00:00get a little sugar. I got to say, my soror congressman, congresswoman Jasmine Crockett
00:06gave y'all a call to action and calm to arms because it's not about who's at the top of the
00:11ticket, it's about what is at stake for us. And I'm so grateful for this conversation because
00:16they talked about how all politics are local. We get too distracted by what's happening at the top
00:22of the ticket and concede our power in the state and local races. And so it was really important
00:27to have this conversation. So thank you all for being here for that. So right now, we are going
00:30to have a special moment, a presentation about DEI and the effectiveness of it, given the efforts to
00:39dismantle DEI, especially in the wake of George Floyd, as well as last year with the dismantling
00:45of affirmative action by the Supreme Court. So please welcome to the stage, Mr. J.T. Saunders,
00:50who is the chief diversity officer of Corn Ferry. Hello, hello. Good to see y'all. And I have a
01:00slight problem here. I was asked to come on after these great panels. So now I have a really high
01:05stakes here. But I'm really excited to be here with you today. As it was just said, I serve as the chief
01:12diversity officer for Corn Ferry. And those of you who are less familiar with who we are, we are a firm
01:18that focuses on business transformation and people. And we often tell people, no one knows people at
01:25work better than we do. And so this is a really critical moment for us in this time, as we just
01:31heard from the congresswoman and also Hakeem Jeffries himself. Now it probably comes to no surprise to you
01:40that over the last four years, we've seen some major fluctuations with this topic of DEI, probably not
01:48too much of a surprise for you. And so as we think about 2020, if we remember where we were, likely at
01:53home, thinking about reflecting on life, reflecting on COVID and its impact, like many of our colleagues.
02:01And we also saw in the media, there was this headlines around corporate corporations' response
02:06to DEI post the unfortunate murder of George Floyd. We started to see organizations be really thoughtful
02:13about hiring more black talent, hiring chief diversity officers to lead their DEI efforts
02:19internally, whether it's performative or not. But we also saw a really important moment where
02:25corporations were beginning to make significant pledges, 50 million dollars to date, 50 million
02:32dollars, excuse me, 50 billion dollars to date. And many of us who have been in this work or working
02:38around DEI, questioned, is this a moment? Is this a moment? Or have we begun to see the beginnings of a
02:47better movement? And so in partnership with the GBF, we started to ask ourselves about some of the headlines
02:54we're seeing today. How DEI is being rolled back. We're seeing affirmative action, the end of race conscious
03:01admissions being rolled back. Abortion rights, unfortunately. We're seeing more anti-LGBTQ plus
03:08legislation. And so in this moment, many of us are beginning to ask ourselves, it was a moment, right?
03:14Was it? And so as we thought about having this conversation, more importantly through our partnership
03:19with the Global Black Economic Forum, we started to question three big things. In this environment
03:25today, what is the future of DEI? What is the direction of DEI? And more importantly, is DEI resilient
03:34enough as a discipline and more importantly, a best business practice? And through our work and through
03:41our comprehensive study, we're able to look at a, look at a, create a comprehensive study where we focused
03:47on several key areas. We actually looked at the current literature review. What are people saying about
03:51this topic and the broader social discourse? We also explored DEI policies and historical data.
03:59We analyzed almost 5,400 companies across multiple sectors. We interviewed senior executives across
04:06the C-suite as well as DEI professionals working, doing this work every single day. We also spent a lot
04:13of time looking at engagement data from 193 companies. And more importantly, we looked at Corn Ferry's DEI
04:19engagement data, opinion-based data, that covered 545 companies and almost 6.8 million people. So we had a
04:28pretty good perspective around this idea. What is this a moment or are we beginning to see a movement?
04:33And through our work, we realized, no surprise to many of you, that in fact, there seems to be a different
04:40story depending across industries. Some have lost, some industries have lost investment, whereas others are
04:46doubling down and strengthening their DEI investments. And more importantly, what we're seeing is organizations
04:52or corporations in industries that are leading our economy at this moment, financial services,
04:59and high and advanced technology, are deepening their pockets around DEI. They are focusing on driving the
05:06work forward. They're hiring at multiple rates. And what they're focusing on is managing these five mega trends
05:14that every organization globally is managing. So I just want to do a quick study with y'all. I know we
05:19did a little hand-raised activity, so I'm going to ask you how to do it with me one more time.
05:22I want you to think about your grandparents. How many of your grandparents had four or more siblings?
05:27Just a show of hands. How many? Okay. How many of your parents had four or more siblings?
05:34How many of y'all have four or more siblings? How many of y'all have four or more children?
05:39Oh. Take note of that statistic for a moment. I think we heard from Congresswoman Crockett that we
05:48have about four million more jobs than we have people in our economy. Today, we just got another
05:55positive jobs report. 206,000 jobs have been created this month. Yet, we're not having children at the
06:02same rate as our parents and our grandparents. And so, as organizations start to think about their
06:07future and their ability to remain competitive, agile, and innovative in this environment,
06:12they're going to need people. Oh, and by the way, demographically, we're also becoming a more
06:17racially and ethnically diverse people. DEI is a path forward. And what we've been talking to
06:24many of our clients is this idea of a culture of innovation is a culture of inclusion. It's a
06:32necessity at this point. As we think about talent shortages, skill gaps, this idea of digitalization
06:39and its impact on our everyday lives, geopolitics are all factors that are certainly playing into
06:46this game here. And so, as Hakeem Jeffery said, a knockout is not the same thing as a knockdown,
06:53right? And so, in this moment, we're certainly seeing a pullback from a small contingent of people.
06:58But the reality is companies that are continuing to lead this work are investing in DEI. They're
07:05doing it differently, though. And I think this is a moment in time for us to start thinking about
07:09how we evolve our understanding of DEI as it stands. The challenge ahead of us is thinking
07:13about the ways in which we can create a systems-level approach to driving DEI forward. In fact,
07:20organizational transformation, which every organization is experiencing in this moment,
07:24we'll have to think about how do we think more holistically about the people we have,
07:29their capability, and their ability to drive our strategy forward. Organizations can't use AI alone
07:36to do that. They need people to drive the strategy. And so, through this report, this work, we realized
07:42there are five actions that the leading companies who are focusing on these issues, they're doing.
07:47They're investing in talent in terms of the mindsets of their leaders. If you look at the World Economic
07:53Forum Future of Jobs report, organizations globally are focusing on three things from a leadership
07:59development perspective. From their managers, they want them to manage conflict better. They want their
08:05people to understand social influence better and empathy better. Why? Because we now live in a world and
08:11work in a world where people are coming from very different cultural backgrounds and experiences
08:17and organizations are going to need to think about how do I maximize the contribution of these people
08:22to achieve revenue, performance, productivity in an environment that is constantly changing.
08:31And so, we think strongly that these are the pieces that organizations need to be thoughtful about
08:36and we're really excited to begin this journey together. So, as we think about this moment,
08:42whether it's a moment of movement, at this point is probably less relevant. What I'd like to encourage
08:48you to do is, one, read the report. The QR code will bring you directly to the report, so feel free to
08:52grab a snapshot of it. But from this moment forward, I want us to think about the ways in which we can
08:57begin to think about how to create a sustainable movement. Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion from
09:04from being less of a cultural necessity to a standard business practice that will continue to transform
09:12the world in which we know it. Then work environment in which we know it. It's going to take more than
09:17a village to get this done, colleagues. And so, I want to welcome you into not only reading the report,
09:21which we're really proud of, in partnership with great partners here at the Global Black Economic Forum,
09:26but more importantly, how do we do this together? I think there are high stakes here in front of us and
09:31we're really excited to get started. So, thank you so much for your time today. Glad we had an
09:35opportunity to connect.
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