Please share a bit of your background, and specifically the founding story of your company.

I am the CEO and co-founder of Jopwell, the leading career advancement platform for Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals. Jopwell was born when my co-founder, Ryan Williams, and I were working in finance. In addition to our day-to-day jobs on the trading floor, we were often asked to support diversity recruiting efforts at our company. Ryan and I saw a disconnect; in finance, and across other industries, recruiting and hiring teams said they didn't know how to reach communities of color, which created a concerning absence of a clear hiring pipeline. We knew there had to be a way to attract diverse talent at scale. So, we left Wall Street to build Jopwell. Jopwell has facilitated tens of thousands of connections between our community and over 300 partner organizations, including Spotify, UBS, and the PGA.

What comes to mind regarding things that organizations often get wrong about their diversity initiatives, and that ultimately lead to a lack of diversity?

Organizations often make diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives the responsibility of one person or one team, and it shouldn't be. For diversity initiatives to be successful, leaders within the organization need to play an active role and set the tone for company-wide participation and support. Organizations recognize they have challenges pertaining to DE&I, but they often don't invest the time to understand those challenges or their roots. By skipping the diagnostic phase, organizations will struggle to make long-lasting change and will instead have temporary success only to be back at square one down the line. Building a diverse company requires intentionality and support from the entire organization. It's important for an organization to commit to DE&I as a priority, and to setting goals, finding the right resources (both internal and external partners), and being transparent about the progress being made.

Do you have suggestions for useful actions a leader can take to improve DE&I in their company?

Here are a few steps leaders can take:

Define diversity and why it matters. Always start with the “why” to help bring people along. It shouldn't be assumed that everyone appreciates the importance of diverse perspectives and backgrounds, so it's up to leaders to articulate why it matters to the organization. Once leaders have articulated the why, communicate it to the full team so everyone is aware of the organization's stance and commitment.

In tandem with this, clearly articulate what diversity means to the organization. Being able to clearly define the pain points the organization experiences and the groups of individuals that require better representation is a critical first step in an organization's diversity, equity, and inclusion journey.

Once the why and the what are clear, an organization can work to collect metrics and feedback to provide a starting point for their DE&I journey. After the baseline is developed, then leaders should map out milestones, goals, and timelines for diversity efforts based on the desires of leadership and the overall team. During this phase, it's important to set timelines and to be transparent to hold the organization and leadership accountable.

There is still a pervasive perception that diversity is a pipeline problem. What are your thoughts about scaling talent pipelines for under-represented groups?

Ryan and I set out to create Jopwell to specifically tackle the “pipeline” problem. Jopwell is in its fifth year and we have facilitated tens of thousands of connections between our members and our partners—proving that the talent DOES exist—and in very large numbers across all sectors and experience levels. Organizations need to invest time and resources to prove their commitment to DE&I and to create a culture that supports their initiatives. This will allow organizations to authentically connect and engage with diverse talent, which will make them an employer of choice for communities of color, subsequently scaling talent pipelines.