young adults with behavioural issues and offenders. We discuss how we all can become more culturally intelligent and what role curiosity and creating safe spaces to talk play in the solution. She leaves us all some great recommendations on how organisations should be responding to the #Blacklivesmatter movement.

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“People would say ‘oh I heard you’re going on a long holiday?’ and I’m like, ‘No, no, no I’m not going on a long holiday!’ And that’s what people think it is - 3 months of fun! It’s not fun – it’s amazing, but it’s challenging”

“As a manager, this type of work arrangement is phenomenal, because I can give the flexibility and then I can get the coverage and help meet my quota.”

In this episode, Sophie Smallwood, Co-founder of Roleshare talks to me about her first maternity leave experience where she took a full year but was actually feeling ready to come back before that if there would have been the option of 3 days. She tells me about her experience of overcoming the challenges to come back to a fast-paced organisational environment of a digital global player (Facebook) - a challenge faced by many successful career women.

She explains the story about how she took a leap of faith to set up her tech start-up company, Roleshare.com, together with her partner, to create a platform to match people wanting to job share and for companies to find their perfect job share pairs. Together we explore why companies do not have a choice to invest in job sharing if they are going to compete for talent.  And how they need to make flexibility truly happen for roles at all levels of the organisation and for everyone - not just working mums.

“We believe in equal opportunity for flexibility - gender neutral and reason neutral.“

Sophie Smallwood is a career-driven leader and committed parent, her mission is to enable a sustainable workforce, where people get more from their roles and where full-time balance at work and in life is possible.

“Men often say to me: “So what can I do?” and the first thing I say to them is: listen.”

In this episode, I have the privilege of talking all things inclusion to Rob Baker. He is a thought leader on diversity & inclusion and on engaging men to support gender equality: at work, at home and in all aspects of life. In recognition of his achievements in supporting women in the workplace, he was named an Agent of Change 2019 by Management Today. He’s just completed an incredible 42-year career at Mercer, with his final role being Leader of Diversity and Inclusion Consulting. And has now embarked on the next stage of his career, setting up Potentia Consulting (whilst consciously not calling it retirement) and of course is an amazing member of the Avenir team!

Rob and I explore how organisations can become more inclusive, happier and successful by valuing everybody in the organisation and unlocking each employee‘s unique potential. Rob is not new to the experience of being in the minority and tells us about his time served on the all-female board of the PWN (Professional Women’s Network), where he was Co-President. He also offers his personal ‘ah-ha’ moment when he read Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates and gives us an insight into the little things men can do to promote everyday gender-equality.

Rob also reflects on the moment of profound change we are experiencing with the Covid-19 crisis and together we explore the current paradigm shift for inclusion at an organisational level as well as at a micro-level in each family‘s home. He shares how many leaders still think diversity sounds good, but they do not see the immediate need to act now. Today, I wonder if progress in inclusion and diversity in organisations will move up the leadership agenda with the global movement of #BlackLivesMatter, which began after this podcast conversation. I hope you enjoy listening!

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“If all men and women could let men be more gentle, vulnerable and caring, that would be useful”.

What better way to kick-off my podcast series than talk to the articulate and inspirational Inclusion & Diversity thought leader, Brian Ballantyne. Brian is a Senior Program Manager for Inclusion & Diversity at Amazon, father of two and author of the book, Confessions of a Working Father. In this episode, Brian and I discuss the challenges of working from home and parenting from work or PFW, as Brian calls it – a concept that has come into its own following the Covid-19 lockdown (we didn't know this at the time!). We also discuss the notion of the ‘ideal worker’ and the what commitment means to employers today and how it manifests. Brian explains his strategy for work life balance and coping with the demands of being “Mr. Available”.

Brian gives us his personal and honest view on the consequences of gender stereotypes and the importance of psychological safety and a sense of belonging in an organisation. He also offers an insightful link between the climate crisis and an overheating at an individual level through an increase of psychological pressure and overtiredness as downsides of technology.

Together we explore the importance of a change of culture and Brian gives practical tips on how organisations can achieve a caring and inclusive culture as well as how men can be allies to gender equality.

Brian Ballantyne is father to two children (age 13 and 11), and like most working parents he is figuring out how to integrate work and family life. His career has been working for large multinational companies like Heinz, Vodafone and now Amazon, where he started off in Product Marketing and now is a Senior Program Manager for Inclusion & Diversity within the International Technology team. He is a long-time supporter of women’s advancement, and the inclusion of all people, e.g. LGBTQ+, accessibility, etc. With that aim in mind, he wrote a book “Confessions of a Working Father” to encourage more men to invest into active parenthood.