Tag: women

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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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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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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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NAHJ, NPR report, ClassPass, Blavity, LULAC, N.B.A., “Vida”, Adweek, Walmart, Goldman Sachs, Humanæ & more

Last week the National Association of Hispanic Journalists hosted its conference in Miami and I loved having the opportunity to visit with some amazing journalists – the featured photo is one group – thank you Olivia Tallet! While visiting with attendees I had numerous conversations about the lack of Latinos as sources and how many Latino journalists continue to work to change this. On that note, thank you Lulu Garcia-Navarro for sharing this and this from @NPR that validates my earlier posts of lack of representation of Latinos in media. Of course this is not just a problem at NPR, look at this from the Columbia Journalism Review. The list we started of Latino sources now has close to 100 entries, so if you need Latinos as sources, save this link! Plus thanks to the NPR piece I found this – which I love – #womenalsoknowstuff. You can register as a source here but note “To be listed on this site, you must have: (i) a Ph.D. in political science or be working towards a Ph.D. in political science or (ii) be employed in an academic political science department.” CJR is also compiling a list, here is a link to that list (save this link too) and the form to submit other names.

This week there are many reasons to celebrate including ClassPass raising $85 million in Series D, Blavity securing $6.5 million in funding, Mindy Marqués Gonzalez, executive editor of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, was inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame, I posted about two Latina entrepreneurs being profiled in key media publications this past weekend, LULAC selected Sindy Benavides as its first woman CEO and a first generation immigrant and Domingo Garcia was elected president. I had missed this article on five women mobilizing the Latino community for the midterms which includes Sindy. Also loved this story from the New York Times: “N.B.A. Power Brokers Gather, With No Men Allowed.”

Of course there is still so much work to do, which as Cindy Gallop points out is evidenced in Adweek’s Power list which only features 12 women and no African Americans. 

Stories I am following this week include “This VR Founder Wants to Gamify Empathy to Reduce Racial Bias,” “How Latinos Are Shaping America’s Future,” “Possible key to black boys’ academic success: Hire black men as elementary school teachers,” Walmart investing $2 million in “diversity internships,” and Goldman Sachs has named Erika Irish Brown as its new chief diversity officer. 

Other stories include this from NBC News about Diane Guerrero’s new book titled “My Family Divided,” this from FastCompany about sunscreen startups catering to “long-ignored minorities,” and this New York Times apology for its Los Angeles travel story – another example of the importance of having diverse talent in newsrooms.  Actually after you read the New York Times piece that led to the apology, read this about the show “Vida,” written by two Latina writers.  For more stories on Latinos, here is this week’s Latinx Collective.

ICYMI, watch this great TED Talk: “The beauty of human skin every color.” Not new but something that I read about this week.

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Heineken USA, Starbucks, Google, diversity in tech, Variety and more

Feels like a great morning when you wake up to a Google Doodle honoring Dr. Virginia Apgar for her contributions to neonatology and to read that Heineken USA named Maggie Timoney as its CEO – which as AdAge mentions, shatters the industry’s glass ceiling. This follows the announcement earlier this week that Mellody Hobson, which as Black Enterprise points out, “is one of the most respected and knowledgeable black business leaders” will become  vice chair at Starbucks when Howard Schultz steps down at the end of the month. This is all welcomed news because there is so much work to be done.  

As you may have read, Google employees spoke up about their concerns regarding diversity. Here is this from CNN:  “Google employee confronts execs over diversity: Many of us feel ‘unsafe.” This is an important story to follow, not only about Google but about the tech industry in general. Oh and Google voted the proposal down. Read Fortune’s CEO Daily for more on this. Here is a great read on what needs to happen to drive change, as this LA Times story says, as “diversity fatigue has set in.” There are a number of programs and initiatives trying to address this issue. Thank you Silvina Moschini for sharing this titled “How this coding bootcamp is helping women land tech jobs at Reddit, Facebook and Amazon.”

On the entertainment side, you may have read that Variety’s “A Night in the Writer’s Room” event because of its lack of representation of women. Read more on his this unfolded on Twitter.  You also may have read about The MACRO Episodic Lab Powered by The Black List.

One of my favorite Twitter accounts to follow is @writersofcolor – where opportunities and diverse talent connect because as the twitter bio says “we don’t want to hear *I can’t find any* ever again, okay?”

ICYMI “12 Quotes To Motivate CMOs To Make Diversity A Priority.”

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World Day for Cultural Diversity, Election Night, Magdalena Skipper, Barbara Underwood, Stacey Cunningham & more

This past Monday marked the UN’s World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. Michelin released its first diversity and inclusion report for North America that day. The ICC posted this and I found this focused on media and this and this focused on the medical field. I didn’t find too many stories or announcements tied to this day in the U.S. but hope next year we can see a stronger U.S. focused movement to celebrate cultural diversity.

Listen here to The Takeaway on the new report on diversity in U.S. newsrooms. Representation is important, especially in media. A must listen. Look at these charts on political reporters from 2016 elections. As a reminder, here is the New York Times report and here is the Los Angeles Times pay gap report. So as newsrooms plan for this election and for 2020, here are Tanzina’s tips for making newsrooms more inclusive.

Last night was a big night for women running for office: Stacey Abrams became the Democratic nomination for Governor of Georgia, former Sheriff Lupe Valdez won the Democratic nomination for Governor of Texas, Amy McGrath won the Democratic House primary in Kentucky, Gina Ortiz Jones won a runoff in Texas. On the Republican side Vickie Glisson won the GOP nomination for Kentucky’s third congressional district and  Angela Leet won the Republican primary for Louisville mayor. Read more here on yesterday’s elections.

Congratulations to Magdalena Skipper, the first woman editor in chief of Nature Magazine in its “nearly” 150-year history. Here is an interview she did for NPR’s  Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Congratulations to Barbara Underwood who “became the first woman to serve as attorney general in New York after she was appointed to the role in a joint legislative session Tuesday.” Read more here. Also, congratulations to Stacey Cunningham, NYSE’s first female president. Here she talks about the gender diversity problem.

Most of us watched part of, or all, of the Royal Wedding and read about the celebration of black culture we experienced. I had a hard time deciding which story to include about the events this past weekend, but recommend reading “What the presence of Black culture at the royal wedding meant to me.” Oh and yes I’ve now downloaded Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s music and subscribed to his YouTube channel.

ICYMI every week I like to highlight reporters that you should be following. Monica Castillo from The Lily is one I’ve mentioned, here is an April post she did titled “How Figure Skating in Harlem helps black and Latina girls build their confidence.” 

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