Race at Work

In this episode, Porter chats with David Stiepleman, Co-President, and Co-Founder of the global investment firm Sixth Street. They talk about the reasons for the lack of funding for diverse founders. They also discuss why Sixth Street’s summer fellowship program is critical in their approach to diversifying their internal team and the private capital industry more broadly. Porter and David also discuss why it’s the responsibility of both the company and the broader industry to create spaces for employees to talk about race at work.

In this episode, Porter chats with Kwasi Mitchell, Chief Purpose Officer at Deloitte. They discuss why Kwasi’s role is crucial in creating frameworks for organizational purpose, which is the greater mission that helps companies Deloitte serves and its employees find purpose in their daily work. They also talk about creating pathways of success for employees and why it’s a passion for Kwasi.

In this episode, Porter speaks with Dr. Paula A. Johnson, the 14th President of Wellesley College. They talk about how classrooms need to be set up for discussions when it comes to highly charged topics amongst a diverse student body, why simple changes to job description wording can improve corporate recruitment on campus, and how COVID showed that living on campus is an equalizer for students. As a physician-scientist, Paula made a significant impact through her clinical and research work. Before joining Wellesley in 2016, she was a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard.

In this episode, Porter chats with Kim Davis, Senior Executive Vice President of Social Impact, Growth Initiatives & Legislative Affairs at the National Hockey League. They discuss the life-changing impact a sponsor made on Kim’s career and why the Rooney Rule - a policy started in 2003 by the NFL that requires teams to interview candidates of color for leadership roles - isn’t implemented in the NHL. Kim starts the show by recounting some of the overt racism she experienced early in her career.

To kick off season 3 of Race at Work, Porter chats with Jacqueline Welch, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at the New York Times about why representation matters at all levels of an organization. Jaqueline is the second Black woman to be on the New York Times masthead. They also discuss the 1619 project –– a long-form journalism initiative by the Times paper and magazine that reframes the history of slavery and contributions made by Black Americans. They get into the project's impact and how it's leveraged internally to build a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.

This is the second part of a two-part series exploring critical race theory (CRT) and its influence on diversity and inclusion efforts in workplaces and classrooms. Laura E. Gómez, a law professor at UCLA, teaches in the school’s Critical Race Studies Program, which uses CRT to explore how legal and other systems intersect with race in the U.S. In the final episode of Season 2, she tells host Porter Braswell that racism isn’t about individual prejudice, but rather about the messages our larger society gives us about our identities.

This is part one of a two-part series exploring critical race theory (CRT) and its influence on diversity and inclusion efforts in workplaces and classrooms. Julia Carrie Wong is a senior reporter for The Guardian, and she’s been covering the ongoing debate around CRT in schools and federal employee trainings. CRT is an academic discipline that teaches that racism is deeply embedded into U.S. legal and political systems. Wong talks with host Porter Braswell about what CRT is, efforts to ban CRT from classrooms, and why some institutions are resistant to making CRT a standard educational tool.

Don and Liz Thompson are leaders in their respective industries. Don had a long career rising through the ranks of McDonald’s, eventually becoming the company’s first Black CEO. Meanwhile his wife Liz Thompson was a rising executive in education and nonprofits – like City Year Chicago, where she was the founding executive director. Throughout their careers, the Thompsons kept their community in mind. In 2014, they started the Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education (The CAFE), an organization focused on college access and career attainment for the Black community. They talk to host Porter Braswell about being intentional with their work, in order to build economic equity in the Black community whenever they had the opportunity. They also discuss breaking racial barriers while climbing to the top of corporate America.

Imagine a world in which Black business owners achieved economic parity, receiving the same funding as other founders. That, alone, would create 615,000 new Black-led workplaces, according to a new report from the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility. That report examines the racial gaps that exist across the U.S. economy. Shelley Stewart III leads McKinsey’s research on Black economic mobility in the United States and is also a partner with McKinsey’s Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice. Stewart speaks with host Porter Braswell about some of the barriers Black Americans face in the U.S. economy, as workers, business owners, and consumers. They also explore how addressing representational imbalances could create greater economic equity.

Anne Chow is the first woman of color to be the CEO in AT&T’s history. She’s been with the company for over 30 years and throughout her career, she’s made it a point to have difficult conversations about race, equity, and inclusion at work. She tells host Porter Braswell that unconscious bias is at the root of a lot of these race-related issues. They also discuss how she’s working to create a safe workplace for employees of color through leading internal dialogues and holding leaders accountable.