When we were first developing our patent-pending framework for measuring inclusion, Aleria partnered with the Financial Women’s Association and their President’s Circle Sponsor firms to uncover specific opportunities to increase diversity and inclusion in Financial Services. Aleria has been actively measuring inclusion in the industry ever since.

FINRA’s Commitment to Inclusion

For those outside of the industry or unfamiliar, FINRA is a regulatory organization, authorized by Congress to protect America’s investors by making sure the broker-dealer industry operates fairly and honestly. As a public service organization, FINRA has long focused on responsible citizenship and looked to not only build an inclusive workplace itself, but to also increase inclusion across the industry and the communities it operates within.

As part of FINRA’s Diversity & Inclusion related efforts, they’ve hosted an annual Diversity Leadership Summit each year since 2013. Last week, they held their 10th summit and we were honored to participate.

Over three days, we heard from executives, researchers, academics, innovators, technologists, SEC Commissioners and more. It was a lot to take in. So for the final session of the summit, I joined Audria Pendergrass Lee, FINRA’s Vice President of Talent Acquisition and Chief Diversity Officer, to discuss the solutions, innovations and research findings explored throughout the Diversity Leadership Summit. More importantly, we wanted to provide the attendees with clear, actionable steps they could take to help advance DEI in finance.

For those that didn’t make the session, here are four themes that unfolded and clear opportunities to drive impact:

Increasing Access to Resources and Awareness of Opportunities

When it comes to the financial services industry, a lot of times what folks know is a reflection of what they’ve seen in movies. But, whether we’re talking about the wide range of roles throughout the industry or simply how to participate in the markets, it’s clear that we can do a better job at building awareness and educating the general population about the opportunities that exist.

SEC Commissioners Mark Uyeda and Jaime Lizárraga discussed the importance of intentionally engaging underserved markets, increasing access to resources and investing in financial literacy efforts.

During the tech innovation panel, Lule Demmissie, US CEO of eToro, discussed how technology in this space is also helping to broaden access and enable more folks to invest. The barriers to opening and leveraging a brokerage account have been reduced. We have lower account minimums and can now support fractional shares, as an example. And finally, with recent technology advances, individuals can invest from their phones and increasingly access information that can support more informed financial investment decisions.

With continued advancements in technology and industry-wide efforts to increase equitable access, we can bridge existing gaps and drive greater diversity and inclusion across the industry.

Engaging in Active Allyship

The first day of the event kicked off with Robert Cook, President & CEO of FINRA, interviewing Maeve DuVally, former corporate communications at Goldman Sachs. In this discussion, Maeve shared specific suggestions for LGBTQIA+ inclusion and allyship in the industry. The list of suggestions included:

• Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
• Folks in leadership taking public stances
• Mentor and sponsorship programs
• Calling out instances of bias when you witness them
• Lifting the voices of others in meetings
• Acknowledging mistakes and, when they happen, asking for feedback and ideas for the best way forward

Importantly, Maeve stressed that allyship is active and proactive.

SEC Commissioner Lizárraga later shared his thoughts on how stakeholders across the industry can support DEI efforts. He emphasized that regulators and industry leaders should embrace the opportunity to “be visible through our actions around initiatives, clear commitments and extensive engagement with the community.”

Working to Understand Personal Biases

At the individual level, Dr. Mahzarin Banaji encouraged us all to explore and work to better understand our personal biases. But simple awareness isn’t enough. We need to ensure we don’t codify our individual biases into systems and technology. Just the same, we need to build everyday processes with our biases in mind. Consider your recruiting practices, promotion processes, compensation protocols and more. How can these be adapted to increase diversity and inclusion?

Focusing on Inclusive Behaviors

In our work, we often reference a quote by the NeuroLeadership Institute: “Diversity without inclusion leads to a revolving door of talent.” During the panel on Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce, Dr. Erika Kirgios made a similar statement. She pointed the fact that without inclusion, you cannot reap the benefits of diversity.

Increasing diversity in the financial services industry requires that we prioritize inclusion. And inclusion comes down to the day-to-day experiences of individuals.

As Dr. Banaji discussed our individual biases and how they show up, she talked about the relationship between our values and our behaviors. She said:

We all want our behaviors to be in line with our values. As humans, our values are great, and getting better. But our behaviors aren’t. We need to improve our behaviors.

No matter your role in the industry, you have the ability to influence the sense of inclusion for those around you. Are your behaviors in line with your values? Are you able to help make one person feel more included today?

Towards the end of the discussion, Audria asked me if I’m optimistic about the state of inclusion in the industry given our work and the data we have access to at Aleria. And I absolutely am.

Hear me discuss a few trends that give me hope:

FINRA on Twitter: ".@AleriaPbc co-founder and CEO @lisaadrienne_ talks about her optimism when it comes to #DEI across the workplace in the future.Learn more about the 2022 #FINRADiversitySummit: https://t.co/bRMVTN53mC pic.twitter.com/TOJqPUIlgw / Twitter"

@AleriaPbc co-founder and CEO @lisaadrienne_ talks about her optimism when it comes to #DEI across the workplace in the future.Learn more about the 2022 #FINRADiversitySummit: https://t.co/bRMVTN53mC pic.twitter.com/TOJqPUIlgw

If you made it this far in this post, you may also find the following resources, all of which were shared during FINRA’s Diversity Leadership Summit, interesting:

• National Financial Capability Study
• OutsmartingImplicitBias.org

And if you’re interested in learning more about how Aleria measures inclusion and helps business leaders focus on initiatives that will lead to quantifiable impact, reach out.

Inclusion in Financial Services was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the last few years the Aleria team has leveraged science and technology to impact the way people think about diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, and more importantly, what they do about it. Specifically, we drive change by focusing organizations on inclusion, working with them to measure it and helping them implement the right initiatives.

We’ve had the opportunity to work with organizations big and small from a wide range of industries around the world — validating our approach, refining our framework and developing our technology along the way. In 2021, we onboarded our first Fortune 500 company as a client, worked with our first nonprofit, and collected data from employees in over 40 countries.

Our unique approach to the work, our tenacity as entrepreneurs and this momentum has allowed us to attract new, exciting opportunities.

This week we’re thrilled to announce that Aleria was invited to participate in the inaugural Techstars Equitech accelerator in Baltimore.

Techstars itself is a mission-aligned organization focused on helping entrepreneurs create a better future for everyone. But the Techstars Equitech accelerator, in partnership with Upsurge Baltimore, is particularly aligned with our mission and the impact we’re looking to have around the world.

About Techstars Equitech

The Techstars Equitech accelerator focuses on transformational startups that are grounded in the values of diversity, led by founders from underestimated communities, or developing technologies that increase access and equity across society.

Companies selected for this accelerator are “breaking new ground, with both their company innovations and with the role they will play as pioneers building a new kind of startup ecosystem, one where ingenuity and diversity are an advantage, not just a DEI obligation.”

Not only does the accelerator set itself apart with a big vision, it was an incredibly competitive application process with only 3.1% of all applicants accepted into the program. The inaugural class represents 8 different industry verticals, and are coming to Baltimore from 5 countries and several states.

What does Equitech mean?

The Techstars Equitech Accelerator program launched in partnership with UpSurge Baltimore, an organization working to propel Baltimore into the top tier of innovation cities by building an engine to found, support, scale and celebrate high-impact startups. Uniquely, UpSurge aims to establish Baltimore as the first Equitech city.

In their own words: Equitech is about building an innovation economy where all belong. It recognizes diversity as a force multiplier, and works to build on the proven benefits of diverse teams, leaders and perspectives. As the cultural framework for UpSurge, Equitech provides a lens to attract, align and support transformational startups — not a filter to exclude them. And it takes into account the pathways, policies and practices needed to ensure every member of our community can choose to participate in the tech ecosystem and all Baltimoreans have the opportunity to prosper in place.

We’re grateful and excited to work with Techstars, the UpSurge Baltimore team and all of the mentors that have agreed to support our group of companies through this program. Even more, we’re certain that we’ll be a stronger company and better entrepreneurs as a result.

If you’re interested in following along, be sure to sign up for our weekly DEI newsletter or subscribe to our investor updates.

Aleria Selected for Inaugural Techstars Equitech Accelerator was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Have you read Atomic Habits by James Clear? After a few friends recommended the book, I downloaded it on Audible and started listening to it one day while working. It was possibly the most ineffective gym session I’ve ever had; I kept stopping to take notes on my phone and re-listen to parts of the book. A few chapters in, it was clear I needed to just order the paper copy and put my highlighter to use.

The book is worth a read, but the reason I bring it up today is because it inspired this thought:

Diversity is a lagging measure of inclusion.

At Aleria, we often talk about current D&I initiatives and why they aren’t really moving the needle, but while working with our clients, one of the first big shifts we have to make relates to the metrics they track, the goals they are tying to those metrics, and how they define success as it relates to this work.

Most companies are simply tracking representation data. Year to year, they’ll review reports, acknowledge the progress they’ve made toward their goals and adjust their D&I strategy for the year ahead. But these signs of progress — 1% change here, 2% change there — are a lagging measure of impact. It’s a delayed signal of progress.

In Atomic Habits James Clear says, “Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.” He continues with examples:

Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits.
Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits.
Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits.

Just the same, your diversity metrics are a lagging measure of your inclusion habits.

Diversity metrics change slowly. The numbers can only change as employees leave or join the team. But while you’re working to recruit a diverse workforce, so much can be done to improve the sense of inclusion within your organization and, as a result, improving employee satisfaction and retention.

Inclusion doesn’t require a year or two to see progress. You can measure progress more frequently, gauge progress as you go and adjust your focus throughout the year as needed.

Even more, you can begin to make your culture more inclusive, changing the day-to-day experiences of your employees, on any budget.

We first shared this thought at the Elevate Conference hosted by the McCombs School of Business in February. (remember when we could go to conferences?) And their team kindly made the recording of our presentation available to share.

If you’d like to watch the presentation, and learn more about how we measure inclusion, check out the video below:

Diversity is a Lagging Measure of Inclusion was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we see it, there are three primary reasons that current D&I efforts aren’t working.

1. MOTIVATION

Think about it. Is Diversity & Inclusion a core element of your business strategy? Is it built into your mission and values? Or are you leveraging it as a PR strategy and talking about it only when it is convenient?

A lot of what we see is reactive; they’re knee-jerk campaigns in response to a scandal. We have Gucci who puts out a racist sweater, apologizes, and then shortly after announces that they’ve hired their first every global head of D&I. And I’m sure we can all remember the incident at a Starbucks that led to them closing down stores for an afternoon of unconscious bias training.

These examples are what we refer to as performative D&I and it’s not enough. Instead, if we want to benefit from Diversity & Inclusion, we need to be proactive, intentional and consistent.

2. MISALIGNMENT

Within an organization, there are several misalignments that get in the way of true progress.

To start, there’s a misalignment in how business leaders think about Diversity & Inclusion, and what they actually do about it.

Your CEO may want to prioritize initiatives focused on retention and revenue, HR may want to focus on pay equity and creating a better benefits package, meanwhile entry level employees just want a bit more flexibility and access to growth opportunities within the company. There’s this discrepancy between leadership’s perception of what needs to be done and the actual needs of employees.

Even in instances where a company hires a D&I leader to help prioritize internally, there’s a misalignment in the impact that they are charged with creating and the resources, support and power they are provided. Russell Reynolds recently surveyed 243 D&I leaders from companies within the S&P 500 and found that only 35% of them felt they even had the employee demographic data they need to support their work.

These misalignments cause confusion and limit the impact that is possible. With mixed messages, inconsistent priorities and minimal resources, it’s hard for HR and D&I leaders to know where to focus. So they find themselves throwing shit at a wall and hoping the outcomes show some sign of progress.

3. METRICS

On top of all of this, we’re focused on the wrong metrics. We’re investing in the wrong piece of the puzzle. We’re setting goals and defining our success based on the equivalent of vanity metrics, rather than signals of true inclusion and employee satisfaction.

As an example, consider what happens when a company (go ahead and just pick any Silicon Valley tech company) decides they want to embrace diversity. In this story, they specifically want to improve their representation of Black employees. So what do they do? They go to an HBCU and recruit a bunch of young, Black graduates. As intended, the company’s diversity numbers go up.

But when these individuals start their new jobs, they’re an “only” on their team, their leadership doesn’t look anything like them, maybe they face microaggressions from peers, and they can’t help but feel as if they don’t belong. Without an inclusive culture, these employees are going to leave. And understandably so.

When they leave, this plan to increase representation is going to backfire. Your retention rates will go down. Your operational effectiveness decreases while you rehire and train for those roles. And maybe these former employees share their experience on social media and Glassdoor, making it even more difficult to attract top talent and possibly even impacting your reputation among customers.

When we focus on diversity metrics alone, we ignore the complexity of work culture and the experiences of our employees.

This isn’t to to say that you shouldn’t implement hiring goals and policies around representation in your workforce. But, without a concerted effort to ensure your culture is inclusive, your organization isn’t able to truly create, support and benefit from a diverse team.

You may now be wondering, what metrics do I track then? How do I measure inclusion?

You can find these answers and more in our latest ebook. Download the resource and learn more about our approach to measuring inclusion.

3 Reasons Your Current D&I Initiatives Won’t Work was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The benefits of diversity are well documented. Reports by Mercer, Forbes, Catalyst and others have all concluded that a diversified workforce drives greater innovation and business growth. It can also help your team stand out to potential candidates, recruit top talent and improve retention.

In addition to being the “right thing to do,” the business case for diversity is clear. What is not as clear is how exactly leadership teams can focus their resources to unlock all of the benefits referenced in research and studies.

A growing number of organizations are taking action by hiring D&I officers, setting quotas and publishing diversity reports. In an attempt to move the needle, they invest in initiatives such as unconscious bias training, pay analyses, interventions in recruiting processes, employee surveys and more.

But within most organizations these diversity initiatives, while well intentioned, are failing to achieve the intended outcomes. Even with clear values, commitment from leadership and access to resources, very few companies can point to significant, quantifiable progress.

Current approaches simply aren’t enough.

This isn’t to say that diversity is not important; however, in order to drive meaningful and lasting change, the focus needs to shift away from diversity and toward inclusion.

“Hiring people from diverse groups is easier than successfully addressing the deep- rooted cultural and organizational issues that those groups face in their day-to- day work experience.” — Boston Consulting Group

Our team thinks of inclusion as the act of ensuring that people’s experiences within an organization are not impacted negatively as a result of their personal characteristics. Even more, we believe that it is, in fact, inclusion that drives diversity and business performance, not the other way around.

If you are focused primarily on meeting diversity quotas, you’re likely not creating an environment where every employee feels supported, is compensated fairly, provided the same learning & growth opportunities and enjoys their day-to-day interactions with peers. If instead you focus on Inclusion, you’re able to establish a work environment (be it in person or remote) that enables each employee to happily thrive within their role.

But how exactly do you improve inclusion within your organization? Where should you start? And how do you measure your progress?

We’ve recently published a downloadable resource to help you answer these exact questions. In it, we present our unique framework for quantifying inclusion, introduce the “Categories of Inclusion” and discuss the benefits of this approach.

Click the button below to access Measuring the Invisible: How and Why You Should Measure Inclusion and to determine how you can strategically increase employee satisfaction and business performance.

Why Measuring Diversity Isn’t Enough was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While the titles and ranks vary from director level positions to Head of Diversity or Chief Diversity Officer, demand for these roles has increased significantly in just the last few years. According to data from Indeed, between 2017 and 2018 postings for Diversity & Inclusion positions increased by 18%.

Almost half of the companies included on the S&P 500 index currently have a chief diversity officer or equivalent; however, 63% of those were hired or promoted into their role in the past three years.

Creating this position sends a strong message, symbolizing the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. But the impact that these D&I professionals are expected to achieve also requires time, resources and the ability to enact change.

D&I leaders face so many challenges that it makes one wonder whether they are being empowered to do their work, or simply being set up to fail. Let’s look at some of the main challenges commonly faced by D&I leaders.

Changing a Well-Established Culture

With so many of the D&I positions being created over the last few years, it’s not unusual for these individuals to be tasked with shifting a culture that has existed for many years. This process is further complicated by the fact that team members who are satisfied in their job as it is, may resist change that is being created by a D&I leader who is relatively new to the team.

While many of the D&I roles that are being created are within large organizations, it is significantly easier to create an inclusive organization when it is made a priority in the early days of company growth.

Overwhelmed by Conflicting Priorities

If you were to ask a group of D&I leaders what they do, you could easily find yourself staring at a long list of inconsistent responsibilities and challenges that touch every aspect of a business. From recruiting, retention and employee engagement to research, sales communications and supplier diversity. Not only is the role inconsistent across organizations, each individual is strategically prioritizing and balancing the initiatives that allow them to make the greatest impact at that time.

Lack of Power and Influence

Creating a more diverse and inclusive culture, almost always requires changes in processes, policies and procedures. If D&I leaders aren’t provided the power and ability to influence changes across the organization, their potential impact is dramatically decreased.

“The fact is, even in a highly supportive organization, the D&I [leader] has very little formal power over the processes and systems that they are charged with modifying.” — Aubrey Blanche

Lack of Budget and Resources

Beyond formal power and authority, leadership must also commit to investing in the tools and resources needed to determine the unique challenges that exist within the organization, support employee engagement and drive cultural and procedural changes. This might include tools to de-bias candidate selection or to measure and track employee inclusion, or hiring external vendors to conduct various types of D&I assessment and training.

Lack of Support from Leadership

Senior leadership sets the tone for company culture, defines core values and is a top influencing factor of employee happiness. A CEO’s priorities, behaviors and communication style can dictate the way employees approach problems, their own work, and other team members. Without buy-in from leadership, it can be difficult to encourage managers and other team members to change behavior and prioritize inclusion.

Need to Build the Business Case

A growing amount of research supports the business case for diversity and inclusion, but D&I leaders still find themselves having to organize qualitative and quantitative information that demonstrates the potential impact and desired outcome for each initiative they take on. This challenge is particularly relevant in organizations where D&I leaders don’t have the power to enact change or lack leadership support.

Lack of Data and Metrics

Data helps D&I leaders make timely, informed decisions. Unfortunately, organizations routinely encounter resistance to surveys and other data collecting tools. Some claim the cost is prohibitive while others express concern around survey fatigue. But a more disturbing justification, is simply the fear of knowing or acknowledging specific problems that exist within the organization. Data and metrics can help D&I leaders navigate complex organizational, procedural and cultural changes; however, executives have to be willing to capture the information and acknowledge where the biggest concerns and issues exist.

Sporadic Prioritization

Often we see D&I treated like a series of special projects, rather than a core value or strategy within an organization. As an example, consider if your company leverages Black History Month as a marketing opportunity or organizes special events in March for Women’s History Month. On their own, these activities are not necessarily problematic, but sporadic prioritization is often driven by opportunities, rather than core values. In order to see meaningful change you need to be able to focus on D&I initiatives all year, for years to come.

It’s not enough to just create a D&I leadership position. If we truly want to build more diverse and inclusive organizations, we need to provide D&I leaders the support, power, resources and data they need to navigate these complex, human challenges.

If you’d like to learn more about Aleria and how our Inclusion Assessment can help your team identify and focus on the the biggest risks and opportunities within your organization, let us know.

Challenges Faced by Diversity Leaders was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In addition to our Board of Directors, ARC is supported by a noteworthy list of individuals that are passionate about Diversity & Inclusion. With the guidance of these Advisory Board members, we are confident that we’ll be able to help create a more inclusive and equitable world.

You can learn a bit about each of our Advisory Board members below:

Banu Ozkazanc-Pan
Associate Professor of Management, University of Massachusetts, Boston and Faculty, The Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, Brown University

Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Management and member of the Organizations and Social Change faculty at the College of Management, University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is also currently Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty at The Jonathan M. Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, Brown University. Her research interests include leading for diversity and inclusion in organizations and entrepreneurial ecosystems, examining the Future of Work and its impact on different people, organizations and societies and studying the intersections of culture, postcoloniality and transnationalism as they relate to changing nature of work and societies. She has brought together diverse stakeholders from policy, private, non-profit and government sectors in regards to diversity, inclusion and entrepreneurship in order to remediate economic inequalities.

Rayda Marquez
Former Director International & U.N. Relations, YMCA

Rayda is an International Relations Consultant impassioned about connecting people. As a bicultural New Yorker, she is committed to being a catalyst for systemic change and active citizenry. She previously oversaw the global initiatives for the YMCA of Greater New York as Director of International Services for eighteen years, which included global education/inclusion programming, international collaborations, cultural exchanges and representing the World Y at the United Nations. She has lived abroad for eight years, traveled extensively to more than thirty countries and is currently completing an Executive Master of Public Administration at the Marxe School of International and Public Affairs, Baruch College.

Aubrey Blanche
Global Head of Diversity & Belonging, Atlassian

Aubrey is currently the Global Head of Diversity & Belonging at Atlassian. She’d describe herself as an empath, data nerd, and highly impatient with white feminism. She’s helped Atlassian increase the representation of marginalized people, developed a new paradigm for workforce diversity reporting, and designed and fielded the only internationally representative survey on attitudes and behaviors toward diversity & inclusion in the tech industry.

Jessica Williams
Founder, Tech Biz Gurl

Jessica most recently worked as a Career Coach at General Assembly Chicago. In this role, she supported students as they thought about their next professional steps and partnered with graduates so they were more prepared and confident in their job search. Prior to her role at GA, Jessica co-facilitated 1871’s WiSTEM — a 12-week program for women entrepreneurs designed to provide access to capital, community and technology resources. Jessica also led infrastructure services at McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, to deliver wired and wireless internet services for large tradeshows and events. She is the founder of Tech Biz Gurl — a side hustle empowering women to use technology to pursue their passions on the side.

Jill Felska
Founder, Want to Work There

Jill is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to help create a happier, more engaged workforce. Over the last decade, she’s been on the founding team of multiple companies, each focused on new ways to improve the employee experience. Given her years of experience, Jill specializes in helping startups and small businesses predict and navigate the hurdles and roadblocks that most encounter as their team grows. She also frequently gives talks on employee experience, the changing workforce, and creating intentional company culture.

Preston James
Co-Founder & CEO, DivInc

As the Co-Founder and CEO of DivInc, Preston aims to increase the number of diverse founders and investors participating in the startup ecosystems nationwide. He seeks to genuinely help innovative entrepreneurs successfully navigate the challenging journey of building a successful business by providing a true partnership, engaging leadership, industry experience and access to key resources.

Kate Brodock
CEO, Women 2.0

Kate has long been involved in the startup space, as employee, founder, judge, mentor and investor. As the CEO and Co-Founder at Women 2.0, Kate is very heavily involved in issues and projects around women in tech and D&I in the tech industry. Her expertise is in business and marketing strategy, digital marketing, and content production and she has had the pleasure of speaking at numerous events such as SXSW, BlogWorld (NWX), and TEDx.

Megan McCann
CEO & Founder, McCann Partners

Megan is an established IT recruitment and technology services leader known for building and leading highly successful IT services firms, and for her work in advancing diversity and cultivating talent across the technology industry. As CEO of leading IT recruitment firm McCann Partners, which she founded in 2011, Megan creates meaningful connections and mindful solutions. Passionate about attracting, retaining and advancing women in technology, she is also a proud co-founder of ARA, a national organization that seeks to promote women in technology and leadership through mentorship, networking, and open discussion.

Geri Stengel
President & Founder, Ventureneer

Geri is a questioner and a builder, and is passionate about eliminating barriers to entrepreneurial aspirations. For the last few years, she has researched and written about the challenges women face in the entrepreneurial world and the success factors that help them break through barriers, whether they are starting a business or scaling to a multi-million dollar enterprise.

If you’d like to be notified of insights from our charitable, scientific research, subscribe to our mailing list. Members of this list receive occasional updates with reports, white papers, related articles and opportunities to collaborate.

Introducing ARC’s Advisory Board was originally published in Aleria Research on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As of our launch, Aleria Research Corporation is guided by six directors that are not only driven to create a more inclusive and equitable world, but also contribute their time, expertise, and resources toward making it happen.

Below you can learn a bit about each of our directors:

Founding Board Members

Paolo Gaudiano, President

Paolo is CEO of Aleria, President of ARC, and Executive Director of Quantitative Studies of
Diversity & Inclusion (QSDI) at the City College of New York. These three organizations combine Paolo’s decades of experience in business, technology and academia, to revolutionize how people think about diversity and what they do about it. Paolo is also a Forbes contributor on Diversity & Inclusion, and has written for and been interviewed by a number of other media outlets, including HBR, Quartz, the Dow Jones’s SectorWatch and the CBC. He holds degrees in Applied Mathematics, Aerospace Engineering and Computational Neuroscience. He was a tenured faculty member at Boston University and has also taught at Tufts University and currently teaches at CCNY.

Lisa Magill, Secretary

As Co-founder of Aleria and ARC, Lisa helps business leaders prioritize the right D&I initiatives within their organization. Lisa brings a unique blend of corporate and entrepreneurial experience, with a strong focus on empowering women and social impact. In 2017, Lisa participated as an Impact Team Fellow for MovingWorlds, a global leadership program that sources individuals to contribute their expertise to social impact organizations around the world.

Sam Nathans, Treasurer

Sam Nathans applies statistical tools and machine learning techniques to build stock market return and risk models. He manages quantitative equity portfolios on behalf of some of the world’s premier institutional investors. Sam combines technical skills (model building and evaluation, portfolio construction, attribution) with the ability to articulate complex investment processes to diverse audiences. Sam was an early adopter of the S statistical programming language (the predecessor to R) and maintains a keen interest in prediction models and their impact on industry, the workplace, and politics. He is also an active investor in early stage technology companies in the Boston area.

Board of Directors

Lola Banjo

Lola Banjo is a dynamic, motivated and energetic business leader with a focus in Corporate Strategy. As a Strategic Innovative Executive at Salesforce, Lola is part of a small team of leaders, strategists, design thinkers and innovators who help unlock value by ideating creative solutions to business and everyday challenges through a blend of strategy, vision, engineering, storytelling and business case development. She has traveled to 100+ countries and is knowledgeable on the economic levers and cultural uniqueness that drives how business is conducted in various parts of the globe. Her diversified experience spans strategic, operational and tactical enterprise concerns. She welcomes each day as a new chance to make an impact and an opportunity to continuously grow as a global business leader.

Sheryl Chamberlain

As a global technology executive, Sheryl drives businesses to success by focusing on innovative go-to-market strategies and strategic partnerships. At her core, Sheryl is a servant leader who has proven the ability to rally employees around complex goals and build teams that people want to be a part of. Beyond her executive influences and impactful strategies, she is also an advocate for social impact and change. She has contributed her insight and voice to numerous board seats and memberships with Forbes Nonprofit Council, How Women Lead, IMPCT Coffee, National Diversity Council, and The Dallas Entrepreneur Center.

Kimberly Strong

After 20+ years of human resource experience in large organizations including Target Corporation, Kimberly founded Strong Connexion to advise companies on championing diversity in the workplace, aligning people and business strategy, and approaching difficult placements. Throughout her career, whether creating employee education programs, leading talent initiatives, partnering with senior executives or creating metrics to track success, Kimberly has been recognized for bringing the right people together and improving the employee experience.

Our Board of Directors is supported by an active Advisory Board, which we’ll proudly introduce later this week. In the meantime, you can learn more about ARC and our mission here.

If you’d like to be notified of insights from our charitable, scientific research, subscribe to our mailing list. Members of this list receive occasional updates with reports, white papers, related articles and opportunities to collaborate.

Introducing ARC’s Board of Directors was originally published in Aleria Research on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If diversity, equity, and inclusion are values that you believe in, we invite you to support our work in any of the following ways:

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Contributions and donations enable our team to consistently work on charitable research projects that address fundamental problems and challenges related to Diversity & Inclusion. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, all contributions are tax deductible. If you would like to make a donation, email us for information.

COLLABORATE ON D&I RESEARCH PROJECTS

We partner and collaborate with a variety of organizations, including academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, foundations, and for-profit corporations. Are you interested in conducting D&I research that can benefit not only your organization but society as a whole? Are you interested in supporting or participating in one of our current projects? We’d love to discuss your ideas and D&I research needs.

INVITE US TO SPEAK ABOUT OUR WORK

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Curious why we launched ARC? We discuss our motivations and mission here.

5 Ways You Can Support ARC was originally published in Aleria Research on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But even with a brilliant idea and impeccable timing, the entrepreneurial journey can be a particularly challenging endeavor for women and minorities. These underrepresented entrepreneurs often lack the educational resources, mentors, connections, and capital needed to succeed.

In this week’s list of awesome Black women you should know, we’re highlighting nine women that are not only successful entrepreneurs but are also helping others to follow in their footsteps.

Monica Hesse on Twitter

I swear, the universe can be divided into two kinds of people: 1) I had to go through it, so you should too. 2) I had to go through it, so I'll work to make sure you don't.

If, as implied by Monica Hesse, there are two kinds of people in the world, the women on this list are undoubtedly among those that, after experiencing the entrepreneurial journey for themselves, are determined to make it easier for future founders.

These women are empowering others by increasing exposure to entrepreneurship and building more inclusive startup communities. By increasing access to resources, mentorship, events, and funding, they are truly changing the experience of underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Sherrell Dorsey is a data journalist, social entrepreneur, and speaker. She runs BLKTECH Interactive — North Carolina’s first hub supporting over 2,000 entrepreneurs and technologists of color across three cities. She is also the founder of daily tech newsletter, ThePLUG, covering founders and innovators of color.

Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon is the Founder & CEO of Founder Gym, an online training center that helps under-represented founders raise money and build successful tech startups. An entrepreneur, educator, athlete, and well-connected Silicon Valley influencer, Mandela is uniquely positioned to lead this movement.

As Co-Founder and Chief Strategist of TandemSpring, Monika Black helps entrepreneurs and executives propel their businesses forward. Meanwhile, she is creating a pipeline of empowered female funders at DyMynd Angels to increase the number of funded female entrepreneurs and close the gender funding gap.

In addition to being a cofounder of CoSign, Esosa Ighodaro is a cofounder of Black Women Talk Tech, a collective of black women tech founders that identifies, supports and encourages black women to build the next billion dollar business.

As the Founder and CEO of Hillman Accelerator, the first accelerator in the Midwest providing support to tech companies founded by underserved individuals, Candice Matthews Brackeen passionately brings people from varying backgrounds together to accelerate innovation.

Jamila Parham, affectionately known as the “The Tech Unicorn”, aims to change the face of technology by addressing the lack of diversity in the technology industry. She is on a mission to uplift and provide opportunities to women and minorities by educating, breaking down barriers, and providing access to resources and events.

Felecia Hatcher is a White House award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and author who aims to inspire a new generation of leaders and increase inclusive innovation. As Co-Founder of Code Fever and Blacktech Week, she is on a mission to dramatically shift the way Black communities engage and create value within the innovation sector.

Regina Gwynn is Co-Founder and CEO of Tressenoire, a beauty booking platform that brings natural-hair stylists to your doorstep. She is also a Co-Founder of Black Women Talk Tech, a collective of black women tech founders focused on building billion-dollar startups.

Sequoia Blodgett is the Tech Editor for Black Enterprise and the founder of Commas, a virtual resource center that teaches entrepreneurs everything they need to know about product development, marketing, publicity and generating revenue, in an effort to make the entrepreneurial journey a lot less stressful.

Each week throughout February, we’ll share a list of awesome Black women you should know. To follow along, subscribe to our newsletter or click below to follow our Medium publication. In the meantime, you can also check out the collective, growing list of 100+ awesome Black women on our website.

9 Black Women Leaders that are Changing the Path for Underrepresented Entrepreneurs was originally published in Aleria on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.