Why Care?

“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.

Links

Nina can be found on LinkedIn at: Nina Goswami

For more from the 50:50 Project, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/5050

The BBC Impact Report 2022 can be found here: www.bbc.com/5050/impact2022

More information on Moira Stuart, the UK’s first female Black Newsreader.

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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.

Links:

Pat can be found on LinkedIn at Pat Phelan

For more from GoCardless visit their website at: https://gocardless.com

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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.

Links:

Elvin can be found on LinkedIn here.

For more on Shell Energy, visit their website at: https://www.shellenergy.co.uk/

For more on Hive, visit their website at: https://www.hivehome.com/

For information and resources on Dyslexia, visit: https://www.dyslexia.uk.net/

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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”.

Links

Shawna can be found on LinkedIn at Shawna Ferguson

For more from Wellington Management visit their website at https://www.wellington.com/en/

Wellington Management’s 2020 Sustainability Report

The Wellington 2021 GDEI Report

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“[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.

Links

For more from Pauline, you can find her on LinkedIn at Pauline Miller

For more from dentsu, you can visit their website at: www.dentsu.com

The Promises of Giants by John Amaechi

Dope Black Women podcast show

Mindsetby Carol Dweck

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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.

Links:

For more from Emma Codd find her on Twitter at @emmajcodd and LinkedIn at Emma Codd

For more from Deloitte visit https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/

Deloitte Video Campaigns:

“Can You See Me?”

“Stand Up, Speak Up”

Deloitte Reports:

Millennial and Gen Z Survey

Women @ Work

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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.

Links:

For more from Rukasana you can find her on LinkedIn at Rukasana Bhaijee, and on Twitter at @RukasanaBhaijee

The Google Diversity Annual Report Rukasana mentions can be found here: https://diversity.google/annual-report/

The Harvard Business Review Article from Google about Product Inclusion Design Practices can be found here: https://hbr.org/sponsored/2021/03/the-business-case-for-product-inclusion-design-practices

The Google Retention team blog can be found here: https://blog.google/inside-google/googlers/rachel-spivey-retention-progression/

“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.

Links

For more from Marc, you can find him on LinkedIn at Marc McKenna-Coles

For more from Spotify visit their website at https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/

To hear Tom Daley’s Gold medal speech at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics that Marc mentioned, follow this YouTube link

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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.

Links

For more from Sheri, you can find her on LinkedIn at Sheri Crosby Wheeler

For more from Fossil visit their website at www.fossilgroup.com

You can find more on the Sephora Racial Bias Study that Sheri mentions in this Forbes Article

For more on Dr Charles Drew, the African American Doctor Sheri mentioned, you can find his Wikipedia article here.

To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.

“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.

Links

You can find Charlotte and Caroline on LinkedIn at: Charlotte Cox | Caroline Nankinga

For more from Pentland Brands, visit https://pentlandbrands.com/ or visit their socials below.

Pentland’s LinkedIn | Pentland’s Instagram | Pentland’s Twitter