Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox

Three months ago, we brought you "Ask a Black Guy / Ask a White Guy", where we asked some uncomfortable questions on race relations in the United States. Obviously things have changed quite a bit since then with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. So we brought our guests back (Donald Thompson, CEO of Walk West and Grant Williard, CEO of JouleBug ) for round 2....

Donald Thompson, host of Season 1 of Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox, and CEO of The Diversity Movement, has his own podcast (the Donald Thompson Podcast) where he talks to leaders in the North Carolina business community.  Today we share a recent episode where he had the opportunity to talk to Gary Salamido, CEO of the NC Chamber , who had critical questions for Donald about The Diversity Movement...

Mike Vaggalis founded Keepsake Tales , a company that creates entirely personalized children's books because he saw that the majority of the world's children were discouragingly underrepresented in the stories that they read, and he wanted to give them an opportunity to see themselves as the heroes. Diversity Beyond the Checkbox is presented by The Diversity Movement and hosted by Jackie Ferguson....

Julie Kratz is an acclaimed leadership trainer, TEDx speaker, podcast host, executive coach, author, and founder of Next Pivot Point. Julie is passionate about promoting gender equality within the workplace, empowering women to express confidence and helping them build a winning career game plan and pivot to the next level. Lead Like an Ally , by Julie Kratz NextPivotPoint.com Julie's TED talk, "W...

Bernadette Smith is CEO of Equality Institute whose mission is to help organizations win bigger by treating workers and clients with dignity and respect. Bernadette has been featured on the Today Show, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and National Public Radio.  She is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, thought leader and consultant and an award winning author of three books, with her f...

Jackie Ferguson is the Director of Multicultural Programming at Walk West and instrumental to the development of The Diversity Movement . She comes on to talk about her path to leadership, the mission of The Diversity Movement, why it's so important to her personally, and what the Diversity Beyond the Checkbox course is all about. Diversity Beyond the Checkbox is presented by The Diversity Movemen...

This is our second episode in our special “Ask a…” series - “Ask a Straight Guy and Ask Two Queer Women of Color”. In this series, we ask uncomfortable questions around all types of diversity and initiate courageous conversations that allow us to break down barriers and find aspects of connectivity as people. The straight guy is Jason Gillikin, CEO of Earfluence, and the two queer women of color a...

Danya Perry from the Raleigh Chamber and the Triangle Diversity Equity and Inclusion Alliance is such an inspiration and powerful force for Diversity and Inclusion in the Triangle community. And today we talk about what he’s doing at the Alliance, what individuals and businesses can do to make an impact in the community as well, courageous conversations, and why sometimes just listening to one ano...

Today we ask uncomfortable questions around all types of diversity and initiate courageous conversations that allow us to break down barriers and find aspects of connectivity as people. It’s our first episode in our “Ask a” series, where we ask some uncomfortable questions about race, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, and more. And today we have “Ask a Black Guy (Donald Thompson, CEO of Walk...

Most of the time when we talk about diversity, we think race, gender, and sexual orientation. But diversity goes way beyond the obvious. There’s diversity of thinking, diversity of backgrounds, diversity of current situation, diversity of ability or disability. I brought John Samuel on the show today to talk about diversity and inclusion on some of those things that aren’t quite so obvious. John i...

On the show today, we have two young professionals from NC State University who are focused on Diversity and Inclusion for the staff, its students, and for the students’ prospective employers. You'll hear how employers can attract - and KEEP - the best talent, the concept of "Fight, Flight, or Flow" when faced with an aggression, and how to get started with a diversity and inclusion program. Diver...

Carlos Alva, whose family immigrated from Peru when he was young, is now a Technology Consultant at Deloitte. Today he comes on to talk about what diversity means to him and what he’s seen in his short but impressive career, why he started the group Peruvians in Tech, the biggest challenges he has faced, and why employers should be focusing on diversity. Diversity Beyond the Checkbox is hosted by...

Manpreet Dhillon is a diversity and inclusion advocate and founder of Veza Strategy .  In the show today, Manpreet provides a vast knowledge of the D&I space including her thoughts on how leaders in organizations should start a D&I program, what she’s learned from consulting for the UN, and what books and articles we should all be reading if we want to learn more on diversity, which includ...

In the first episode of the Diversity Beyond the Checkbox Podcast, Dee McDougal, SVP of Diversity and Inclusion at Pacific Western Bank, talks to host Donald Thompson about Black Wall Street, the unconscious biases we all have, micro-behaviors and micro-aggressions, how marketing shapes the way we think about minorities, and why "Can I pick your brain?" is a horrible way to network. Diversity Beyo...