Category: diversity

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First Ever Hispanic Leadership Summit

“We are fragmented, underrepresented and misperceived, so we need to think less like 26 different nationalities and more as one community. In my heart, I know unification is what our Hispanic community lacks at this pivotal moment in history,” Claudia Romo Edelman

Today in New York City, the We Are All Humans Foundation has convened the first ever Hispanic Leadership Summit. Read more here from Claudia about this historic event in which more than 350 leaders will try to answer some key questions. Here is the link to the event’s website.

The questions asked focus on how to move forward as a community and how success will depend on:

  • Recognizing that the time is now for unifying.
  • Appreciating that we have a distinct window of opportunity before us.
  • Having the courage to address what gets in the way of our potential.
  • Believing our goals are achievable.
  • Accepting this invitation to act.

You can read Claudia’s blog post here: https://www.weareallhuman.org/vision/ and join the conversation via social media by following @WAAH_Foundation and Claudia Romo Edelman on Twitter, weare_allhuman on Instagram and the hashtag #HispanicSummit2018.

I recognize that by coming together to work toward common goals while amplifying the voices of the growing, diverse and dynamic Hispanic population, will ultimately drive positive change. I cannot wait to learn more about the discussion and outcomes from today.

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Progressive Insurance CEO Tricia Griffith named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year, Let’s Win! Pancreatic Cancer Unveils Spanish-Language Website, Whiplash, Microsoft, New Congress & More

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my top reads every morning is the Fortune CEO Daily, and what a great way to start today as it revealed that Progressive Insurance CEO Tricia Griffith is this year’s Businessperson of the Year. Read her story here which highlights her career and accomplishments including that she is “a CEO who started as an entry-level employee at the company she now leads, and one of just 24 female Fortune 500 chief executives.” Alan Murray also highlights that “there are four women among this year’s top ten performers—and six among the top twenty. That’s pretty good considering there are only 24 female CEOs in the Fortune 500.”

Today is World Pancreatic Cancer Day and I am proud to say we are supporting Let’s Win! Pancreatic Cancer as it unveils a new initiative to help Latino pancreatic cancer patients and families. You can find the new Spanish-language platform here which aims to connect the Latino community to resources and information in their language of choice. The platform will focus on providing access to the latest science-driven treatment options for pancreatic cancer. Here is the release in Spanish.

A few months ago, after sharing with Aedhmar Hynes my interest in Artificial Intelligence, she recommended that I read “Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future” by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe.  If you are interested in technology and diversity, it is a must read. Yes, I say diversity because to my surprise one of the principles is ‘diversity over ability’ and focuses, as Ito has says, on  “…the idea that a diverse team or group of people working on an idea are more likely to be successful than a group of highly able but self-similar people.” Truly a great read, thank you Aedhmar.

Other stories to follow include Microsoft releasing it’s new diversity numbers and its approach – this story includes great data on how it compares to other tech companies,  “Diversity and the Pipeline Problem,” “Diversity on stark display as House’s incoming freshmen gather in Washington,” “Diversity Is The Key to Startup Success – What Can Early-stage Founders Do About It?,” “Four Companies That Are Getting Diversity & Inclusion Right – And How They’re Doing It,” “Latino voter participation more than doubles 2014 levels,” and “More Latinos own businesses but can’t get capital to grow, report says.”

ICYMI tonight are the Latin Grammys, read more on what to expect.

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Elections, Voter Suppression, Megyn Kelly, Intel, CFO Magazine, Diversity in PR plus more

We are less than a week away from the midterm elections and I hope the turnout reflects the energy I have seen online. Having said that, watch this interview with Chiqui Cartagena, on how both parties and many candidates do not understand Latino voters. Or this from NPR  about how candidates like Beto O’Rourke, who is running for the Senate in Texas, need to mobilize Latino voters to win. There is also this from Meet The Press in which Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez says, “you don’t win in #Texas unless you’re talking to brown and black voters.”

I like to keep an informal inventory of who is advertising on Univision while I watch its programming. For example, this week during the 10 pm telenovela, I was surprised to see mostly negative ads against the Democrats, note I live in Miami. In other words – there were was only one ad for a Democratic candidate. It will be interesting to see if any party or candidate understands the opportunities, and challenges, of engaging with this important segment which is very diverse. Another important story to follow next week will be voter suppression efforts which predominantly impact racial minorities, here is a good Washington Post piece on this specific issue. I’m proud to say that I’ve already voted – it was easy and seamless. 

Last week NBC canceled Megyn Kelly Today because of Kelly’s comments regarding “blackface,” so here is this from Nicholas Pearce, another recommended read, titled “Megyn Kelly’s ‘blackface’ comment shows workplace diversity isn’t enough.”

Here are additional stories that I am following this week including this from Forbes titled “Seven Ways To Close The Diversity And Inclusion Gap That Are Easier Than You Think,” “How To Improve Gender Diversity In Entertainment Through Social Networking,” “Making progress on tech’s diversity problem: A female founder’s take on the current situation” and “Intel Hits an Internal Goal for Workforce Diversity.” Bernard Coleman III wrote this on four diversity and inclusion disruptors in the workplace (one of my favorite topics) and here is this from CFO Magazine titled “The Economic Case for Diversity.”

I want to end this post with this video shared by a friend, Jeff Weintraub, “in memory of the victims and in honor of the wounded of Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh PA.”

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Women in the workplace, board diversity, Sears, Facebook, Burlington Stores, Best Buy, CAA & more

As I opened my email this morning one of my daily reads had this lead, “LeanIn.org and McKinsey have released the latest installment of their Women in the Workplace survey, and it does not make for pleasant reading.” Not the best way to start the morning but a good reality check. “Now in its fourth year, the survey shows ‘almost no progress’ in improving the representation of women in corporate America.” Read more in today’s Fortune CEO Daily plus you can find the survey here. On that topic, here is a recommended read for the week: “Women Managers Have Little Margin for Error.”

Last week I had an interesting conversation regarding corporate diversity and the person I was speaking with focused on the importance of leading from the top. In other words, if companies are serious about diversity, that needs to start at the corporate board level. I completely agree, which is why reading about “diversity fatigue” at the board level is disappointing – especially if you look at the numbers. Yes as the Race Ahead newsletter mentions, there has been some progress  – 16% increase in 10 years but that’s not enough.

I’ve written before about corporate board diversity and the work of organizations including the Latino Corporate Directors Association, Women Corporate Directors and the Executive Leadership Council. This year California became the first state to require women on boards and there is an initiative called 2020 Women on Boards working to increase the percentage of women on corporate boards to 20%. In recent weeks we have seen business leaders like Jessica Rodriguez and Cindy Kent named to the corporate boards of Burlington Stores, Inc. and Best Buy respectively.  I know that because of their contributions they will demonstrate, once again, the value of diversity. I hope shareholders and stakeholders continue to keep companies accountable and that this “fatigue” is temporary – as there is still significant work to be done. Here is a link to the PWC report which has other interesting findings.

Here are some other recent stories and opinion pieces:  “Local VCs Launch Initiative to Make Chicago’s Tech Community More Diverse,“ “CAA Launches ‘The Hubb’ Summit to Promote Diversity in the Music Industry,” “Sears catalog helped African Americans subvert Jim Crow,” and “Inside Facebook’s Stormy Debate Over ‘Political Diversity’.” Also, Sallie Krawcheck’s piece  “Everything you think you know about promoting diversity is wrong. Here’s how to do it” has some valid and important points. Note I still think there is value in ERGs or Affinity Groups.

To end on a more positive note, ICMYI  “Shonda Rhimes: ‘I Am The Highest-Paid Showrunner in Television,’” to which I say, bravo!

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Amazon, LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, Black Enterprise, CES, technology to address workforce diversity, plus more

Can technology, including AI/machine learning, help address workforce diversity issues? Companies like SheWorks!, tEQuitable, Atipica, Textio and Pluto are just some of the startups trying to do this, but they have deliberately made this part of their mission. There are also companies like LinkedIn which announced this week it is using AI to recruit more diverse candidates. However, when leveraging technology, some companies may not realize that they may face bias issues they had not predicted, as we saw this week with Amazon. The recruitment engine the company used showed bias against women. More than 50% of HR managers in the U.S. said “artificial intelligence, or AI, would be a regular part of their work within the next five years, according to a 2017 survey by talent software firm CareerBuilder,” so this is something to continue to monitor. Ultimately I think what this also shows is that you need diversity on the management and development side to create viable solutions.

Google and Facebook announced that they are funding a machine learning course in Africa. This is just one example of how companies are trying to address these challenges but there is a lot of work to be done as diversity in tech continues to be a significant issue. 

It was great to see that CES listened to the concerns last year on the lack of diversity as Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD and Ginni Rometti, IBM’s CEO, were named as keynote speakers. Also, read this from  Black Enterprise titled “Black and Brown Tech Innovators and Enthusiasts Gather for Bigger, Better Techconnext conference.”

In other news, CNBC wrote about how Latino owned small businesses are “turbocharging growth,” I love this from the New York Times done to celebrate the International Day of the Girl and called #ThisIs18 and the Google Doodle honors Roberto Clemente

Finally, ICYMI here is one of my favorite ads this year, from JetBlue, celebrating Puerto Rico.

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Puerto Rico, Hispanic Heritage Month,  Col. Gil Coronado, Sol Trujillo, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, Marc Pritchard and more

One year after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, here is this from the Takeaway titled “After The Storm: Stories of Puerto Rican Resilience” and CBS aired this special titled “Puerto Rico: The exodus after Hurricane Maria.” Want to help? Support PRxPR.

As many of you may know, Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated between September 15 and October 15 each year.  Watch this to learn more about how this month-long celebration started. Thank you Elaine Coronado for sharing. Here is more info on the celebration. There are numerous events and celebrations and many companies take the opportunity to host internal and/or external events, it is also a good time to spotlight the many contributions of Hispanics to the U.S. This from CNBC talks about the impact of Latino small businesses in the economy and watch Sol Trujillo talk about how Latinos are impacting the economy.  Here is this from Carlos Lozada from 2013 on who is Latino (or today Latinx) that also speaks to the history of the term Hispanic.

Some of the items I’m following this week: Fortune released the list of Most Powerful Women, an inspiring list of leaders, you can read more here. Axios had this article about how this Congress, depending on the election results, could be the more diverse in history and more accurately reflect the country.  Another week and another article about the importance of diversity in business.  Here is this great read titled “Why Confronting Our Unconscious Biases Is Both a Moral and Business Imperative.”

On the arts and entertainment front, the Getty Research Institute is launching an African American Art History initiative and Latinos made the “The Nun” #1 at the box office during its premiere week

ICYMI read this titled “Marc Pritchard shares personal journey around bias and labels.”

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Arlan Hamilton, Elizabeth Gore, Melinda Gates, Carla Harris, Freada Kapor Klein and much more

This week’s blog post has a strong focus on women as you can see from the headline. I did not realize that until I was close to finalizing it.  So this morning one of the first tweets I saw, fortunately, was Arlan Hamilton on the cover of FastCompany. Here is the story here.  This photo Arlan shared was not quite my reaction but close to it. Read here on why Stephanie Mehta selected Arlan. Listen to her interview with Tanzina Vega on The Takeaway. I recommend you follow Arlan to see how, via Backstage Capital, she is disrupting the VC industry. 

Then later today I read this by Elizabeth Gore in Inc. She is absolutely right. I am grateful that I get to work with entrepreneurs and disruptors like Genius Plaza founder Ana Roca Castro and SheWorks! founder Silvina Moschini and other entrepreneurs who are making an impact and are a part of the #NewMajority.

Other interesting reads this week include “Dell, other tech giants team up to improve diversity in training pipeline,” “Beauty Is More Diverse Than Ever. But Is It Diverse Enough?,” “Fifty years of economic history proves that inclusive workplaces make us all richer,” “Female Role Models Empower Young Girls to Pursue STEM Careers in Latest Ad Council Campaign,” and this “Few minorities, only 45 Latinos, in U.S. House’s top staff jobs, report says.” Here is this report from Nielsen titled “From Consumers to Creators: The Digital Lives of Black Consumers.”  

I also recommend reading this from Melinda Gates on closing the gender tech gap and listen to Carla Harris’ podcast with Freada Kapor Klein on the “Leaky Tech Pipeline.”

ICYMI this is from the New York Times titled “As TV Seeks Diverse Writing Ranks, Rising Demand Meets Short Supply.”

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Nike, Chase, AmEx, US Open, Latinx, Backstage Capital, WarnerMedia & more

I can’t believe it’s already September! I love this time of the year for many reasons, including the US Open in New York. This year diversity is well represented both on the courts and on the creative front. Chase and Nike launched inspiring Serena Williams ads and American Express is running its ad with Lin Manuel Miranda.  If you are not a fan, there are some great storylines this year. There is of course Serena. You also have two players from Japan making history Kei Nishikori on the men’s side and Naomi Osaka on the women’s side. And Nike posted this in response to the French Open’s decision regarding Serena’s catsuit.

This week Nike has captured most of the headlines with its decision to have Colin Kaepernick as the face of its current campaign. There has been extensive coverage and analysis on this decision – just do a quick Google search. If you haven’t seen the ad that will run during the NFL season opener, the US Open and other sporting events, you should. Here’s a link. I agree with Patrick Rishe – for Nike “the reward will exceed risk because it knows its demo.”  

Other news I am following includes that the term “Latinx” has been added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I’ve written about the debate on using this term before. Adrienne Trimble took the helm at the National Minority Supplier Development Council. Nielsen released a report stating that Hispanic consumers over-index on cause-related purchases. Backstage Capital announced it is launching “an accelerator in four cities to promote underrepresented founders.” I am voting for Miami as the fourth city. WarnerMedia unveiled its diversity policy – congratulations to the team leading this effort! Also here is this good read from The Wharton School titled “Why Diversity Is About Much More Than Numbers.”

ICYMI watch Sylvia Acevedo’s interview on CBS This Morning. Proud to say I’ve known her for years, she’s inspiring!

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Crazy Rich Asians, Kelly Marie Tran, Washington Post, NPR, Marie Claire & More

This weekend I watched “Crazy Rich Asians” and it was such fun. Plus I love that, as many outlets noted, it once again proved the power of diversity. I also love the response by the Asian American community to the film, including this from Jane Mo or this from Kimberly Yam and of course the story about the letter sent to request the song Yellow from Cold Play. Then on Monday I was brought back to reality, about how much work needs to be done, after reading this from Kelly Marie Tran in the New York Times. I applaud her strength but saddened that we continue to see what she faces. Of course, the question now is what does the success of the film mean for Hollywood after the Box Office success of Black Panther, Coco and Crazy Rich Asians? More on that here and here. Plus this from Forbes on how “Latinos And (Crazy Rich) Asian Americans Are Hollywood’s Final Growth Frontier.” Patrice Tanaka, who you should also follow, has shared some great stories about Crazy Rich Asians and promoted the film, she did share this one that is critical of the movie.

I have been following the backlash the Washington Post received from Latino organizations and leaders over the story “White, and in the Minority.” The Columbia Journalism Review has this piece on the issues. I actually had reached out to the Washington Post before the NAHJ meeting and the CJR story were published because I had not seen a response. This is what I received, “The Washington Post has a long tradition of narrative reporting on the experiences of immigrants and minorities in America, as recent work by a number of Post reporters vividly demonstrates. Many of their stories recount the experiences of immigrants as they adapt to America and confront discrimination, shifting policies and other challenges. Terrence McCoy’s story captured the perspective of those who feel displaced by demographic change, by conveying what it is like for two white Americans who must themselves adapt to a new America. McCoy portrays their fear, resentment and xenophobia – as well as their responses to the attempts of their Latino co-workers to interact with them. McCoy’s work will continue to explore the emergence of a multicultural majority in America.” I leave the original article here, the piece from CJR and the response, so you can decide.

NPR also was criticized for the interview with hate group leader Jason Kessler, here is David Folkenflik on the backlash and read Brian Stelter’s piece on covering racists.

Other stories that i am following, this from CNN on the rise of Diversity & Inclusion jobs plus this on how to build a career in D&I; Citigroup’s three year goal to reverse its diversity failings; AARP has a new newsletter focused on African American women and Endeavor is now working with Papa John’s. If you are interested in D&I, the National Diversity Council offers a certification program. 

ICYMI Claudia Romo Edelman today shared that she was one of the special contributors for Marie Claire’s September issue focused on immigration. It is a must read! 

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Nonprofit diversity, Harvard, Vogue, Magazine Covers, Politics, Startups and the PR industry in the #MeToo era

Every day I save articles to include in the weekly blog post, and also do some searches to find some of the best coverage about diversity. That is why I appreciate it when some of you share articles I may have missed or catch a mistake and flag it for me. Thank you Xochitl Yañez for sharing this one focused on diversity in nonprofits, a very interesting read.

I also follow a number of individuals that share great content, including pieces they have written. Here is this from Monica Castillo focused on language, Ana Valdez shared this written by Miriam Rivera titled “How to be an ally in a diverse community,” One area that I focus on is startups, and follow leaders like Arlan Hamilton and Mandela SH Dixon and try to include articles like this piece on “105 black and latino founders who have raised $1mm+ in VC funding…”

One of the topics I talk about almost every week is that representation matters, which is why we we should celebrate that  “For the First Time, Black Women Will Run Four Schools at Harvard University,” and that, as the CNBC headline states, “Women are shattering records in the 2018 primaries with more than a dozen states still to go.”Another story on the politics side, in Michigan, the Democrats have an all-female statewide ticket.  On the entertainment side, the fact that black women are on a number of magazine covers this month is also something to celebrate. Also, if you missed this from Vogue about advice for your 20 year old self based on Beyonce’s cover story, it is a great read.

We do have a long way to go, which is why Tuesday was Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, read more here. This New York Times piece “When a Female C.E.O. Leaves, the Glass Ceiling is Restored” has great insights and data in general about women in the C suite.  

Finally, ICYMI, here is a must read post by Jane Randel, co-founder of Karp Randel, focused on #MeToo and the PR industry.

Thank you for reading and following. Please share any articles you think are important to include!

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