- 18 hours ago
Ceci Kurzman addresses representation and how we are showing up in our communities.
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00:00and what is next listen as so many there are so many well-intentioned programs around board
00:09diversity but we know that the problem continues to persist and so we have an expert lineup of
00:16panelists to dive into this topic that is extremely tight all of the panel topics have
00:20been timely haven't they today yes look I grew up in the church I got a call and response yes
00:26okay my dad's a pastor so I would love to introduce our panelists Michelle Campbell who is the CEO of
00:33diverse talent Andrew Davis who's who is the executive vice president and global chief people
00:39experience officer at Sony music entertainment Dr. L.T. Frederick senior director and leader of
00:46corporate functions people business partners at Cisco and Miss Deborah Lee co-founder and partner
00:53of monarchs collective and chairman emeritus of BET networks and this will be moderated by the
00:58wonderful C.C. Kurzman who is an amazing as we all know esteemed board director
01:04thank you thank you and thank you to Alfonso and Richelieu and everybody at the global black economic
01:15forum it's an honor to be here in this room and it's been very emotional day for a lot of reasons
01:22but very heartened to be in a room where I know the change is going to happen and the change can
01:27be made and that's that's what we're here to talk about today how all of us together can make can make
01:34this happen right we have the power to do this you know I was thinking we were talking just before we
01:42came on and tried to reframe the conversations given what's happening in the day and this this issue of
01:49representation keeps coming up and how we show up and how we're represented and when it comes to boards
01:57you know we're very very focused on getting in the room having a seat at the table being one of the few
02:07who can make decisions and has that power where we were less focused though is how we're showing up in
02:16that room and are we bringing our full selves into that room our full selves as women as people of
02:24color are we representing ourselves and our community and not just doing the job of being a board member
02:32of fiduciary a representative of the company you know my first board was actually on behalf of JP Morgan
02:41I was asked to serve on the board of Johnson publishing as ebony jet fashion fair for me these
02:50are very iconic historical businesses a multi-generational family this was so important my job was to be a
03:01fiduciary for the company my job was to ensure the the health and wellness of the strategy and of the
03:10business but as a black woman my job was also to ensure that the investors at JP Morgan understood
03:19the value of that business beyond the balance sheet the value of that business to the community the
03:26value of those assets and the value to the history of what that represented that was much more than the
03:33dollars and cents that they put into the business and that's that sort of leads me to what we're here to
03:40talk about today how we come into these conversations and not just put people on boards not just get leaders
03:49ready to take those positions not just be one of one but how do we bring our full selves into these
03:56conversations and you know with that I actually would love to start with you Deborah because I think you
04:06you know you are a leader a corporate leader you've you're an author you're probably the most sought-after
04:15person in corporate America to sit in board seats I think if you asked young black women who they'd most
04:21like to model their career after they would point to you you're that poster in their bedroom and but with that
04:30said what I've always been so impressed by watching you throughout your career is you've done all of
04:37this and always done it as an unapologetically black woman and shown up in these spaces and in these worlds
04:47as yourself how you know how would you advise young women young people of color to be able to map that strategy and map that strategy
04:57and map that strategy without losing who they are what are some of your tips
05:04well I could write a book on that thank you CC and CC and I served on the board of Revlon together for several years
05:16which was one of the strangest boards I've ever served on and when Ron Perlman called
05:23to ask me to serve on the board he said Deborah I saw you on the BET awards the other night and you're hot
05:28would you be on my board and I said that's not usually how people ask me to be on their boards
05:35but anyway the you know we all are people of color most of us in this room you know a lot of us are women
05:48this is a black women's conference for women of color and I think we all have to define who we are
05:57what we stand for and I hope which was one of my driving forces how do I give back to my community and there's so
06:09many different ways to do that I was born in 1954 the year Brown versus Board of Education was decided so I always
06:20describe myself as a Brown versus Board of Education baby because although it took you know schools a long time to
06:30integrate I went to a black high school and it didn't integrate until my senior year in 1972 it was such it was the
06:39door that opened to opportunities now at my high school we used to have save the black school protests because we didn't
06:46want to integrate this was in Greensboro North Carolina and we thought separate but equal was fine as long as
06:53the equal part worked our parents knew better they knew if it was separate it was never going to be equal and
07:01that doesn't mean that there aren't places for HBCUs and black schools and all female schools I'm not saying that at
07:08all but they knew we had to have opportunities everywhere that we couldn't be shut out so my dad who was
07:15in the army and was not even a college graduate made the decision that little Debbie as his younger child
07:26was going to go to Ivy League school before I even knew what Ivy League school was and so I ended up going
07:34to Ivy League school I thought and he also wanted me to go to law school and part of my driving force was how
07:42am I going to give back to the community I thought I was going to be a civil rights attorney and argue cases in
07:48front of the Supreme Court like Brown versus Board of Education but by the time I got to Harvard Law School you
07:55know that wasn't really a thing anymore it is a thing again now unfortunately and I knew I didn't want to go into
08:04corporate law so I had made a decision not to go into corporate law so to be known as one of the highest ranking
08:12black women in corporate America and as a role model in corporate law it's really in corporate world is really
08:19still kind of astonishing to me but long story short I finished law school I clerked and Ronald Reagan won as
08:29president and I had gone to Kennedy school because I later decided going to public policy school was
08:36going to help anyway I had to go to law firm there was nowhere else I could go and it was fine I didn't
08:42like it I knew I didn't want to be a partner and so along comes BET and when I was saying in law school I
08:50didn't want to be in a corporation I didn't know black companies like Johnson Publishing and BET existed so
09:00the fact that I went to BET to be general counsel was the best thing that ever happened in my career
09:07I cared about the company I cared about the mission I cared about producing and providing authentic high quality
09:16programming to the black community and all of a sudden that was my purpose and I just stumbled upon
09:23it I just stumbled upon it if you had said to me when I was in law school oh you're going to be CEO of a
09:29media company I would have said no way not even something I'm interested in so I guess my point is one you
09:36never know where your career is going to take you second of all you should be open to opportunities you
09:43hadn't thought of and not to let anyone tell you you can't do it you know you should use your own
09:50decision making and once you make your decision and get into that room you you have to be your authentic
09:58self or why are you in the room and so you know based on the last panel you might say well why be bothered
10:06with corporate boards you know what are they good for well they're good for a lot of things and for
10:13me I got my first opportunity with Kodak that was the first board I served on didn't know anything about
10:19it I was still COO at the time only black person on the board someone else had just left and you know I
10:26found I liked it I like learning about other companies I like learning about other industry I liked getting
10:33other black people on the board behind me so I was always on nominating and governance and there
10:40are other things that I took a particular interest in it wasn't all black issues I cared about the profit
10:47and balance sheet and you know how much film they sell but it was something I hadn't anticipated but
10:53once I got in the room I enjoyed it then and I know we're going to talk about this later I met other people
10:59on the board who recommended me for other boards once you're on your first board other boards come
11:05calling and again you have to make your own personal decision is this something I'm interested
11:10is this worth my while and when you get in the room make them know you're in the room and it can be
11:18very fulfilling now the other part of serving on boards is you can create wealth and we don't talk about
11:26that enough but after I saw that policeman have his knee on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes and treat
11:37him like he wasn't even human if I mean I can't get that picture out of my mind and it was so depressing
11:44that I thought only way we're ever going to solve this problem is to create more black wealth so I started a
11:53company called monarchs collective which is designed to get more black people and more women on
11:59corporate boards because you can make a good living for your family and create a lot of wealth because
12:07in our community a lot of people don't even know that on a corporate board a public board especially and even
12:15private boards you get paid a lot of money and it's not a full-time job and they give you stock and if you
12:25save that stock before you know it you're worth a lot of money right and you're in the room with other
12:32people that you get to know personally and you get other opportunities but that's the reason I started
12:39monarchs because I said we have to focus more and I know that's what this whole conference is about so
12:45that's a wonderful thing but we have to talk about black wealth and that's still a hard thing in our
12:50community it's still a hard thing so anyway that's why I've done corporate work when I stepped down from
12:58BET it was even more important because I wanted to stay active and right now I'm on still on four corporate boards
13:05amazing amazing and notable is how those how you had access to that next path you went from your father
13:19knowing that he wanted you to have this education and from there to be in a position to create
13:26multi-generational wealth just one generation hence so it isn't so far
13:32it's not so far afield LT I love to hear about what you're doing because you know we have a lot of anecdotal
13:41conversations around we need more we need diversity and again it becomes the SNESG
13:47and what you've done is really applied the data because really to move the needle it's not to have the
13:54conversations you need to show the numbers you need to show the outcomes you need to show the why
14:00can you tell us a bit about your study some of the highlights and the takeaways why the focus on
14:08diversification of boards and then how we can amplify these findings sure thank you thanks first for having
14:15me the reason that I focused on the diversification of corporate boards was really on the advice of my
14:21my mentor Trudy bourgeois I wanted to create space for others like myself who came from small-town America I'm
14:31from a very small town in North Carolina middle-class you know regular road went to college got a good job and I
14:42thought I thought I had made it $27,000 full-time salary and I was doing it right and my next goal was
14:5050 and when I got to 50 I was like yep uh-huh I'm doing it and then I was like okay I want to keep going
14:57but people from my small towns my community black white and other they don't often know of these types of
15:05opportunities so when I got into corporate America I'm an En-ROADS alum if anybody's an En-ROADS alum
15:12one of the feeder pools for corporate America and diversified corporate America I knew then at 18 that I wanted to
15:20create space for others and so my parents were educators my sister's an educator I'm an educator and I wanted to
15:27leverage my education to create space that would leave a legacy for others and so Trudy said if you really
15:35want to make a difference in corporate America you need to start at the top you need to start where the
15:41board focuses because what the board cares about the CEO will then drive right and that will then
15:47permeate through the rest of the organization so that's a little bit about why I did it but the the key
15:52findings from it was really around three key areas social identity ie and your network power and position
16:03depending on who you are how you see yourself what you know and what authority you have that's when you
16:13have the access and the opportunity to lead at the next level right I didn't know very much about boards
16:21when I began my research in 2018 but I learned that corporate boards for public companies govern 17 trillion dollars
16:28according to company catalyst research company and for black people we contribute to about 10% of that in
16:38our buying power but we're not represented in that when it comes to what decisions are made about what
16:44services you consume what products you are able to use what jobs we have right and so if we have the
16:51opportunity to get into those seats then we can bring our care about so we can bring our voices we can bring our
16:57authentic selves and create space where we can thrive where our communities can thrive and where others can come
17:03along so that was my focus thank you thank you Andrew Sony music I came up there it holds a special place in my heart but as a
17:18veteran of music industry I'm often thrown by the fact that of all the industries so much of the revenue is driven by
17:28people of color so much of the culture is coming from people of color why isn't there more representation
17:37throughout the corporations and I know you have a hand in where this is going to go and what do you hope to change in this industry
17:46well I think the representation problem is is across multiple industries right we that's why we're here is why we have
17:53these conversations and I don't necessarily know if it's as nuanced in the music industry as it is in others it could be
18:00and I've worked in in three or four others myself but I think one of the big challenges we have is that you know we've said it
18:06right up front representation we don't even see it at the very top so how do you think it's going to even translate below that so we have a problem with that first so I think
18:15what what we're trying to do and what I've been impressed with with our leadership in our company is that we're trying
18:22we're focusing first on changing the representation at top so we have a very diverse senior leadership team
18:28in terms of the c-suite and what we're hoping from that is that that translates all the way through the organization
18:34top to bottom but the problem is is like with everyone else that that issue of unavailable talent or at least the perception
18:42that it's not there which we talked about earlier and we talked about and it's good to have you here with us Michelle
18:48because you're you're focused on trying to change that we've got to make sure that people understand that talented
18:53individuals is is is is diverse and they're available it's just that you've got to bring that opportunity to them
19:00and you've got to be intentional about it so we're trying to be intentional we're focusing on driving it at the top and making sure
19:06that it it it cascades all the way through the organization thank you as Alfonso said it's not a supply problem is it
19:14not at all not at all and you can help us understand something so historically boards were made up of CEOs CFOs retirees
19:28what is the landscape look like today is that changing and how does that impact us how can we include more of us in that conversation
19:38because inherently that story excludes us right
19:42if I think about the history of everything we've been talking about today
19:53it really lies down to the fact that the conversations have been had the conversations have been had
20:04and now it's about gaining access to the opportunities that are there because they're there
20:11diverse talent our search firm it's an executive search firm that I created after running an engineering firm
20:20and after my husband said you know I run a law firm and they keep saying that we're not there
20:27we're there from NSBE to SWE to the National Bar Association we are here and we've been here
20:39the reality is the access that they simply don't have to us
20:47so with that it's leveraging the executives that are there in these organizations and for all the corporations that are here
20:57thank you for being here thank you for not only being here but supporting this platform and conversation
21:04but the call to action and the ask is for everyone in here to say it's time to not only make room
21:12but to ask board of trustees and the board members in to the earlier panels message the dollars where we put our dollars
21:24to ask what is the relationship you have with our communities and to not be afraid when they say not really sure if they're quite ready
21:33not to be afraid to challenge that diverse talent again was created because they kept saying that we weren't here
21:4335 years ago graduated from a university and majored in engineering we're here before I even got there our forefathers were there
21:51so we can't begin to continue with the rhetoric and I appreciate Sony and others that say there's so much room to go
22:01but with that we have to be able to say the time is now and to be willing to challenge not only each other but to provide the access and the accountability to our colleagues and our friends
22:16thank you because that was a great call to action we're in a very special room right now where everybody in here can actually move the needle and make a difference
22:30and if there was one thing anybody else here just wanted to add as a call to action to this room what would it be
22:37well I think I would add or emphasize what was just said that people are out here they're very qualified this thing about you have to be a CEO or CFO went away years ago after Sarbanes-Oxley
22:54I went on a board when I was COO which was unusual in 1999 it's not unusual now but boards have broadened their specifications of what they're looking for
23:06to help their businesses so and especially after the SEC got involved and said you can't you know just put your golfing buddies on a board so that went away with Sarbanes-Oxley
23:19but now you know I see more boards looking for experts in marketing experts in cyber security experts in whatever issue they're facing
23:33so you see a diversity on boards of titles and experience so I think one of the things as you know board directors or head of nominating governance committees
23:48you have to try to meld those other new areas with black folks and women and Hispanic folks and you know groups are looking at it's not just black anymore it's Hispanic
24:01it's LGBTQ the first time I heard a search firm say they were looking for LGBTQ board members maybe five years ago I was blown away
24:10I was like oh that's a thing now yeah okay great and the same with Asians so the companies that care really are doing the right thing but I don't want us to think that they're just looking for us they're not and we have to make them
24:28thank you and thank you to all of you this is fantastic make the change
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