And I'm here in my BBG capacity, not my Hudson capacity but I wear both hats because the Broadcasting Board of Governors is a board of presidential appointments, a board that confirmed by the U.S. Senate of people who oversee U.S. government international civilian media, which I'll go a little bit into what that means, and so all of us on the board, and the board is chaired by Jeff Schell, who is an incredible individual, who's the CEO of Universal Film Properties, Universal Pictures, and some of the notable board members include Ryan Crocker, who was the U.S. and was probably the most distinguished U.S. diplomat of the last half century, who was U.S. ambassador to both Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade or so, and so it's a board of people who are deeply concerned about U.S. public diplomacy, about the U.S.'s image abroad, about the way that we communicate with people in societies that are not free, and so all of us who serve on the board and we meet, though it is a part-time responsibility, it takes a significant amount of time, we meet normally about once a month for a day to a day and a half to discuss matters, and it's been a great honor to serve and I've learned a great deal in my short term of service on the board. So I'm here today to talk about U.S. government civilian international media in what's a rapidly changing geopolitical climate and a rapidly changing media environment, and I think back to my days, I was born in 1961, I grew up, I was a ham radio operator, I was a shortwave buff as probably a number of you were, think back to the old days of the Cold War, when there was Voice of America, there was the BBC, there was Radio Moscow, and the world was fairly clearly divided, you knew who you could trust, you knew who you could believe, and even though the Soviets spent this, and their allies spent a significant amount of time trying to propagate their ideas, their efforts didn't go terribly far. The BBC, and in particular Voice of America and Radio for Europe, really were critical to the dissemination of the ideas of truth and liberty and to propagating Western culture behind the Iron Curtain, and if you talk to the great heroes of the Cold War, the dissidents, whether it was Wachslaw Havel, whether it, in particular, or if you talk to any of the Polish dissidents who talked to Lenca, they will tell you about the time they would sit in their homes listening to Radio for Europe, the Voice of America, listening to the wonderful jazz broadcasts, listening to the news, hearing about the Soviet invasion of their country, and what that meant to them, and what a great source of strength it was that they knew that there was some place in the world that lived in truth, and that could broadcast truth. But we live in a very different, a radically different media environment today. To begin with, Western culture is virtually omnipresent around the globe, there is no Iron Curtain, whether it be rock music, Hollywood, reality, television, you know, just about everywhere with the exception of North Korea, and the proliferation of cable news outlets, and the rise of the Internet also means that Western news is available throughout the world, whether it be the BBC, CNN, the people going online to look at the New York Times, the Drudge Report Time magazine, other outlets. So what is the BBG and why is it needed? So the broadcasting board of governors is an agency of the federal government. We have an annual budget of $721 million, five major networks. The Voice of America, which is our major network, which reports on the U.S. to a world audience and does reporting on world events. Then we have our surrogate broadcasters, and these broadcasters broadcast to places that are, and the Voice of America primarily broadcast to countries that are not altogether free, not altogether stable. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, which focuses primarily on Russia, Central Asia, as well as Afghanistan and Iran. Radio Free Asia, which is heard from China to North Korea to Vietnam and Cambodia, and Alhura Media Middle East Broadcasting, which was set up after 9-11, which covers the 22 nations of the Arab world in the Maghreb. The Broadcasting Board of Governors was set up as an institution in sort of the great days of glory, post-Cold War triumphalism, when there was a sense that the public diplomacy role that had been played by an agency called the U.S. International, U.S. Information Agency, which was a sort of, which was a separate bureau of our Foreign Service essentially dedicated to propagating American ideas, American values around the world. It was time to close that agency in the aftermath of the Cold War. And so we took over some of the role that the U.S. Information Agency did with far less money. Now actually, we have this, we have on average over 200 million listeners and viewers each week who tune into our programs, whether it be 25% of adult Iranians who watch VOA Persia via satellite in Iran to North Koreans literally risk their lives in order to listen to our programming about their country to the heroes of Maidan who drew upon Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty for impartial news about their country and who used Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty to spread information about what was going on to the Alhura 7 p.m. newscast in Iraq, which even today is the market leader with a 20% audience there. In addition, we broadcast the Cuba via radio via Marti TV and radio. A lot of our efforts are jammed, but we are increasingly finding new ways to get into Cuba to get information into that island. We face a very competitive media landscape in which audiences are bombarded with options, even though freedom of information is increasingly under threat around the globe. And we're also seeing, as we discussed just before we had a little gathering before, a changing strategic environment in which major world players such as China and Russia are seeking influence through massive investments in their own news networks that have the impure of impartial news outlets. CCTV and RTV are readily available in the U.S. and Europe, even in Africa, which I just visited for the BBG, along with regional powers like Qatar, which plays a significant role in global affairs, as we all know through Al Jazeera TV. Now, the expenses and the resources that these networks have, each of them dwarf what we in the U.S. spend on our official civilian government international media. On top of it, the remarkable innovation and technology that we've seen in recent times from digital radio, the decline of shortwave, rise of FM, the transition to digital radio, the satellite television, the internet, social media to rapidly evolving mobile platforms. It's clear that we're in a very different media environment than we were just a few years ago and a very different environment we were then when you think back to the heydays of this kind of broadcasting of your grandparents listening to shortwave on these big tube sets with the crackly voices and quite broadcasts and the like. We've moved well beyond shortwave in most locales and we face very strict competition for the attention of our audience from both these official outlets like RTV and CCTV, but we also face it from commercial outlets as well, some of whom are Americans such as CNN. The move towards satellite and the move towards mobile has put increasing pressure on us to adapt to what is a very different world and what are different, very different formats for the kind of programs that we do. Ten years ago, the overwhelming majority of our programming was shortwave and it was long format talk shows, the kind of things that one would get from the BBC and hour long programs people would listen to and that is not the way the world works anymore. You can't do hour long chats. Program has got to be as much more, it has become much different, there's just a different pace of conversation on FM and there's a different pace of conversation that occurs on satellite television. Now, just take a quick look at some of the approaches some other countries are taking and here I draw on the scholarship of Shawn Powers of the University of Georgia who's done some research for us at the Broadcasting Board of Governors just to look at what's going on around the world with different media outlets. Qatar is pursuing a localization strategy through Al Jazeera, they're sending reporters around the globe to report on all sorts of conflicts in places frankly that most media outlets don't want to send people to because it is so dangerous and they're developing in Africa, they're developing a real regional base of expertise that Africans are turning to, sometimes unaware of some of the propaganda that Al Jazeera is trying to do. China is trying to lure local audiences through China Radio International, CCTV, also with global stories that have local connections and I was just in Senegal 10 days ago for the Broadcasting Board and I was amazed to see the China Radio International building in Dakar which is for Dakar a huge building and they're spending a significant amount of money to get information out in Africa. Some of it is frankly to their own citizens, they broadcast four hours a day in Chinese because there's so many Chinese workers now in Senegal, they're also a significant number of Chinese workers in Ghana where I also was, the Chinese seem almost omnipresent, they built and gave as a gift to the people of Ghana a massive new defense ministry building and so they're making efforts in trying to improve their own, how they are perceived in Africa and elsewhere. The Russians, the Iranians are focusing on their outlets, RT has launched a new website, Press TV, the Iranian media outlet is now doing Arabic programming in the Syrian dialect, the major Western countries that do these kind of international broadcast, us the French who have got Radio France International and France 24, the Germans of Deutsche Welle, the Brits who've got the BBC, the Japanese and the Australians, we continue to base our international, civilian international media on a commitment to freedom of expression, promotion of a global democratic public sphere and we in the United States on our civilian media outlets, civilian, sorry government international media outlets, government civilian international media outlets, we take a journalistic approach to covering issues, we will present both sides of the story, so we will present the story on Edward Snowden and it will be very different than the coverage you get on our TV where some of Mr. Snowden's disinformation will be played up and there'll simply be criticisms of the United States. We know that a healthy debate is key to a democratic society and we will present both sides of the story and there's some open question as to whether or not that actually serves our public diplomacy purposes. For example in 2009 when the Green Revolution began in Iran, our Persian media outlets, under directive from the Obama administration were told not simply to feature those who were back in the Green Revolution and so there were debates between backers of the regime and backers of the Green Revolution which was disappointing frankly to some who, to many in Iran who hoped that we would take a more vigorous stand in favor of revolution on our, on VOA which has a gigantic reach into Iran. So it's clear that these, that our global strategic competitors, Chinese, the Russians among others, see international broadcasting as key to effective power promotion abroad that it gives them some leverage over our societies and other societies. CCTV spends $2.5 billion a year annually. It's the largest of many of these broadcasters around the globe and it received a $7 billion injection originally to sort of get itself moving and to get itself much more visible. It now, CCTV reaches now over 200 million households today and as I mentioned it was all over the place in Africa when I was there 10 days ago and it's all over the United States CCTV. Al Jazeera, Arabic news operation continues to have a major impact in its own region and elsewhere. We've obviously seen the news the last few days coming out of the Gulf of ambassadors being withdrawn from Qatar and the Gulf Cooperation Council being very, being outright hostile to the Qatari government. Al Jazeera is no longer the monopoly that it once was when it first got started and when it offered a vibrant colorful and often hateful alternative to the dull state-friendly, anti-Western media that was the norm in the Arab world. Al Jazeera's pro-Muslim brotherhood agenda has been exposed but the network is going well beyond this agenda now and has turned into more of a news agency hiring credible journalists and in America they've hired many well-known former network correspondents to boost their brand Al Jazeera America and as I mentioned in Africa they're hiring local reporters to cover stories that don't get coverage in other international outlets. They're launching a UK specific channel shortly. They're launching a Turkish channel in the next 18 months and they're significantly increasing their spending in the United States. RT which is Russian television I know in Washington it's carried on in both English and Spanish on our cable system in Washington. It's carried to 630 million households in over a hundred countries 230 cable operators and it's largely Russian propaganda but not simply and for RT has very biased reporting. We're talking earlier any coverage of the Snowden case they will bring on the most vociferous critics of the United States. They'll bring on people who are you know in the days of the Soviet Union we call them useful idiots people who are who may not be realizing the damage that they're doing to the United States with some of the stands that they that they hold and some people who are you know people who were more mainstream but who are definitely critical of any of any projection of US power already or of US intelligence capabilities but they've also hired they've recently hired Larry King who was one point the king of primetime cable coverage in the United States. He had this program Larry King Live which was on from three decades on CNN at 9 p.m. that was a staple in many homes for many for many decades and so he's now on RT. The other day RT received a bit of an embarrassment when an anchor resigned on air because of shoddy coverage she and distorted coverage she felt over the situation in the Crimea which was an embarrassment to to RT but nonetheless I think all these outlets they're they're trying to feel their way and like as just as Al Jazeera has modified how it covers things so RT has begun to modify we'll modify how it covers things it'll become a more subtle instrument over time save thing with CCTV as they try to keep audiences in western democratic countries and as they try to keep audiences in in less free societies. So we at the BBG in the face of this very changing environment in which there's a lot of money going in in which there is obviously a very dramatic geopolitical context that is rapidly changing with major threats and major issues constantly on the agenda we're primarily about serious news so we report on civil unrest we report on natural disasters human rights abuses politics the global economy and so forth and we're we're not simply as we were we're not largely as we were a tool of American public diplomacy which we were during the Cold War for better or for worse and there's a there's an author named Martha Bales who's just written a new book on this subject there's a journalistic culture that's arisen in in the United States and in the media and one that arose really in the Watergate period of some skepticism of deep skepticism towards government and in this and and and I think the BBG is definitely a lot of our journalists who are mainstream professional journalists who've been many of them have served with the major networks and major media outlets they share some of this view and so they they partake of this culture and so they they believe that fair journalism requires presentation of both viewpoints for better or for worse and so that this this this I think this this this way of presenting the news has many strengths and they get they have some shortcomings as well but that is the way that we cover the news we try to be fair and balanced and it's fair and balanced as we possibly can be but we also are about trying to use every possible means we can to get credible information to audiences who are denied press freedom we have 4 000 journalists working worldwide with us on our five major networks and we're broadcasters in the in the broadest possible sense we're on tv radio laptops mobile devices in more than a hundred countries bringing news and information to audiences in 61 different languages our largest audiences our countries you might not expect in indonesia we have 21 million nigeria over 20 million mexico almost 15 million iran 14 and a half million and in in all these countries we've made major strides in innovative delivery including using affiliates sometimes to get our news out using sms mobile distribution for breaking news and moving as well to other forms of getting the news out as need be in a lot of countries we are news leaders we cover stories that aren't covered in environments that lack press freedom and this is particularly in asia and central asia russia and the still unfree parts of the former soviet union places that and our media coverage is frequently cited by major media outlets around the world because we break our reporters break stories they break stories on the ground constantly and it's and so by exemplifying a free media and free expression we try to help foster and sustain free and democratic societies now the audiences may have access to more media than ever before but limits on press freedom and objectivity play an important role for our networks in the middle east for example tv stations even today with longevity are funded by by wealthy patrons who skew editorial lines even in today in egypt more of the most popular local tv stations people who attract between between half to a two-thirds of egyptians weekly are owned by individuals with ties to the former mubarak regime in iraq the abundance of political funding for media outlets the dearth of commercial advertising makes it very unlikely for non-state media to become editorial independent and that's why we have i think that's one of the reasons for the strength of our alhura channel in iraq where we as i mentioned we have a fifth of the viewers every night for our 7 p.m news which is the place if you're a politician in iraq and you want to make a statement you want to reach a broad audience you go to alhura now social media does provide alternatives but many people outside the gulf don't really have access to it for example in egypt only 70 percent of the population turns to the internet for news each week it's 48 percent in saudi arabia and obviously media norms differ around the globe significantly from what we're used to at home and you just to us in the united states as you hear in ireland is nothing more important than freedom of expression the ability to speak your mind freely is a core principle of american journalism american democracy and we will we will use this core principle at times to to show to shape our programming and try to teach people about how democracy works and how and how free discussion is is helpful to civil society now there are obviously significant challenges our journalists face censorship is one of them threats of detainment and bodily harm as well are quite common i think of the immense courage of our stringers in north korea who risk their lives daily to report for our fa and there are incredible people on the ground there who people will pick up a phone to call in a story which is an amazing thing there one of our journalists in syria bashar fami was reporting from a lepo in august 2012 he and three other journalists he was traveling us were caught across fire one of those journalists was killed another one was kept in prison for three months we still don't know what happened to bashar fami after he was separated from his cameraman in that firefight he's not been hurt from since we fear the worst but we don't know for sure one of our reporters in azerbaijan is now facing an ongoing smear campaign and criminal charges on the heels of her coverage investigative coverage of high-level corruption several of our reporters who were in maydan were beaten bloody as they covered the disobedience in in the ukraine david sadder who is an investigative journalist working for rfe rl and a budin critic who also happens to be a hutsa institute colleague was recently expelled from russia and he isn't he's an investigative journalist he's looking at corruption he's looking at all sorts of underground ties in russia he was the first american reported to be spelled from russia since the end of the cold war so our journalists face deep and significant challenges but even so even with these challenges we continued to do some very very important very critical work that frankly is irreplaceable uh in iran as i mentioned uh our media reaches more people each week uh through television radio on the internet than does the bbc heard a very moving story a couple of weeks back i had breakfast with a with a man who's a political scientist in washington who occasionally goes on the voa pursa service for programs that discuss democracy and he he's he's political theorist by training and he uh wasn't would go on talk about separation of powers talk about how congress functions talk about congressional committees investigations how the white house operates and he had gone to cyprus on vacation last summer and before he went he grew a beer because he knew that he he might be recognized there because there are a lot of iranians and and this is in the in the turkish part of uh cyprus so he he was there with his wife and kids and he goes off to a uh to a to a to a to a turkish bath there and he starts talking to someone and the man says after hearing him for a couple of weeks goes i know who you are and you guys know you don't know and then a couple of minutes that he goes i know exactly who you are you're that guy who's on the voa pursa tv program you talk about the rule of law you talk about the congressional elections the guy was he was flabberg acid he then that evening he went to dinner in the in the hotel resort restaurant sitting on the beach and buffet he sits down with his family all of a sudden within two minutes a massive line of about 40 people formed to talk to him why because people wanted to and wanted to engage they wanted to ask they were just curious about the way that uh american constitutional democracy works and it just shows the deep penetration that our broadcasting has in the deep impact it could potentially have now the iranians try to block our our our broadcast via localized jamming but uh many iranians are very resourceful they use web censorship circumvention tools as well as hidden satellite dishes in order to stay connected to the world elsewhere in the middle east we we we have radio sawa our our radio program we do a 20 minute weekly program free zone which covers elections women's rights and freedom of the press and it's very important talking about women's rights because a lot of the the broadcasting the state-owned broadcasting even in the country's re-reach and the other kinds of media outlets that go into these countries particularly in the muslim world tend not to tend not to focus on women's rights tend not to give encourage women to think of themselves as having rights and the right to make up their minds on critical issues and so this this program free zone is the only arab language radio program broadcasting the read them in the region on freedom and democracy now local content does matter in this marketplace and we've for years voice of america we've done our best when there's dedicated local news and information even when there there are very strict limitations to resources in china we've been at the forefront of reporting breaking news and exclusive stories from inside the country radio free asia was the first to report on the many of the 125 self-immolations of tibetans were protesting beijing's rule and we remain really the definitive source of information in tibet and our programming including the documentary we did fire in the land of snow self-immolation in tibet with broadcast around the world in mandarin tibetan and in english and had strikingly strong viewership uh local and local content matters i'm just in africa and uh as i mentioned before i was in gana and a few days before i arrived there was a a bbc presenter comalad du more who had passed away suddenly at the age of 41 he was the host of a program on the bbc that was dedicated to news from africa and he was a major local celebrity there was three days of funeral ceremonies in akra the ganaean president spoke uh about him he was a a hugely popular figure as i mentioned with this uh this person uh this political scientist who does voa persia our our our people our personalities are well known when they go to these countries uh if they can give the countries allow them in they're also well known in the countries they're not allowed to go in but reach doesn't tell the entire stories of uh broadcasting impact you know we we have to figure out a way to keep our our viewers engaged uh and engage in dialogue on issues that are critical for the united states that we care about and that are critical to promoting democracy and we also have to figure out ways that we're producing content that's not available elsewhere and so we we've been we work to build awareness of us policies and support freedom of speech freedom of expression and so we've used we've now moved to a us bureau model in several markets including indonesia the balkans turkey ukraine and latin america where we work with affiliates to produce voa to place voa programming on other media outlets and so we will serve as the u s bureau for uh programs that have very large uh viewership audiences and so we will if a news reporter in a news broadcast in central america or south america wants to have a watching reporter we will give them a watching reporter essentially free of charge and our journalists our standard trained journalists they're not there to they're present both sides of the story they're not there to present uh official u.s government policies as such but oftentimes just simply presenting the news as it is is a massive improvement over what they're hearing since uh they're oftentimes getting a much more distorted view of uh what we're we're talking about or what's happening in washington so uh let me let me add that uh we uh we we we we cover us policies and democratic pro democratic values through news coverage of live events current affairs reports through newscasts and acquired documentaries and and it's uh it's in our particularly in the middle east we we become of our through alhura and radio sour we become a venue where people go to hear their voices heard without editorial distortion um we have discussion programs magazine shows that feature people from the region in open format discussion uh and uh for example when protesters took the streets in egypt uh in july our cameras were there interviewing people from different camps about their desires for the future of egypt uh and likewise uh when major news events break in the united states alhura will cover these events uh as well and bring news of the united states to the region and we are and they often focus on reports of freedom of on how freedom of religion and tolerance works in the united states there have been major stories on how jews and muslims have celebrated Passover together at a local mosque in surrounding virginia our christians opened up a church in uh berk virginia so that uh muslims would have a place to worship during uh ramadan the kind of news stories that you won't get on other middle east uh media outlets that are trying to to fight religious tolerance and freedom of expression and we also spend a lot of time highlighting human rights and uh freedom of women uh and the rights of women um challenging uh the notion of forced marriages and uh focusing on uh educational opportunities available to women uh as well i should add one of the thing we do is we spend a lot of time on a significant amount of resources and in creating programming to teach people english and this is something that the bbc pioneer was immensely successful and we're finding that there is there's increased interest in speaking english with an american accent and our and our and our uh learning english clips are being used by many language services including kamar indonesian vermice and english to africa uh so there we do an awful lot of things i think some of them we do very well there are some of them that we're doing frankly less well but that we're we're examining as a board and we want to sort of uh do much better we have a a mixed bag of tools in some places traditional radio including shortwave remain strong north korea africa afghanistan in afghanistan we reach 75 percent of the adult population uh but now the use of mobile phones is growing in afghanistan and some 400 000 afghans get sms headlines from our radio for europe radio liberty service to afghanistan at the same time though we can't move entirely to sms or to mobile platforms in afghanistan even if the transition word of a kirk is 60 of the afghan population is is illiterate and so we offer an intelligence voice recognition option to read the headlines to those who can't read it for themselves but it's uh it's it's uh it is a challenge and we need to sort of stay as technologically advanced as possible and one of the most important technological advances that the bbg is at the forefront of is combating internet censorship and this has frankly become one of the most important things we do uh congress just mandated us to spend five percent of our budget in the uh the new appropriation uh for fiscal year 2015 uh on tools to combat internet censorship and it's become a growing part of our budget through we have uh engineers who are opening the internet gateway for audiences in china vietnam iran and many other countries around the world through constant innovation and technological evolution and we partner with some of the biggest names in in technology and the internet on these efforts working with tools like ultra surf and syphon our internet uh our attempts to circumvent internet censorship have provided unfettered access to the internet to individuals throughout the world whose country's filter or outright sensor internet access and the bbg is constantly promoting new and safer versions of these tools uh as they continue to evolve to try to get around the significant uh firewalls that countries like china have put up or they literally have hundreds of thousands of people working to prevent their own citizen from getting uh news and information around the world a lot of times the the services that we've created create shadow ip addresses so that uh the chinese cannot figure out that the that an ip address is coming from someone in china they think it's coming from somewhere else so they can't go out and close that line as it were for people trying to get news and information but we've deployed both small hardware devices software based solutions to hundreds of locations including some of the most internet restrictive environments uh and so uh and we we're constantly getting reports essentially on who is looking at the internet in these countries they basically give us an idea of what needs to be done in order to open up the internet even further to some of these countries and it's it requires a real high level of agility and we're massively expanding these networks or these efforts to focus on mobile and satellite platforms to increase research and development uh china recently for example targeted some of our social media activities some of our our radio free asia and voa personalities had large hundreds of thousands of followers on twitter on facebook and then china began targeting them and so this some so these those platforms became uh essentially not usable for those individuals so we're constantly trying to figure out ways to get around the censorship that countries are doing this is actually i think at the end of the day can be much more effective than the anti jamming efforts we did during the cold war because i think that we will eventually be able to with the right level of investment uh open up the internet significantly for those who wish to have access to free and open democratic societies information and news about their own societies as well let me just sort of conclude i've covered an awful lot of ground and it's been a little bit scattershot but we do an awful lot at the bbg and it's kind of hard to encapsulate it in sort of one sort of it's it's it is it's an awful lot of things we do it doesn't sort of fit into one easy category you know the last few weeks i think have shown we all have learned in case we've somehow forgot this that history has not ended in any uh meaningful way against you know this backdrop of a changing geostrategic environment and pressures uh uh you know from central african republic and molly where the bbg is is setting up new fm transmitters that deal with the rise of uh islamic radicalism and threats to civil liberties and the the danger of threats to the rule of law to what's what's gone on in the maydan we face dramatic changes in the technology forefront of communications where you know web censorship and circumventing it are an extension of longstanding attempts by governments around the world to control information for strategic advantage we we need to take the tools of the 21st century and use them to promote democracy and the rule of law our our news services we're leaders in terms of our audience reach we play a critical role in places where people can't get information otherwise that's fair balance and in part there's a huge thirst for this information uh particularly in countries that have corrupt uh regimes uh regimes that uh take action against civil liberties crack down on uh on a free press uh it's it is a the mission of the bbg uh it's really uh it's really a an important mission it's a it's a fundamental mission to uh promoting democracy to promoting free press uh to promoting human rights and uh it's inspiring to work with many of our journalists who themselves put themselves at great risk uh in in places from molly to northern nigeria berma to bet egypt syria and uh in the face of all these challenges we're trying to stay ahead of a of a global competition to get the word out about american democracy about a free press about the rights of women about human rights and about religious toleration and it's a it is a constant challenge against the very shifting backdrop of uh technological and geopolitical change


Good evening, my name is Leslie Wingo and I am the president and CEO of Sanders Wingo. Thank you again for joining us this evening. Last January I had the most amazing opportunity of meeting my friend and colleague Mark Updegrove with his passion, with my passion excuse me for equity inclusion and diversity and Mark's incredible leadership of the LBJ Foundation. We began to engage in conversations of our race, history, and how we can encourage others to be in action to create positive change within all of our communities. This change he and I both envision move beyond tough conversations and would give each of us practical solutions in this historic moment of racial justice. Over the last 12 months with the help and feedback of so many people and organizations in Austin and the surrounding areas, we are honored to have you with us tonight for the third of six virtual conversations on creating a path to racial equity. I would be remiss if I didn't think the teams at both the LBJ Foundation, Sanders Wingo, our partners, and of course each of you for engaging in this critical dialogue and making Central Texas a more equitable place for each of us. I wanted to share one other thing, a very exciting opportunity, you are each invited to continue this conversation with the Central Texas Collective for racial equity, as they will host the path to equity the after show every Tuesday at six o'clock on Facebook live and that's six o'clock p.m. You can sign up and find more information on event right. So we are about to get started and as we move through our conversation and discussions this evening. I invite you to drop questions into the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. We will do our best to answer as many questions as possible. Now, without further ado, it is my honor to introduce two amazing leaders right here in Central Texas. Kelly Mason, Knotley partner and founder of Ripple Reads will help us understand and attract diverse talent, amplify their voices and activate for and stand up for people of color. And our moderator and my friend, media commentator and CEO of Clifton Consulting, Margie Clifton. Welcome. Thank you Leslie. Okay, this is such a gift because I've got Kelly who has also become a friend and someone that I love talking about these issues with and so it's it's such a gift to be able to have this time in space with her. And Kelly is a trailblazer on so many fronts so we are very fortunate to have you here helping lead this conversation. Things you need to know about Kelly. She's got brains beyond beyond and beyond. She's a rice grad cum laude and then also Stanford Law School. And then starting in Stanford, she started already her work with building a better legal profession which was a nonprofit focusing on diversifying law firms and dealing with racial equity and and did a lot of pro bono work in that capacity. Then went on to co found paradigm, which was a data driven consultancy, focusing with startups technology startups and Fortune 500 companies and all of that was also to create more inclusive workplaces so Kelly has been living this work her entire career. And so I wanted to quick off the kick off the conversation first of all, I want to say, because I live in spaces where I am talking about diversity and inclusion, where I'm having conversation with friends and colleagues about race. It can be hard. It can be tricky. And I think one of the things that makes it tricky is a fear that a lot of people have. And I think especially white people have about having the conversation the right way about saying the wrong thing. And so I want to make an invitation that as Kelly and I have this conversation and as you send your questions and to not be afraid to ask what is on your mind. I know that everyone who hopefully has come to this conversation is coming with the intent to understand to do better to do more and to be part of a dialogue and so there's in this space not a wrong way to ask so feel free to please send things on and we're going to talk about what is your why. What was it a moment in your work was it a moment in terms of your growing up or how you were experiencing the world drove you to focus on racial equity in particular in your career and in this work that you do now. Yeah, for sure. So you mentioned right I went to law school. I practiced law for a few years and I vividly recall having summer associate classes and first year and even second year associate classes that had gender parity. Right we had equal amounts of women and men in our summer associate classes and even have really solid racial and ethnic parity and representation. And it seemed promising but it was very clear you know after your first luncheon with your summer associate class that the rest of the law firm did not reflect that and particularly the partnerships. And so as a woman of color I thought you know and as someone who's aspiring at that time to succeed and become a partner at the law firm and take that path I thought what's going on here right why are women and people of color, leaving or being pushed out of the legal profession and just really got passionate about that problem and have followed that problem and pursued that problem throughout my group. So I'm going to dive in on one thing that you mentioned because you talked about gender and racial equity. And I think one of the things I've seen companies fall into is and a lot of companies have their DEI office right their their area where they deal with diversity equity and inclusion. Why do we single out race and and what what is the reason for doing that how do we do that as companies. Yeah, well, you know I think it goes back to, we've seen in this space a lot more progress on the gender side. And then with that it's white women in particular. And I think from my experience and talking to different CEOs and founders and people in these decision making roles. When you hear it in interviews when you've got white men who are in positions of power and they talk about what, you know, brought them to do this right brought them to value diversity and inclusion. And a lot of times it's a personal story. It's saying you know, I saw my daughter struggling. I saw you know I wanted to mentor people like my daughters, or you know, my sister is just as smart as me and did not, you know, raise as much money for her startup as I was able to raise for mine, or my wife is just more smarter than I am. And yet I've seen her struggle to progress in her career the same way I've been able to progress. So you've got white men who have this personal connection to women. And so it's just easier to take that next step. And to focus on gender because it's easier right it's it's on the other hand you've got people who don't even you know, is it black can I say the word black right they get uncomfortable around race and so I think in this work it is important to say, we're not just going to take the easy approach and get the gold star and promote women and that's important but we've got to be honest and say there's some intersectionality here there is a whole group of people who are being left out of inclusion programs that just focus on gender. When you touched on two things so which is, how do we create inclusivity, you know, at large so how do we make women how do we make people of color. And then we isolate this conversation specifically about race, because that's a very different experience than being a white female. Yet interestingly like historically we see a lot of the women's movement and the civil rights movement working in tandem, because there is that experience of otherness. And I think there is as you highlight sort of how do you create that connection point. So, when I think about how you convince companies to do this work because it's hard work. You know there's a lot of metrics so right now about 63% of the population in the US is Caucasian. But when you look ahead even to 2025. The statistics show that 37% of the our entire population will be made up of minorities who are working age. So that's a huge part of our workforce and then in 2025 millennials will be 75% of the working population. And of millennials 56% are white. So you have a much a faster growing racially diverse ethnically diverse population. Why are companies yet still reticent to dive into this work when it is their workforce what do you see as some of the biggest barriers that we're facing. Yeah, well and I'll also call out it's not just their workforce it's also their consumer base. So you've got this consumer base that you need to be responsive to and attuned to. But I think the hardest thing is probably, you know, like they say admitting you have a problem. A lot of people a lot of companies came out with wonderful statements over the summer right when George Floyd was murdered and became this national conversation around race. You have companies writing checks and making statements. And all of it was very externally facing right it was we condemn racist violence we are writing this check to XYZ, but not turning around and doing that internal work and saying, What's our role right what role are we playing in the holding white supremacy. That's a really hard question to get people to sit around in a conference table and really grapple with. And so it's a lot easier to just say we wrote a check to the ACP and like we did the job, you know, we did the work. So I think it's just having those conversations admitting you have a problem. And I do you think because what I've seen over the last at least 10 years is this need to prove ROI, you know, and if we're talking about companies and we're talking about corporations, I get it that's a reality. Yet McKenzie and others who are respectable researchers have come out with data that says, for example, for every 10% increase in racial and ethnic diversity on your senior leadership team. You see a point a per 8% rise in EBITDA and earnings before interest in taxes. And that companies in companies and comparable industries who have racially diverse staffs. Okay, my Siri is talking or you're hearing this I hope not. This is like the joy of the technology space I've all of a sudden got Siri in my ear thinking I'm talking to her. Sorry about that. But what you also see is that companies that have about have that have racially diverse employee bases have a 35% better financial outputs revenues and so we know that there's a monetary connection. We know that there is a population and as you said product I was hearing one of the women from Wikipedia, who talks a lot about that Wikipedia is largely written by European white males. And so how does that impact our understanding of the world when it's used globally as an information source. And she was also saying that ear pods. Oh, yeah. It's amazing. The ear pods were basically designed by white men and she asked the women in the room, she said of the black women in the room how many of you do the ear pods not fit in your ear, and almost all of them raised their hand they said that's because none of them were involved in designing them. Physiologically, like we have genetic disposition of smaller ear cavities and I was like, Oh my gosh, this makes perfect sense. We have all that so then what what is stopping companies what's the barrier. It's still at the end of the day I think it's the level of discomfort. And it's and it goes both ways right so let's say you are the one black woman on the product design team at Apple who, you know, you're invited to the room right and you might be there but do you feel comfortable have they created a space where you feel guys, we haven't tested everyone. So I think that's the, and then even getting there right that's a step and then there's the uncomfortableness of having having, you know, inclusive interviews, getting to the point where people of color want to accept an offer and want to say at your company and share their voice so it's, there's a lot of just uncomfortable uncomfortableness and comfortability that we have to work through. And I think that's why even when you know that this is going to be financially successful this is going to hit your bottom line in a good way. It's still hard to do that work. It's still hard for a lot of people. And then, you know, once they get past that and we can, you know, get into like tactics. You're not just going to wake up and decide I want more black people at my company and then like Hallelujah they all started flying. You have to go out and find them after court then you have to make an employer brand that is welcoming you've got to create an inclusive interview process right it goes the whole employee life cycle as we call it in people operations. And I found this quote, which was comfort is the enemy of progress. And it was actually by PT Barnum who Barnum and Bailey Circus which I thought was fantastic, who was apparently a very big activist as well so but but it's that idea of uncomfortableness that is so hard for so many of us. And, look, the reality is a lot of what we're working with and against is been a predominantly white executive team a predominantly male executive team at companies. So how would you and what would you recommend to especially those white people who are the leaders on how to engage in this process specifically around race because we've decided we've got to kind of separate gender race all you know sexual orientation all of these different diversity metrics. Yeah, I think like any behavioral change one of the most effective ways to actually affect that change is to set an intention and make it public right hold yourself accountable. So, you know if you're trying to lose weight you might tell your family, I'm not eating ice cream anymore and I'm going to cut 20 pounds, or whatever it is. And if you look at behavioral science, that's a good way to help people hold themselves accountable and actually hit that goal. So similarly in the workplace. I love when companies are able to look at where they are. Set a stretch goal just like you're setting right like it's 2021 a lot of us were probably just in strategic planning for the year. We're setting goals around subscriber counts around, you know whatever matters to us in our company. We're setting these goals. Similarly, set goals around. We have 10 openings this year we want to fill them with at least you know whatever city we're in representation right we want to fill them with three black people we want to fill them with five people of color we want to fill them with seven people whatever it is set that goal and share it with the company so hold yourself accountable. That's the first step and then you've got that pressure that you put on yourself to work backwards and to and to solve it right. So then there's all I mean and it is work right, but you can kind of reverse engineer from there. So how do you avoid tokenism. Yeah, so when you tell a senior team, we're going to hire X number of women or we're going to hire X number of people of color, and that you don't create a culture where well they're just hired because. Well, I'm not so tough, because sometimes there is that sense where, especially with current employees, for example, in the tech world, in the startup world, there's a big premium on employee referrals and you'll get referrals and this has come under a bit of scrutiny because when you see a company start and it started by a white guy because you know issues around who's getting funding for their startups and he hires his friends because he can't pay them but they trust him and they trust his idea and you know they were college buddies. So now it's four white guys and then you know they need to hire their fifth and that their temp hires and they hire their friends right so you can see how that happens.  Anyway, long story short that people do get upset when their friends don't get hired and when a woman gets hired instead or personal color gets hired instead. To my mind, I don't I think it's more a boogeyman.  And do you know what I mean like they're not just hiring a woman just like check a box, because at the end of the day it's also their team and their team's performance. So it's more the perception. And so how can you get around that perception that this person wasn't just hired to fit a quota. And that's about communications right that's your skill. That's where Marjorie comes in. So the companies that you see that are already diving into this work. What are you seeing that's working. And where are you what are some of the pitfalls that you would caution companies against in doing specifically racial equity work. Yeah, so I think the companies that are doing it. Most effectively, they're focusing first on building an inclusive culture. So they're doing the work and they're looking at, okay, what are our policies, what are our, you know, what are the institutional barriers that are keeping us from bringing more people of color into the company. And so they start evaluating things like, do we really need a college degree to for this role, right a lot of companies have started to take away that requirement because they realized it's not actually necessary for success in the role. And moreover, it serves as a barrier to people of color in particular who for various reasons are less likely to complete college. The companies that are trying but not doing it well are the ones that are focusing on recruiting first. So they're saying like, let's just recruit as many you know let's show up at all the historically black colleges and like, get give everyone exciting material and recruit them, and not really thinking about okay now that we've gotten them in the door, how are we going to engage them. That's a really important point you just made, because I think a lot of companies they start with the diversity goal, we're going to get everybody in the door. Yeah, and then they realize that diversity and inclusion are two very different things so real quick define the difference between diversity and inclusion for us. So diversity is really just your numbers, your demographic data your representation, what percent of the company is black Asian Hispanic white what percent men and women. Inclusion is deeper, it's do these people once they're here do they feel included do people feel like they can speak up that they can report bad behavior that their ideas are valued. So that's really inclusion I heard this great, and you know, a lot of people have probably heard it. This kind of analogy that diversity is being invited to the dance, and inclusion is being asked to dance right so you're not just standing on the wall, you know, filling your thumbs. And then equity, which is the next buzzword that's been introduced in the past few years is actually being asked to pick some of the playlist. So I think that's a good way to think through, you know, we might be inviting people into our company. So are we letting them choose the playlist sometimes. Well, and that's where when you talk about even how do you, how do you scan your environment to know what barriers are. And I think the challenge is if you are not a person of color if you're not a female, it's hard without lived experience to know what a lot of those things are. It doesn't make it wrong that you don't just inherently know, but it's where having that at a leadership level, or consulting level or whatever level you need to start at someone who's got those eyes and that experience to know. Okay, that's where there's a barrier. Right. Yeah, well, and not just to, you know, plug not lead died, because we do. But I think it's really important to use outside help. So often companies will lean on the few people of color that they already have, or the few women that they already have. And those people might be passionate about the work as well right they want to help build the culture they have obvious personal investment in building a more inclusive culture. But they also have full time jobs. And they're held to different standards. And so many people have been burned out by being asked to be on their, you know, companies new diversity and inclusion committee, and not getting compensated or recognized for that. And because of that, I do think companies just need to bring in external help a lot of the time. And I think also in that space, you know, having worked as a consultant myself, people will share things with you that they won't feel safe necessarily saying internally. For sure. And they kind of need that space right. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of good reasons to bring in a third party. And even if it's just, there's also third party tools out there. And I think the way that mine started it's kind of like a virtual ombudsman where you can it is that it's like an anonymous third party, where you can say like hey this happened I think it's kind of weird and get a little bit of support. There's so there's tools if you know, you can find something that will fit your budget if you care about this you'll make the budget.  Well, and how would you recommend because again one of the things I see as a pitfall of companies is DEI is more of a PR activity than it is an actual function. You know, make us look great about diversity, but at the same time, that looks really expensive or really hard to tackle so we're just going to, you know, skirt around it. You know, things like training things like a lot, you know, the some of these brass tacks, we're seeing mixed results on right. In fact, even on training, you know, when you have people I'm seeing companies that have been have bringing in facility are using sorry their own employees as facilitators on conversations around race and gender and without, frankly, training on how to manage a room and how to have that conversation a productive way. I've seen it be more damaging than helpful. Yeah, so how would you recommend companies, you know, what awareness should they have again about entering the space because we don't want to scare them off but at the same time, feel safe putting your toes in the water. Yeah, I think that goes back to like you can't just ask your employees to do things just because they represent, you know, an underrepresented group. Because they don't right there ever since themselves and they might say something off the wall they haven't built a career profession out of this type of work. So I think that my advice is just find like find the budget. There are so many even here in Austin there's so many great consultants. There are people who can come in and just do like even like one hour like quick deep dive. Like start like do the work and try I also had a friend who's head of HR to come to me here and she brought in consultants and it just did not vibe right with their company culture for whatever reason. Don't give up. Probably set expectations at the outset that this will be uncomfortable work we will fail, just like anything else we do not 100% of our products. We instantly achieve product market fit not 100% of our marketing efforts instantly you know hit the goals we set for them. We don't give up right. So I think setting those expectations as well that there will be misses in this work just like in any other work that a company is committed to doing. I think the plug courageous conversations which the LBJ library helps facilitate with leadership Austin, because I think as a starting point. It's at least for the leadership, getting to a place where they can understand and feel comfortable having the conversation about race, because I think setting that intention and just the sheer nervousness I see people carry into the room tells them tells everybody around them how they feel about it. And I think that, you know, also making it clear, kind of like we did at the beginning, you know, we're going to say stuff you can say it however you need to say it, and know that the intent is good, but that we can also be in a place where we're willing to say, you know that didn't feel good to me the way you said that and let me help you understand why and accept that feedback in a way that allows us to do it differently. And, you know, I've seen this in rooms for example where people say well I kind of see myself as colorblind so this isn't really a thing for me this is super common right. And, you know, Kelly what does that feel like to you when someone says that it's it's invalidating right it's it's offensive.  I'm actually biracial, but I live my life as the black person. And I think that when people say they don't see race it's saying the things that are my lived experience right. A quick little anecdote I was at a farmers market once with two white friends and we were like waiting to get like a sample of something and the person there just would not look at me would not give me a sample. And, not neither of my two friends did not notice it. And I was like, guys that was so weird and they were like no way that didn't happen. I'm like that literally just happened. So anyway obviously I'm getting emotional and passionate about it. But yeah when people say they're colorblind it's like, it's not, it's not real. People's color don't have the ability to pretend that color doesn't exist. And why do you think white people say that. It's a it's a goal right it's ideal that would be a wonderful world. Right, that's, you know, in all case I have a dream right like, it's just not we're not there yet. But it's also it's also saying that there is a value attribute attributed to certain colors right. Oh yeah, so it right it's because we could say like red hair or black hair or brown hair. And colorblind would mean they're all equally wonderful. But to say I'm, you know, no no I don't see any of it is is kind of removing the value or saying that there's a rank and file right. That's a really I think so these kinds of conversations are what people are afraid of having in a workplace. And that's where I think, especially with light white leadership to sort of own that hey I'm uncomfortable. And I just I really want to do this well. And so, you know, help me help me understand if there are things I say that don't feel right, or help me recognize the things that are my blind spots. You know, and by the way this is like a journey we're on lifelong because you know we've all been raised in the environments we've been raised in. And it doesn't make us bad or good to come from where we come from. It's all about trying to be better. Yeah, and going back to courageous conversations. You know you said help me. And I'm like, I think there's also help yourself right. One of the things we do at Motley is we cover all of our employees if they want to take courageous conversations, we cover the cost. And I think leadership Boston also has scholarships and people need to. But it's just like make that time go through that training it's really powerful. Or whatever you can do to educate yourself. Do it right like take that step. And I think that's going to it's a signal and it's also an action. That's awesome. Yes, not least doing great work I can I can also help endorse that because they're they're a great go to. So I want to I want to dive into some questions and so I want to encourage anyone who wants to send questions and and we will try to get to everything we can. And so I'm going to just dive on in. Okay, so we got another question about how do you balance a desire to be diverse with a desire to hire well qualified individuals. So what do you talk and talk about the Rooney rule do you just in case people don't understand that was when the NFL sort of was seeking to hire some black coaches. And they basically committed that they would have was at least one or two resumes of black coaches I can't remember exactly. They would at least interview one coach of color. Right, and that did actually move the needle they started they did hire, and then it went back and it's not been effective yeah. Okay, because what happened is it became tokenism. So and because these a lot of these interviews are public anyway I won't get into the NFL. But people were like, Why did you interview this person and they're clearly not qualified you're just you're literally checking a box. I'm happy with the Rooney rule. I kind of I went up that question because that question and that's one of those questions that I'm glad the person asked it and it's important to ask these questions. But as a very qualified person of color and woman, I'm like, why the kind of the assumption and that question is that the two are mutually explicit. Or that there's some like, you know, golf that you have to cross to get top talent versus talent of color. Really, it's about companies doing the work top talent is out there. They're just not at companies that aren't embracing them. You'll see some companies it's really funny and particularly women engineering. Like at like at FabFitFun, which is a company I led people operations for several years ago, we had like 80% women on our engineering team. And we jokes were like stealing all of the female engineering talent in LA, because once they saw a few of us, they all wanted to go and so we had our pick of the litter we had, we could choose the most top talent out there because we got so many people wanted to be part of that culture. And so I think if you create a culture where people want to be at and where they know that they can thrive and be successful, you are going to be getting all the black people who went to Harvard, Yale, whatever like whatever barometer of talent you want to say, they'll be applying and if you don't, you're not going to get that right so I think there's not that golf between top talent in person of color it's is your company place where talented people of color of which there are many want to work. I mean a lot of that's a communications function right of communicating those values throughout the company so that there isn't that question of well then why is this person here right. So then on that front what would you what advice would you have for an early very early stage company in this case, looking specifically to hire diverse leaders for key roles including co founders even. Yeah, I think one of the things.  There are a lot of great recruiters out there. I just connected with an organization called culture shift, and they've got a database of amazing talent, black talent in particular at the senior level and but you're going to have to pay right like they've spent time building those networks in that relationship that you know if you're really committed to it then you hire a headhunter and headhunter will find that like those people are out there. You've got to put in the time or and or the money to find them and startups can do that I think for startups if you can't hire a headhunter. Get out there right like there's different here in Austin where there's amazing talent, people who might be interested in very well qualified to become a co founder. You know, get on different Reddit boards or Facebook groups or we know wherever like put yourself out there. There's email list there's a wealth of opportunities to access talent if you're looking for it. If you're just like, I opened my Rolodex and my LinkedIn page and there's no one black to hire like I guess I'm going to give up and you're not going to find talent. Because we because we naturally gravitate towards people like us in different ways right now so that's a normal thing I think there's sort of this feeling of like oh it's that bad but you know you and I connect on a lot of different things we have in common and but you know we also are gravitate towards people like us and from our yeah schools. So when you witness racism or misogyny in a company. How do you point it out when you have not said anything before you say something. You don't I think a lot of people are they think they have to have an identity as you know I'm someone who says something like I'm the rabble rouser I'm the person who stirs the pot. A lot of times in companies you'll have you know I'll go into companies and they'll say oh so and so is the one who like will give that message to HR and like why won't you give that message to HR like why is it so and so job. And it's because so and so is our always done it right and so I think when you're in that place of fear of like, I'm not the one who usually speaks up. I want to speak up but that's not who I am. I want to really step into that uncomfortable feeling and and become that person right and everyone had the first time they said something against racism or misogyny maybe it was in second grade maybe it was when they were 42 years old. But everyone's got like, you have to have your first time of being an actual ally and actual advocate.  Another one of my friends actually I'll share this she she had someone send her for some reason right I can remember what it was, but her and other colleagues heard it. And she later she goes back to her desk and a few other colleagues who were there were like that was so messed up I'm so sorry that happened to you. I'm more upset with them because she was like, why didn't you say that in public to this person while it was happening why did you let this happen to me. And so I get that there's a lot of people who think they're being allies by like, going and comforting someone after something that has happened but really, if you can have that confidence and put confidence in the chat. If you can have that confidence to say it in the moment it's so much more powerful. So what would you recommend for government agencies or nonprofits or people that just do not have the budgets to say hire an outside consultant what would you recommend they do to optimize this work within. Yeah, so that's just going to take more time. You become your own recruiter right. Look at, you know, top of mind to me was, there's linked in groups we've got a group here I think it's like young nonprofit professionals or something. There's linked in group and stalk right look okay here's women who have the experience I'm looking for his people colored have the experience I'm looking for direct message them right like reach out and say hey, we're trying to be intentional about building a more diverse company we've got this role of it and it looks like from your profile you'd be you'd excel in this role. We'd love to have you apply. Like that's a way to be honest and not like hide the ball like I don't want them to know like you can be honest and say we're trying to build a more diverse culture and just hit them up like people have definitely hit me up on LinkedIn with the things like that. And it's, it's welcome. Yeah. And then how would you recommend companies that have denied task force and actually hear this a lot it's that how do you keep the momentum going. People get frustrated and this is hard work and it takes time. So what would you recommend organizations do to kind of keep that energy going. I think again, it's back to anything else that we're doing when we're setting a goal as a company you break it down into quarterly goals you have, you know, maybe weekly meetings where you're holding yourself accountable. We, we just set some goals for 2021 at Nolly, we've been set it down and what are we going to do this quarter what are okay ours and we all matter objectives and key results. And then each week, we publicly say where have we gotten with that and actually today when I with our stand up on Slack, we say what we're going to do to hit that goal. And so I think that's the way you can capture small wins. You can stay on top of you know if something's getting into like the orange right and it's not likely to be achieved in the time frame that you set you can be aware of it. Rather than saying you know at the beginning of the year, our diversity tax force going to increase our recruitment of black professionals by 50%. And then like you have a black history month lunch and learn and then like December rolls around and you didn't do it. But it's but to your point it's celebrating the benchmarks and setting reasonable benchmarks so that you actually get there versus it feeling, you know, overwhelming. For sure. Yeah. And that's again that's like within you okay right you're not going to say like, we're launching this new feature and we're going to get like 100 net promoter score within the first month right. Whatever goal you're setting you're going to be you're going to have a stretchable but you're going to be reasonable about it. I got one that said I've tried to have conversations on race at work, but I've been told not to bring politics into work. I'm struggling with how to deal with this. Because I will try to not get political. The last administration that was very much, you know, intertwined right. We had some, I forget who it was here but like someone who was involved with our state elections who said, wearing a black lives matter shirt to a voting location. Is electioneering. That was in the cycle it was told you were not yet we were not allowed to. Yeah. And it's like, since when does this statement about race and racial justice turn into a democrat republican electioneering for a certain candidate or another statement. Right you can wear, you know, save the rainforest, and no one's going to say you're electioneering I don't think. So it is tough, I think it can, you know, depending on the conversation that can be are into, you know, Trump and the coup and the Confederate flags and right like and it can kind of devolve into that. I think as best as you can have a goal when you're entering those conversations what's your goal when you're coming to the workplace and you're going to talk about race.  What's your goal and having this conversation and be transparent about that goal so when the conversation starts to veer into whatever's going on in the news. You can bring it back and you can say like hey like we're not talking about why they were holding Confederate flags right we're talking about how we can attract more black talent to our company. Yeah, I and I think even starting with a question about help me understand what feels political about valuing racial diversity in the company and and kind of going through that curious process. And as you said sort of framing it as well let's think about this in terms of values of the company and then what we're trying to accomplish as an organization and what does that mean for our hiring what does it mean for our product what does it mean for our innovation because we know diverse companies are almost two times more innovative than non diverse ethnically and racially diverse companies so getting good ones and okay so our company is currently putting all leaders and board members through beyond diversity training. What is important to do internally in our company out after we've exposed them to this conversation and the work so just for those on the call who haven't attended it as a training it's really more of an experience and an awareness activity it is I mean it's absolutely wonderful it's transformative. And a lot of it is about learning how to own and understand our own race story in the context of others and how to enter those conversations. So Kelly, what would you recommend people do coming out of that. I mean first off, commend them for having their executives go through that program. You know it is two days like that that's a commitment. So it's really great that they're doing that. Next step just like I advise for companies that aren't going through that set goals, you've got to hold yourself publicly accountable. Otherwise it's just too easy for it to slip through the cracks. So I would say they come back. Let's have a check in one week later to say what are our goals like knowing what we know now. Where can we improve our company. What goals we want to see in 2021 who's going to own what and get into the tactics. And I think also even creating a space for people who've been through it to have a conversation coming out of it. Because there's a lot of processing right and being able to process in that way. Creates I think an appropriate intimacy or understanding or shared understanding and a shared language even because I think that's the other hard thing is we all come into this. With very different levels of comfortability and also different language about how we talk about things and to your point am I allowed to say black or is it African American or which thing am I supposed to say and then people just go that person. So it creates this panic and there's got to be like some levity right there's got to be permission to kind of get it wrong and have that again shared shared goal and understanding. This is a question about the gaps and educational attainment tied to socioeconomic status and race. Can you talk about the responsibilities you see for corporations and businesses to provide early experiences for young people of color. And who are still in the education process and maybe who their parents are not professional workers you know this is something I get fired up about. Yeah well I mean you can go. I've got I've got thoughts. I think that is one of the best ways to recruit diverse talent, and it's not just the long game. When you engage with a company as an organization like code to college for example here in Austin, you're engaging with high school students from underrepresented backgrounds. They're not realistically going to get a job and be a full time employee for another five, six years. But what it signals to the rest of the community is that you're a company that cares. While me as a person of color I see you're involved I'm you know, mid senior level in my career. I want to get involved with your company I want to learn more about what you're doing. So I think that's actually it's kind of selfish almost right. It's like we can do something good and then also benefit like we're not just giving to these organizations that are helping underrepresented students get into college or get through college. But we're also building our employer brand so that we can attract the top talent so that the top talent can be begging us for a job right like sending their resumes sending their friends to us. So, so I think it's, you know, it's a really smart tactic. I'd also challenge companies to think about how in the recruiting process they look at resumes. Oh, because there are tons of first generation college students which are disproportionately people of color, who are working three jobs while putting themselves through school, and you know, volunteering at a nonprofit on the side, and who would be an incredible employee but don't maybe have the you know I had the Deloitte, you know, internship for three years before then coming in and I think that reimagining and thinking about how you look at pipeline matters. Yeah, I'm Marjorie I'm like, so they asked employers who are coming to recruit if they would like to select a few resumes right instead of going through 600 underground resumes, go through these 20 tell us which ones you like and which ones you don't like, and we will curate the best 50 resumes for you. Right so that's the setup. And they that they aren't real resumes. In fact, they are fake resumes they've got gendered names, so traditionally male or female names, and they've got racialized names. So names like Jamal versus John, right where you're not sure right picture necessarily but you can imply that this is a black person and maybe this is white person. Even with that the and even with companies saying we are looking to hire more diverse talent. There was by and this was like two years ago, there was bias. They did not want Jamal even when Jamal had a higher GPA. They didn't want the woman even they were they ranked the woman less even when she had a higher GPA. I like find it and sharing like sure. Oh yeah and this is great for companies that have not done this there is the implicit association test that was run out of Harvard, Marzi Benaji. And she does a ton of work with the larger consultancies, but it's under this idea of we all come with implicit bias. This is part of that journey you go through and courageous conversations but this acceptance and understanding that that doesn't make us evil it makes us human. And whether it's about the gap in someone's teeth or the shape of their nose or you know all different kinds of things that play into our bias. It does impact the way we look at a resume or how we you know give salaries and and by the way like this is even just on the gender standard stand front. You see women giving other women lower salaries than give men when they're in that same blind selection process where they only see you know the name. And so that just makes us human and so overcoming that by being aware. And then saying, I know I've got this so I need to look more closely at how I think about this hiring or I think about the salary I think about this promotion is what matters. Another question come in about companies that are wanting to move more people of color into leadership but see little attrition of their white leadership. And so they're just aren't the the spots at a given moment what would you recommend they do. That's tough. That's real. But I think they also need to put in the work now and build those networks, a company like that. They're worried about like, you know, persistence in the leadership ranks. They're probably more established they've got the financial resources to to go out late like engage with headhunters or recruiters and start building those relationships kind of build that funnel of people so that when you know the CMO decides to retire the CTO finally does decide to retire go to a different company. You can certainly have a relationship, and you can plug someone in.  Send them an article like I saw this article and thought of you, right, you are courting them so that when the time does come, you can fill them and you're not, you know, stuck at a loss because your CTO just gave you, you know, four weeks notice and now you need to back them. So that would be my advice for companies in that position, which is common. Well, and also to think about things like board positions, you know, there's different kinds of leadership at companies beyond just, you know, your senior team, or even, you know, springing in senior advisors or to your point like how do you create the pipeline so what who your number twos that then move into those legacy positions. So another question how can we as a society begin to put private companies public agencies and nonprofits on notice to be transparent about the pay and promotion inequities between genders and begin to close the economic gaps that persist and I would say this is about race to because we know that black women and Latino Latino women get paid less than white women who get paid less than white men. Yeah, I think Marjorie and I might have giggled because we're working on something to help with that. I think there is space for a platform that does provide that transparency and that honesty and public accountability. And I think it really doesn't exist right now but a lot of times that public pressures was actually going to move the needle. And so, you know, maybe in a year will fill you in. Yeah, that's right to TVD. But, you know, but there is an under reporting. You know, there is not a lot of transparency and part of that reason is that companies are. Again, there's that accountability piece you said which is why I think even if a company can say, we're going to hold ourselves accountable with our internal teams by saying we're going to commit to this it doesn't mean you have to you know put it on the cover of the New York Times but we'd be thrilled if you wanted to, but just to hold yourselves accountable for that movement. So I had an interesting question come in so this is from a black man who isn't a predominantly white industry specifically oil and gas. And he's responsible for hiring and his strategy has always been to hire the most qualified person regardless of race gender or sexual orientation and opening up that process to include more diverse candidates is difficult in oil and gas. So how would you seek to improve diversity under these circumstances. Yeah, well I would do the same thing that we recommended earlier with working at the high school and college level. There must be majors that I'm not familiar with the oil and gas industry to be honest. But there must be majors right and bio chemical engineering that you are looking at. And from there, there must be student groups right you've got Nezvi National Society of black engineers. Are you engaging with Nezvi. Are you sponsoring their their events. Are you sponsoring scholarships for them. Are you putting your name out there, so that when people do scroll through LinkedIn and they see your company. They're not just going to keep scrolling they're going to say, Oh, I saw them at Nezvi. Oh I talked to one of their recruiters that the last conference I was at. They've got that kind of name brand with those organizations that already exist. And so it might take money, you know, sponsorships or scholarships, but it's going to help you reach the this candidate. There's also, you know, a lot of people want to say well, you know, I'll use round numbers, you know, let's say UT graduates 100 computer science grads a year, and only 20 of them are women. How can we ever have more than 20% of our company be 20% of our engineering to be women. If these are the numbers like this is the pool. And I'm like, Well, why can't you have all 20 of them right like, why not right that's what we did at fun we had half of the women engineers in LA probably works for us right and so there's other companies that are struggling but why can't your companies have all of the black talent in the oil and gas industry. There might there might be less talent there because whatever reason they didn't go into that industry, but they exist they're there, there's nothing saying that your company can't capture them excite them and engage them and promote them. Here's the other thing I just wanted to flag we've been I've been getting a lot of questions about who to work with in town on DEI consulting and also on the recruiting front. So maybe we could think of a way to get a resource to our attendees you're going to get a three points or is it Kelly's to Kelly's three recommendations for organizations to look at and be thinking about when you're doing this work. Kelly is there any one place you could say to go to kind of know who who's doing this in town. One place there's like some, you know, just unofficial groups of DEI consultants that get together and you know trade notes. But I can't I'd be happy to share in. I think we will send like an email out after. Okay, so we'll send some resources. Yeah, and I'm sorry for the questions we did not get to Kelly now have to do like an after hours like we're here all night answering questions and talking about this issue. But I will say we're very grateful for everyone who has taken the time. And your being here is a really important first step is just really entering the conversation participating in it. Anything either of us can do to support any of you feel free to reach out to LBJ or to us directly and thank you thank you thank you for being here tonight and participating in this whole series with LBJ it's a really awesome thing that's happening. Kelly thank you. First thank you.