Race at Work

What’s the difference between unconscious bias and a microaggression? How is diversity actually defined? And what’s problematic about using the term “minority”? Doug Melville, VP, Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Richemont North America, joins host Porter Braswell to answer questions about diversity, equity, and inclusion that can be awkward to ask at work. They define the terms we hear so often, address common misconceptions, and share their personal experiences with race at work.

Edith Cooper is the first Black woman to become a partner at Goldman Sachs. But she says she might have walked away from her finance career without the support of key mentors, who recognized her leadership potential. She joins host Porter Braswell to talk about the role race plays at work, employee retention strategies, and the importance of having sponsors for one’s career. Cooper led Goldman’s Human Capital Management division for a decade. She’s currently on the board of directors for Slack, Etsy, and Grain Management. Additionally, she’s the co-founder of a new professional development startup, called Medley.

Until 1961, women and people of color were barred from joining the Professional Golfers’ Association of America by the “Caucasian-only clause” in its bylaws. That limited who could work in the golf industry because the PGA of America is a trade organization for professionals who work in the business of golf at courses and clubs around the U.S. Now, Sandy Cross, the Chief People Officer of the PGA of America, is working to build a more inclusive and equitable culture at the organization’s corporate level. Additionally, she’s leading conversations to educate golf’s frontline professionals on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She joins host Porter Braswell to explain why she leads with inclusion when building more diverse cultures, the important role of language, and how the PGA of America is addressing past discrimination in golf.

Two days after the murder of George Floyd, Cisco held a virtual all-hands meeting on race for 30,000 employees. But that conversation was marred by racist comments posted by a handful of Cisco employees. Fran Katsoudas, Cisco’s Chief People Officer, joins host Porter Braswell to discuss how she addressed this incident and held people accountable for their actions. She also explains how Cisco engages with race in a global context and shares her experiences as a Latina climbing the corporate ladder.

When U.S. Congressman Antonio Delgado was running for Congress in 2018, his race made national headlines after attack ads portrayed him as an outsider and a threat. A New York Times article from the election noted: “He’s a Rhodes Scholar. The GOP Keeps Calling Him a ‘Big-City Rapper.’” The congressman, who is Black, is the first person of color to represent his rural district in upstate New York, where the population is almost 90 percent white. He joins host Porter Braswell to discuss the hidden obstacles he’s faced in his political and corporate career as a Black man operating in largely white spaces, how he engages with race in his work, and how he works across differences in Congress to find common ground.

Havas New York CEO Laura Maness is at the helm of one of the world’s most influential ad agencies. Earlier in her career, Laura focused on helping women rise in corporate America, and now, her perspective has widened to address the lack of representation of professionals from underrepresented communities in the ad industry. She joins host Porter Braswell to discuss how having more representation is good for the ad industry, why breaking down systemic racism means looking at the language we use, and how to hold corporate leaders accountable for increasing racial representation at work.

ESPN host Jay Williams started covering basketball, after his legendary collegiate career at Duke and his short time playing for the Chicago Bulls. Lately that means he’s also covering race, as professional athletes speak out against racial injustice. He joins host Porter Braswell to talk about the lack of racial representation in basketball leadership, what corporate America can learn from the NBA about reckoning with race at work, and how he approaches professional situations when he’s been the “only” in a room.

Donna Johnson pioneered the chief diversity officer (CDO) role at Mastercard a decade ago – long before CDO’s were en vogue. Until she retired in 2017, she led the company’s global diversity and inclusion strategy. Donna focused on increasing employee engagement to retain diverse talent and drive business results. She joins host Porter Braswell to talk about how to make long-term change to company culture, why she thinks we should talk about race at work, and when a company should hire a CDO.

WeWork grew from a scrappy co-working startup to a tech darling with more than 800 locations around the world, before their well-documented undoing in late 2019. Cofounder Miguel McKelvey helped build the first WeWork in New York City with his bare hands, and later became the company’s Chief Culture Officer. McKelvey left WeWork in June 2020, a few months before taping this episode. When he looks back on his decade-long tenure there, he acknowledges that the blind spots he had, as a white male executive, affected WeWork’s diversity and inclusion right from the beginning. He joins host Porter Braswell to talk about using his position as a business leader to speak up in support of Black Lives Matter, why so many start-ups struggle with diversity and inclusion, and what senior leaders can learn from what went wrong with WeWork’s culture.

New from the HBR Presents podcast network: a show about the role race plays in our careers and lives. Race is a topic many of us struggle to talk about at work, yet it shapes so many of our career experiences and outcomes. But host Porter Braswell (Jopwell) is on a mission to create a safe space to share those stories – and learn from them. Hear leaders from business and government trace their personal journeys with race, equity, and inclusion. And learn from their mistakes and their triumphs. Join us this season for the candid conversations about race that we need to be having at work.