Hello, and welcome everyone to what I believe is going to be the most incredible conversation of Davos. And it's not just because of the panelists that are here, but it's because of all of you in the audience. And I hope that we can save a little bit of time at the end to include your voices just to give us a few quick hits on what you're thinking or questions. We are here for the pathways to economic mobility through racial equity, an incredibly timely topic and one that must continue no matter what the narrative is in the outside world. When we leave Davos, we have to go back and listen, whether it's through social media or through other, the newspapers or just in conversations, this narrative that doesn't want to talk about this very important issue. So recent years have seen progress in workforce representation for people of color, with 94 percent of jobs added by S&P 100 companies in the U.S. in 2021 taken up by people of color. Yet systemic economic gaps still need to be addressed. What are the promising pathways for accelerating fairer economic outcomes? This session is linked to the World Economic Forum's Racial Justice in Business Alliance. So it is my pleasure to introduce our panelists for today. To my far right is a wonderful woman who is now one of my new besties, Luana Ozamela. She is the Vice President and Chief Impact Officer for iFood. Luana is an incredible power in Brazil. iFood is the leading food tech company in Latin America with over 70 million monthly deliveries in around 300,000 registered restaurants. iFood is a major player in this industry. Prior to joining iFood, Luana worked at the Inter-American Development Bank and Hewlett-Packard. In 2023, Bloomberg, Linnea recognized her as one of the 500 most influential leaders in Latin America. And in 2024, LinkedIn named her a top voice in economic development, diversity, equity, and inclusion. You go, girl. Yeah, I was going to say. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. So my other bestie, although I will say she always gives me a hard time. I'm telling you always. It is my pleasure to introduce Shamina Singh, who is the founder and president for the Center for Inclusive Growth and the Impact Fund with MasterCard. So she is where it all happens when it comes to social impact and philanthropy. She's also the executive vice president of sustainability and serves as a member of the company's management committee. Shamina is the executive sponsor of the Pride Business Resource Group and co-chairs the advisory board of the Ad Council of America. She is a board member of ADL, an anti-hate organization. And additionally, she is an alumna of the WEF Young Global Leaders Program and a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute, which is where we met. As are you.  I'd hate to leave you out. OK, so we don't want to leave out Robert C. Garrett, who is the CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey. Hackensack Meridian Health is the largest health care network in New Jersey. The network comprises 18 hospitals, 500 patient care locations, 7,000 physicians and 36,000 team members. Mr. Garrett's exceptional leadership has led to significant advancements in medical education, behavioral health care, cancer care and research and innovation in the network. So let's get started. I want to thank all of you that are joining us also via live stream. We are just have about 45 minutes to really talk very seriously about this work around racial equity, business practices. And I want to say it's a pleasure to be able to do that here at WEF and to be back in Davos. My experience has been, and I've only been here two times, but my limited experience has been that it's an honor and a privilege to be in the room with people like all of you to have these really incredible discussions, to learn from each other, to make new friends and to know how can we take back the bright spots that you all are actually implementing where you are to our parts of the world. So we have a great panel. I'm going to stop talking and just let you all share your wisdom, but I want to just say a few things because I think it's important that number one, it's within each of our power to break this cycle of generational poverty. It's a choice. And if we make the right decisions today, it will impact generations to come. Unfortunately, previous generations have not taken this on in a manner that it should be. And so that's why we're seeing so much in terms of economic disparities around the world. But I think that we can today, if we choose to, just a small group of committed individuals make the difference. We want to discuss how multinational companies and organizations can maintain progress around racial and ethnic equity through pathways to economic mobility by addressing challenges and solutions at the local, regional and global levels. Again, highlighting those bright spots, those lighthouses, those best practices that we can learn from. So with that, what I'd like to do is to just ask a general question. And if you want to jump in and start the conversation. But the question really is, what has been the overall progress and lingering challenges in achieving economic and social mobility for people of color worldwide when considering various social, economic, financial and policy-based factors? Yeah. It's a big question. That's a big question. I know. It's loaded. So I think one interesting perspective that I'll bring is how companies that have made its core business to promote racial equity and equality. How could that happen? How does that look like? And I suppose one of the challenges that we see is diversity washing that I see very often. And the challenge of diversity washing is not just, it's essentially how it summarizes a disconnection between talking and acting, right? And actually doing transformational things. And it's that particular point that I feel is central for companies that really want to create a culture of equity, diversity, inclusion and make it core business. So in the case of the opportunities that we have seen, education, technology and financial markets, promoting that in those three main sectors is the greatest opportunity that I have seen so far. Education, because just giving an example, Brazil is mainly people of color, 56% of the population. Our ecosystem, iFood ecosystem, which is considered a company that is a food tech company, the largest food tech company, we have one million delivery workers, one million drivers delivering one billion deliveries per year, seven out of 10 are people of color, men and women. So what we are, and when we look at the restaurants, we have 350,000 establishments of which we estimate 40% are people of color and women. So if we do want our business to grow, our consumer base to be happy and satisfied and purchase more, we need to tackle inequalities, racial and social inequalities. So what we have seen in education, in AI and technology and financial markets and why financial markets. People used to talk a lot about entrepreneurship, black entrepreneurship. I talk about financial markets, because what we need to promote entrepreneurship and to help building wealth in black communities is actually black investors. And investors who are really committed to saying my portfolio is going to promote racial equity. And when we look at the sizeable influence of financial market having more than 4 trillion in assets under management, look at the sizeable opportunity of actually promoting racial equity. So there are many opportunities, but I think these three main areas, education, because we simply need, we know that when we look at all the racial gaps, particularly in Latin America, most of it is because what we call the educational gap. Dropper rates, 53% are people of color. So when we look at technology, 29 million of people are disconnected from Wi-Fi in Brazil, vast majority, people of color. If we are talking about future jobs, we have to look at that. People are still disconnected from speed internet. So all those issues, if we do focus on those main root causes, the causes of the disconnect of social inequality from economic inequality. And every day, I always remember the words this week, Reverend Martin Luther King would have turned 95 years of age. And for him, there was no civil rights movement without an economic right as a turning into a fundamental right. And I believe truly in that. That is wonderful. And I'm going to say that you set it up for Shemina to jump in. Well, I can jump in because I actually think you did. And congratulations to you on all of your success. And Angela, thank you so much for moderating the panel. You read all of our bios. You didn't talk about what you do, which is such an important pathway to prosperity for everyone, which is you are the global CEO of the United Way worldwide, which is the connection to all communities around the world. So thank you for your leadership. Building on what Luana said, I think the way that we approach this as a private sector entity is a multinational company is by doing what we do best. And what do we do best? We compete, we create, and we catalyze. We compete, and that's competition. So what we want to do is we're creating and we want to compete on incentives for a race to the top. That means we want the best talent. We want the best employees. We want to create the best environment so we can deliver the best business returns. And what does that mean? It means innovation and inclusion are two sides of the same coin for us. That's how we compete. That's how we create business value. And that's the second thing we do is what do we do? We create business value. We create opportunities for our company to succeed through products, through programs, through services. It makes good business sense to have an inclusive environment and have diversity at our core. The third thing is catalyze. What do we do? We catalyze innovation. And like I said before, innovation and inclusion are two sides of the same coin. That's the only way that we remain competitive. How do we do it? Through community. We build community of influencers on the front lines of inclusive growth. That's what the Center for Inclusive Growth does at MasterCard. And what do we see as the biggest opportunity? By providing and building on capabilities. The capabilities that we're providing right now, that we're looking at right now, have to do with the theme of Davos here today. And that's all about AI and technology. How are we ensuring that the capabilities provided or created by this evolution, I wouldn't even say it's a revolution yet, are ensuring that all communities have access to the resources they need to thrive in a digital economy? Because in the end of the day, inclusion without inclusive growth that doesn't scale doesn't make a difference. Thanks. And so I want to now just shift to this other sector, health care. Because as Shamina said, I'm with United Way Worldwide. And we focus on health, education, economic mobility, and disaster response and climate. But health care is fundamental. And access to health care is fundamental to how people can actually thrive. And so can you talk a little bit about what you're doing with your company? Sure. Thank you. And thank you for having me. I agree with you. This is a great panel. And it's an honor to be with you as well, Angela. Yeah, there's a lot going on in the health care space with respect to equality and really equal access to health care. And I agree with what was said already. I really believe the social inequities are synonymous with racial inequities in so many ways. And we have to address these social issues. And education is a good example. And I'm straying out of health care just for a minute, but we also have a medical school as part of our health system. And I was so distressed when the Supreme Court decision came out and struck down affirmative action, because it really sets back. Here we had a brand new medical school that was really believed in diversity, equity, and inclusion. We had certainly a very good admissions process that promoted DE&I. And now the lawyers are looking at this and the lawyers are looking at that because of the Supreme Court decision. And it just, I feel like it really sets us back. But going back to health equity, and Luana quoted Dr. King, and I want to quote Dr. Martin Luther King as well, because he said the biggest or the largest in equity is actually the lack of access for equal health care. And I think in a lot of ways that is true. So we are seeing a lot of disparities in health care outcomes, and I'll just give you a couple of statistics. Certainly around the globe, there is as much as a 30-year life expectancy disparity, depending on what country you're in. So in some of the developing countries, 30 years less life on average, which is really, really disturbing. During the COVID pandemic, people of color were two times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. Maternal deaths are three times as likely in women of color. So those kinds of statistics are incredibly bothersome. So what we've done at our organization, Hack and Sack Meridian Health, is we have made health care equity one of our seven top strategic priorities, because our mission is to transform health care. I don't see how you can achieve that mission if you don't address health care inequalities. So what we've done is we have a screening tool. So anybody who comes in contact with a Hack and Sack Meridian Health site gets screened for one or more of the social determinants of health. That might mean housing, transportation. Unstable housing is not a good position to be in if you're going to be a healthy person or you're going to be being able to access health care. Transportation, getting to and from your physician's office, your primary care physician's office is another major issue. Food and food insecurity, so many people living in food deserts are not getting healthy food. So we're screening. And we have screened over, and just a little over a year and a half, we've screened over a million people. But even more important, we have made 3.5 million referrals for those people to get help, whether it's at Hack and Sack Meridian Health or at other agencies, community resource groups. So I'm feeling like we are getting at some of this inequality and some of these disparities that we see out there. The other thing that we're really proud of at Hack and Sack Meridian Health is really having a strong diversity, equity, and inclusion program. It was actually ranked number one amongst health care providers this past year, which we're really proud of. And we have active team member resource groups that have literally changed the culture of the organization in so many ways. We've seen our employee engagement go up by 20% to 25% since our DE&I program was instituted. And those groups have made such great, great suggestions. So as an example, our African-American team member resource group said for them, it was really important that we added a benefit for a doula benefit for a birthing mothers. And so that didn't just benefit that group. That benefited the entire employee population, and it made such great sense. Our pride group made a suggestion that IVF be reimbursed at a higher level. It was very important to that particular team member resource group. We adopted that, that benefited the whole organization. So my point is that when you really are practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion, it just doesn't benefit that particular group. It benefits the whole. Everybody's boat rises. Yes. So I'm tying a couple of themes together. What triggered for me was when you mentioned the court case, which now is causing a lot of companies to back down with respect to DNI and how they're pursuing it for fear of being sued. And that's a real fear. And then I look at, again, your example of COVID. And I'll speak from the US perspective of how many black and brown people did not want to go to the hospital or did not have access to health care or didn't want to take the vaccine for a number of reasons. And one of the initiatives that I did, I was with another organization prior to United Way, was to say, well, why don't we get health care workers that look like the people they're trying to serve, that speak the language of the people that they're trying to serve to engender trust? And so when we have lawsuits and things that start chipping away at this conversation that we're having, then it's going backwards, not forward. Yeah, and if I could just add one thing on that, I mentioned we have a medical school. You know, in 1980, I think the statistic was only 7% of all physicians in America were African-American males. The statistic in 2024 is 7%. So 1980 to 2024, it hasn't moved. And we were starting to make really good progress when the affirmative action decision came down. Yeah, and Shimmy, I want to talk to you just about access to capital, because we're talking about economic mobility. And so what are you seeing in your role and how is Mastocrat, I would love for you to give some specific examples of how you're really tackling this because there are some learnings that I think people in the room and other companies can learn, even if they're not in the financial services industry. No, I think it's a great question. And I think the other piece of this is that it's also a global issue. And so when you're a multinational, you think about things certainly locally, but also globally. And so I think in terms of the economic mobility, I talked before about the capability. And there are two things that I think are really interesting to think about here. On the economic mobility front, Mastocrat has been doing inclusion since the beginning, financial inclusion. So what we recognized early on was that the world was going digital before I joined Mastocrat. And in order for anybody to succeed in the digital economy, you have to be included in the economy. More often than not, people of color and disenfranchised communities and women were not included and haven't been included in the economy. That didn't work from a business perspective for Mastocrat. So we started an initiative where we actually made a commitment to bring 500 million people into the formal economy around the world. And during COVID, when the height of digital was, you know, when we really started to see people suffer because they weren't being included in the digital economy, we doubled down on our commitment and we said we're gonna bring a billion people into the formal economy. So that made us take, it has been part of our business strategy. We know how to do it. And it ends up creating much more equitable business practices. And so to your point around some specifics, we have a global program that we call STRIVE. And STRIVE is a program that is about building small business growth all around the world. What does small businesses need? They need to go digital. They need to get capital. And they need to grow their networks. What does Mastocrat have? We're digital. We have a lot of data and data capacity and we have the biggest network in the world. And so when we set our sights on creating an inclusive economy and focusing on financial inclusion, especially for small businesses, we start to see real change and make a real difference. And so I think that's one big point of progress that I think we should point out is that the focus on small business and small business owners, the vast majority are women and people of color around the world. And so I think when you focus on small business and you focus on increasing job stability and economic growth for small business owners, you end up creating an economy that really does start to work for everyone. That's great. And Luana, even your business, iFood, and we call it like the gig economy with the drivers delivering, but it's allowing people to be able to do things and to have access to generate more funds. And for various reasons, they may not be on a traditional job path, but talk a little bit more about your company's intentionality in making sure that the workforce is supported, that they're given opportunities to grow, starting from being a driver to what other opportunities do they have? Yeah, so we create a lot of opportunities in our local economies. iFood is already responsible for the half percentage point of Brazilian GDP in terms of contribution. So when we look from that perspective of also creating jobs, what kind of jobs are we creating? And one of the things we quickly realized is not just about fair wages, which the drivers currently, 92% of the drivers receive the equivalent of the top 30% earners in Brazil. So it's any, but for us, it's not just about the wages. It's also about what are the other opportunities that we are giving our drivers to actually climb the social mobility ladder, right? In Brazil, it takes nine generations for a family in the lowest income to climb to the middle income. And what we want to do is by investing in education, we can reduce the number of generations. And one of the specific things we are doing in terms of creating those opportunities is funding a high school education. Today, iFood's drivers represent almost 3% of all the GED test takers in Brazil.  We fund their preparatory courses. We pay for them to actually take the test on the day so that they don't have to work. And what we are actually doing every day, we are using the app, which is something that they are every day tool to stimulate for them to do training, reskilling, and find other ways of actually increasing income, generating income outside food delivery. For us, it's all about social impact and social mobility through education. But we also are looking at the entrepreneurs. We have a program called iFood Believes because we believe in black owned business. And what we did, we launched this year, last year, in Salvador with 300 restaurants owned by Afro descendants. We created this program in order to give not only educational tools, teach restaurants on how to make more money to be top placed. We created a list of black restaurants in Bahia so that people, consumers, we have 50 million consumers so that they can also see that they can patronize, promote black money and really also join iFood in the whole movement of reducing inequalities and promoting racial equity. And one thing that is really interesting and innovative about making this core business, as I repeat, because many companies, they do have very nice initiatives, but they are totally separate from the P&L. In our case, it's inside our P&L and we need to create programs that are financially sustainable because otherwise tomorrow we are not gonna be able to scale because we are not a philanthropy, we are a business. But at the same time, we recognize that it's possible, it's possible to have social impact, it's possible to grow, it's possible to also have make impact and make money. And I think it's only by doing that, businesses will actually scale initiatives that promote racial equality and racial equity. So what I am hearing, which you all are not saying, is that underneath all of the initiatives that you've taken, there have been a multitude of conversations at the leadership level, weighing the pros and cons and the risks of how do we move forward in doing this, how do we show up if you're a public company with shareholders, and what does this really mean for us from a value standpoint of the company? So can you give us a little bit of the inside baseball on some of the conversations that you've had? And I can't say these are Chatham House rules because this is live streaming. They're not. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, well, I could maybe share a few. So when I've gone to my board and I've talked about investing in health equity programs and diversity, equity, inclusion, not only do I say it's the right thing to do and we cannot fulfill our mission without it, but I also talk about the economic benefits to our organization. And the statistics are very, very compelling. I mean, companies or organizations that really truly have strong diversity, equity, inclusion programs are 20% more productive because they're more innovative. As I mentioned before, employees are more engaged. They're less likely to leave turnover is less. And in healthcare, that's a huge, huge issue in terms of workforce stability. Even dropping to the bottom line, EBITDA is 10% greater. 10% greater when leadership teams are diversified. And I tell my board also, we need to represent the community that we serve. We're in one of the most diverse communities and one of the most diverse states in the nation. And I don't believe that just at the workforce level at the ground level. I mean through leadership. So we have significant leadership development programs that really focus on diversity, equity, inclusion. And I tell my board, this board needs to become more diverse as well. All right, and what's the response to that? It's been positive, you know? Truly, I can't say there's been a pushback. I think some, honestly, some are probably more enthusiastic than others, but we've made some strides. I would say certainly on leadership, certainly on our team member level and some at the board level, but I'd like to see even more. Thank you. Tamina. You know, we have a, the way that we built the center at MasterCard is really about leveraging the assets of the firm for impact. And the conversations we have, I guess, are more around what does that look like and how does that take shape? I'd be remiss if I didn't talk a little bit about our Insolidarity program that we launched in the United States that has now gone global because that's really a way, it focuses the company's attention in a way that few things do. And so the head of that program for North America is actually here in Davos, and she's here today, Slogos. And we've learned from her that the way that you build economic prosperity and to black communities in particular is that you use the assets of MasterCard in a way that benefit everybody, but also target a community in a way that lifts them up. And so what do I mean by that? I mean that Salah spearheaded a partnership with the Baygood Foundation. And when, as part of that, she created another job training program for black-owned businesses, and this is what reminded me, she put those two things together because that uses the assets of MasterCard in terms of capital, but also data and data analytics and capability. And the other thing that we worked together on was understanding that data is an asset. But what we found was communities, in particular in the Insolidarity program, weren't necessarily, it's not that they didn't have the data, but they wanted the analytics, they wanted the answer. And so we do that through the Center for Inclusive Growth, but then we also make sure that we're investing in colleges and universities to provide the capability. Because if we don't work to ensure that black communities and other ethnically diverse communities benefit from the technology right now, we're gonna be looking at a capability gap, the likes of which we've never seen. And so part of that has been that we've worked with Howard University in the United States as an example to build out their data science for social impact program with a multi-million dollar grant. But then we also went to Atlanta and identified a network of historically black colleges and universities and said, we need to infuse that with capital and with the benefit of MasterCard, our people and capabilities team to ensure that as students are coming out of these universities much more capable now and ready for the technology economy that we're recruiting them into the company. So when you ask about conversations sort of under the covers and things like that, I think the conversations we have are about not necessarily why to do it. It's how we make the biggest impact in the way using the assets of the firm. And but it's never a question of should or why. Because we know that the why is about we have to stay competitive as a multinational company. And you can't really argue with that as a board member or a shareholder. And I think we're united around that. The questions we have and the arguments we have, if any, is how do you deploy those assets in the ways that make the most sense for the things you're trying to achieve? Thanks, and it sounds like Luana, your company has already been thinking about that and doing it with the education, the GED programs, et cetera. So are there any specific though challenges, challenging questions that you all have wrestled with as a company? I think this issue of prioritization, it's a key one. Obviously, we have focused on education, mainly not only drivers, but also society. We have helped train through our technological Olympics and all the other programs, giving support to teachers, more than two million students in public schools. So we invest significantly. Now is the return on investment. And I'm not talking about just the financial, the social return on investment. And the returns on investment, both for us and for society, what are the things we should be doing around education, for example, right? Or around even workers' condition that is would be the most significant, right? And cost effective. There are some things for, just to give you an example, we tried to venture in the past into building IT infrastructure, but we realized we are not the best position for that. We should focus on giving the resources to teachers. And that's when we created a program with using WhatsApp and we invest on learning through WhatsApp and giving tools for teachers on AI, on data science, so that they can be catalytic and they can then multiply. We felt this is much more effective. We can do this. We have loads of AI professionals and AI models. We understand this. So let's focus on the assets, right? And on the other hand, how do we prioritize? We look at the root causes of the challenges that we face. One example, when we think about stereotypes and bias around race in the ecosystem that we operate in, we know that education will solve so much for drivers in terms of social mobility, even for the overall population, black population. However, we know that stereotype and bias is an existing and present threat to the full realization of the potential that we are creating through our investments. So how do we... That's a drop the mic sense. Did y'all hear that? Say it again. So bias and stereotypes is a real threat to the realization of the potential that we are investing in through education. So it demoralizes people, it limits, it affects the incentives. So what we did, for example, in the case of drivers, they face about 37% of drivers report that they faced in the last six months some sort of harassment of discrimination. Be by customer, by society in general, by restaurants. So what we decided to do is like, how do we tackle this? How do we change people's behavior so that the drivers can simply do their daily work free of harassment and discrimination? And we decided to invest to partner with the largest network of black women lawyers. They are called sisters, black sisters in law. And yes, and drivers, whenever they face a challenge, a situation, they are victims of discrimination. They can call the hotline, they can go to their offices. And the nice thing is that everything is online, it's through the phone. They are present, we are present in 1700 cities, they are present in 1000 cities. So we have actually a huge coverage of legal and psychological support. And it's amazing how much drivers want to take the psychological support because of specifically this issue of bias and discrimination. So for us, we do not shy away of the hard problems. We know that we cannot change the society as a whole in terms of how they view the black population or the different bias, but we know we can invest in education to accelerate mobility and we can give the support that people need in order to seek their rights. That's incredible. So I want to thank you all, but now it's you all's turn in the audience. So all these hands went up. And we only have about four minutes, which means that let's do this as a popcorn and we have a mic, but literally just if you have a question or a comment, do it in 30 seconds so we can get as many people's voices in this conversation. Thank you. Absolutely. And introduce yourself and where you're from. Yes, my name is Robert Beamish. I'm a global shaper based in the Ottawa Hub. Thank you for this presentation. We're at Davos Public and Private Conversation, the forum opportunity for that dialogue. We've heard a lot on the private side. What's the role of the public sector in advancing racial equity? I'll take that one. As the CEO of the United Way Worldwide, which is one of the largest privately funded nonprofits in the world operating in 37 countries, we have the role in being great partners and filling the gaps where the government doesn't step in. And also if we're partnering with corporations, being that connector and saying we want to support you because your company doesn't operate without employees and employees live in communities and you need to be aware of the conditions in which your employees live.  And I will tell you what nonprofits are really good at is going into communities as partners and not as saviors. Companies like to come in and say I've got a great idea and let me tell you how you're gonna solve it. Nonprofits, our role is as advocates and being the voice and elevating the voices of the people that live in the community to make sure that the solutions that are created for the communities and elevating them, whether economic mobility or access to health or whatever the issues are, that the people that are most affected have a seat at the table. Can I just add one example to what you said in my world? So I mentioned before about the social determinants of health and how many people we screened. And one of the things that jumped out at us from the data were food insecurities. So through government funding, so this is truly a private public partnership, we partnered with grocery stores in underserved communities and communities of color. And we have now provided supplemental, we call it fresh match, so it's supplemental dollars on snap cards that recipients receive, but the catch is they have to buy healthy foods. So it's fruits and vegetables and almost every grocery store throughout the state is incredibly interested in partnering with us in that regard. That wouldn't have happened without state dollars and federal dollars as well. Public private partnerships.  Hello, my name is Demi Smith. I'm also a global shaper. I'm from Washington, D.C. And we've talked a lot about systemic oppression and you mentioned the affirmative action case. I'm wondering if there's anything that your organizations are doing or could be doing at the local, state level to kind of lobby the government to help support you and move your missions forward. I can mention something about the local governments. We have a very interesting initiative and it also connects with the public private partnerships. You know, the drivers are often stop and frisked, right, stop and search. And what we did, we have a partnership with the government of Sao Paulo where most of our deliveries, a lot of it happens in order to exchange data. So we created an API where the police, the state police and the local police can actually access and as soon as they frisk one of our drivers, they let them go. So it's really not only impacts the productivity of the driver, right, income but also reduces the potential for harassment, bias and all that. So this is just an example of a public private partnership at the local level. We also have obviously all our educational programs, we need to enter schools. We need to empower the teachers. So we sign many different corporations. Maratona Tech, for example, the Olympics, Tech Olympics we did, we had to sign cooperation and exchange data. So there is a lot on the data front, data sharing with governments so that we can continue to scale. That's excellent. We're all the time. I can't take just one last question. Okay, thank you. Fantastic. Well, thank you very much. I'm Catherine Stickney. I'm the CEO of Perida, which is a workforce analytics platform. And so we measure diversity within organizations and report back insights. My concern is that we're a global company but we can only get gender data outside of the US mostly. There's variations on that. Some countries will allow it. But race ethnicity is really important thing to measure. And as soon as you get out of the US it gets very difficult because of regulations. Any thoughts about other ways to collect race ethnicity? I know we can do it voluntarily but what's the best way for an organization to do that? Do you have a solution? No, go ahead. No, one thing I was gonna say is, yes, laws and regulations require advocacy and it's continuing at the grassroots level to advocate for change of laws and regulations in order to get us where we need to be as a global society. Yes. So any parting words from our fabulous panelists? Just one sentence, like what is it that one takeaway that you want everyone to leave from this room with? I think for me, I would just say, DNA can't be your destiny. That cannot be your destiny determinant. But I worried that data will become a destiny determinant unless we really think through how we're going to ensure that we build much more capability around data and data analytics. I would just say that a lot of progress has been made over these last few years but it's distressing to know that so many companies, so many organizations have taken a step back from their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. I think today it's time to double down, not to step back. Amen. And I think we are in Davos and it's important to recognize the amazing work that WEF has been doing with all the initiatives but also the Alliance for Racial Equity. And I think it's important to also say that the launch of the Reskilling Revolution, the Good Work Alliance, all these initiatives that are really gonna mobilize so many companies and create so many jobs, Reskilling Revolution, 1.1 billion people need to be trained. All of this need to be taught from a racial equity lens. We need to mainstream race into an ethnicity, into all those programs. So whenever a company assume a commitment with that, such as the Good Work Alliance, which has a specific goal on diversity and inclusion, it's amazing, the potential impact that it could have via mainstreaming, not separating the issue but integrating fully into all the initiatives. I think it will be a game changer. Well, thank you. I'll thank the panelists for their wonderful participation. Thank all of you. And let's not let this conversation end.


Thanks so much David that was just terrific and I feel like really sets us off for this day today in a beautiful way. I'm just gonna take a few minutes not long at all to just share a little bit of the learning some of you many of you sent emails to us with some sort of key learning and it actually gets to a little bit of Jason's question a little bit of Louise you talking about being nomadic and I and I had the opportunity to in the first cohort actually visit all of the theaters and the playwrights except my flight was canceled to OSF three times but I so I met with Bill and Louise here but I did try I did try I just want you to know and and so I had a chance to meet with all the playwrights and theaters I had a chance to have really ongoing conversations with many of you and I wanted to just say a couple of things from my perspective and then share a couple of things that you shared which I put on my phone because I didn't have time to print this morning so the first being that this idea that the playwright is nomadic in some ways when we all sat together and conceived of this program it seemed like a no-brainer right so it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world what a writer wouldn't want a salary and health insurance and actually it wasn't the no-brainer in quite the way that we had anticipated it would be and I really want us to talk about that especially for the cohort that is new to this that in fact there's a reason and also I think one of the things that David's pointing to this morning is that there's been a dysfunction in our field and so the intervention into a dysfunction sometimes leads to the revelation that there's been dysfunction and that that there's work to be done to get past that right and so the biggest thing that I had an opportunity to see and I know those of us Mellon and myself as we talked about this was that there was immediately it didn't go as smoothly as we thought it might and and it was around the idea that playwrights have prided themselves on their nomad-like lifestyle their freelance lifestyle they have intentionally not chosen in many ways to be parts of institutions and and that it that artistic directors have prided themselves on the fact that they're parts of institutions and that they've given up things in their career to be parts of institutions and they were also asking the question of what was it to supervise a playwright or was supervision actually the right word is it just a colleague is it a staff member what does it really mean to be a staff member and so a lot of really I think hard questions arose from that I know I don't think Jack you would mind me saying that in your case it was really a complicated thing around what it was to bring somebody in in parity with all the other staff members and how that would happen and so we we so it was not a bad start but it was there were just a lot of questions that were raised about that relationship and what I saw from my vantage point was that the even though the playwright and the artistic director in most cases had long term connections and that's why they had been selected for the grant they had never been in this particular relationship with each other before so to acknowledge that this is a new relationship is I think a thing that we didn't you know adequately prepare everyone to consider ahead of time so I just put that out there for for you all to think a little bit about especially the new folks and then the other big learning from just my vantage point especially after yesterday I had a lot of learning yesterday which was that these residencies as especially as the first cohort was reporting out that these residencies took a lot of time to unfold and to germinate and to grow and so what I've seen is where there was like this kind of moment of like what are we doing that moment of what are we doing lasted in some cases a year or 18 months or two years that suddenly in this last year there's been a cohesion around the residencies and particularly for those of you who are here as you've renewed and incredible things are coming out of that out of the time right so and that's been really interesting to see so that these residencies take time to unfold that we will all need time and the new cohort will need a particular sense of time and the renewing cohort will need another kind of time to see what the next evolution is the other thing I wanted to just talk about was the way in which you all have reported back to us about your learning and what when when I went around and spoke with all of you at the get go the thing that we all talked about a few years back was that there would be three kinds of level of opportunity for transformation with a residency like this that there would be an opportunity obviously for personal transformation what would it mean to a writer to have the kind of stability and and connection and commitment to production that the residency would provide what would it mean for an artistic director to have a kind of partner in a resident playwright and how would that be personally transforming that there would also be institutional transformation what would it mean to bring an artist on staff and how would that be both bumpy and provocative and enriching to an institution I remember five minutes into the for the announcement of the first residency cohort someone on a staff of one of the theaters tweeting out I'm an artist on staff why can't I have a residency completely reasonable question actually right and so so that there would be implications to the institutions for what it would mean to bring somebody on specifically as an artist given that most of our theaters are staffed with all kinds of artists right doing all kinds of things and then the third kind of transformation that we talked about was transformation beyond the the individual and the institutional what could happen in our communities but because of this work I think the thing that kind of blew my mind yesterday as things were unfolding was just the incredible way in which there has been community transformation as a result of these that all every single theater found a way to take the opportunity and to expand its impact beyond the personal and the institutional and I think that's and that that sometimes happened in the last year in the last six months and but that all of the residencies have done that in some way so I feel like we really we hit on that I wanted to share a few things that I have in super tiny type which I'm going to try to read a few things that you all shared I'm not going to attribute names although you may know who but I just wanted to share some things you said about your own learning that I just pulled some things that I thought might be helpful the biggest thing and this is in the under I kind of put them under personal communal and then our institutional and communal learning this is under personal transformation the biggest thing that I have learned and I'm learning is how much I have to learn as an American citizen born into twin privileges of our country's biases of class and race as a professional charge with the curating of an annual conversation with our community I need to understand fully the vantage point from which I view the world and I need to listen deeply and without ego to the lessons of others vantage points and all of that was in my head as an intellectual idea and lives for me now in the messy and vulnerable space of an emotional reality that's what it meant to bring a playwright on staff for that artistic director another piece of learning the thing I was most afraid of losing my artistic focus not finding kindred spirits having to spend inordinate amounts of time explaining the complexities of race in America not only did not materialize but have ceased to worry me my and then under and then more under personal transformation my residency has clarified for me the why of every play I write and allowed me to take bigger risks and chances with theatricality and with the heart and reach of the play also writing for the production has made me a better writer it's taken away all sense of the mystique of an artistic process and made me feel useful like I have a job one that feels important and then again one more under personal transformation I think I learned how to be a producer and feel empowered to contribute to all aspects of the development and production of a play of mine this included the design of my own development process and working to hire the most important collaborators I participated in the entire design process and was involved in marketing fundraising and bringing in new audiences I felt like an equal partner in the process of bringing the peace to fruition which incidentally was a major formal risk for me and so I think that's both personal and institutional right I'm sure that institution was significantly changed by a playwright entering into the process in that kind of holistic way another in the world of institutional transformation humility I've gotten a crash course in how hard it is to run a theater how hard everyone works to keep the doors open and how hard the staff works to maintain the level of excellence that I see every day at the theater sitting in sitting in season planning meetings and understanding how much goes into picking the seven plays that will represent an artistic vision and also fit into the budget and also represent our community our artists and also challenge our audiences and also it's been overwhelming but in a critical way I am both despondent over the challenges that face every individual artist who hopes to have a lasting career in theater and also honored to have that in my life at least for the moment the experience of being on staff has made me so humble to be a playwright it hasn't made it easier to write but it has made it more important that I continue to write and then another insight another institutional insight I learned that there simply is no substitute for producing the work of a resident writer and then another institutional insight it's made me want to incorporate more artists more fully into every aspect of our organizational life another the playwrights active participation in all aspects of our organizational presenting developing marketing financing growth has added a new element and thought process to all of our discussions we now have we now have an artist sitting at the table bringing up new ideas and offering critical perspectives we may have overlooked in the past and then then yeah and so I feel like and then the community piece of it I just kind of wanted to leave a provocation there because most of you really covered that yesterday so I didn't want to repeat that most of the stuff that you wrote down were things that you said yesterday but the community piece of it the the the moment in my career I think that has most wowed me came out of a playwright residency and it was actually out of the first kind of pilot residency program that David headed at arena stage and it came from Karen Zacharias who David mentioned earlier Karen when we were at arena and actually Karen when we had our very first cohort meeting a few years ago actually was at that meeting I think via Skype and she really created in my mind like the model of like the ultimately great playwright residency and she had these development funds as you all have development funds and she decided that with her some of her money she used some of it for things like developing a play but with some of her money what she wanted to do is bring a bunch of Latino theater artists and put them in a room and just have a deep conversation for two days and see what happened and we talked about that and it was kind of an awkward time we were we were in the process of leaving arena to come here and I was like oh God Karen do you have to do that and she's like yes I absolutely have to do that and so she she insisted and I and and and she said and it's just I said well who would you know who do you want to bring and she's just people that I've been interested in like people that I've been interested in who I'm curious what they have to say and so we said we said yes we did that it was going to be I think we invited 15 people and eight showed up and those eight sat in a room with a haul around for really I don't think we were together more than you know a 24 36 hour stretch and they created a thing that is now called the Latino theater commons and in the in the convening they said they wanted to do four things they wanted to do a major gathering of Latino theater artists one that had not had not happened for 25 years they wanted to do that they wanted to create this convening and just create a massive group of Latino writers in a room and see what would come of that that they wanted to Jose Luis Valenzuela was in the room and he wanted to do a big festival of Latino plays he and he was calling it in in Quintro he wanted to do an in Quintro and encounter and then Lisa Portes they were just building this new space that Paul wanted to do a thing and she already had a name for it she wanted to do everybody had all their ideas right she wanted to do a carnival of new plays and read new plays and then Salak Rivas was there and he said I want to do an online journal I know the name of it it's called Cafe Onda we were like oh well you know everybody has like a plan and so we started that conversation haul around provided some infrastructure we can now say after last summer that every single one of those things happened every single one of those things happened that for someone who's had a 20-year career in the theater that just has blown my mind it has blown my mind and it came directly out of a visionary moment by a playwright in a playwright residency and so I just want and that movement is still going strong they're having their next convening in New York in November many other things are cropping coming up and growing out of that so I feel like one of the things we're going to challenge you to and I think in many ways this is what David was saying as well is really challenging you as a cohort what's the what's the what is this investment I feel like when you think about investment to impact Karen really gave us a sense of investment to impact so that's really all I have in terms of just a little report out the learning and how far off time am I oh no I'm great perfectly timed yeah pardon yeah yes you can actually tie it back to the documentation because one of the things that's different in this round and the playwrights all right and you guys all talked about it a little bit we're gonna talk about it more today the responsibility for documentation now falls in your hands and something that was special about that with Karen was that you guys were on site with them how around was embedded with the American Voices New Play Institute which was at arena stage which is what the five residencies were all a part of how around is not embedded in your theater they're not sitting next to you but the infrastructure is there and the documentation process is part of this and so I would say as you use your development funds or as you participate in these residency activities and things are happening bringing how around into the conversation is a way to nationalize to bring to the forefront to create movement and organize in ways that it's very difficult to do in isolation in your individual institutions and so I'm putting in a pitch for really trying to be in communication to the extent that it's not super onerous but is going to benefit and try to move the needle the way that David was talking about earlier it's helpful for all of us it's helpful for learning and enormous things can come out of it the LTC is a huge movement now and it's extraordinary to see that out of one conversation can come something so tremendous so it's my plea to you to try to keep the conversation lift the conversation out of your individual institutional context and into the commons thank you any any quick question come up from that I'm going to keep us moving unless there's just like a you know quick thought or question yeah Peter yes that's exactly what we're going to do then yep thanks Peter that's exactly what we're going to do great so next up we're going to do just a little shift in not really a shift but