Prudential Financial: You May Not ‘Get’ D&I—But You Have To

Creating a culture of diversity and inclusion means including everyone—personally and professionally. That’s the mindset Prudential Financial leverages to create its business case for diversity, explained Michele C.Meyer-Shipp, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of Prudential Financial. “For all of us to succeed we have to be able to market our services to diverse communities,” she said. “You might not get it but you have to.”

Altria: Is Diversity a Zero-Sum Game for White Men?

Diversity and inclusion: What’s in it for white men? That’s the question you as a diversity leader need to answer if you’re going to gain buy-in from your white, male senior leaders, said Nancy Adams, Senior Manager, HR Client Services/Diversity/AAP of Altria. She noted that it’s important to shift the conversation away from race and gender toward discussions about how inclusion benefits white men. “But there’s always a small minority of people who just see the world as a zero-sum game,” she says, and the challenge is getting through to them.

Toyota: Attention Straight, White Men—Diversity Includes You Too

Toyota Financial Services’ diversity leaders work hard to get their D&I message out—and a big catalyst for that effort is visible commitment from the company’s senior executives, such as CEO George Borst, Toyota Financial Services. “I had a man come up to me and say he joined the women’s group because ‘I have three daughters and I would want them to have the opportunities they wouldn’t have had if they had grown up in my day,” recalled Stephen Lewis, Corporate Manager, Diversity and Inclusion, Toyota Financial Services.

Cox Communications: How to Begin Diversity Outreach to White Men?

“Everyone has something to share, something to learn from each other,” said Rhonda Taylor, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of Cox Communications. Taylor notes it starts with opening up the dialogue around our differences and creating an atmosphere that allows employees to ask the hard questions and share their personal stories to make a connection.

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“Success requires more innovative problem solving, and more innovative problem solving demands diversity and inclusion,” Shi said. Watch clips from his presentation below. Or you can view the full presentation from Toyota and download the slides at DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

Stephen Howard, Corporate Manager of Debt and Derivatives, Toyota Financial Services, shared how Toyota’s Treasury Department uses the diverse backgrounds and thoughts of its team and its suppliers to generate  significant business results.

“Working together with MWBEs is a sustainable platform. It’s good for business. It improves our ever-changing national demographic for the better,” Howard said. Watch clips from his presentation below. Or you can view the full presentation from Toyota and download the slides at DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

Toyota Motor North America is No. 41 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.

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Michele C. Meyer-Shipp
Michele C. Meyer-Shipp has been named vice president and chief diversity officer of Prudential Financial, succeeding Emilio Egea, who retired. In her new role, Meyer-Shipp is responsible for leading and directing all diversity-and-inclusion initiatives for the company, and for ensuring ongoing compliance with federal and state equal employment opportunity/affirmative action laws and requirements. Prudential is No. 9 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity.

Meyer-Shipp joined Prudential in April 2010 as vice president and counsel in the Employment and Labor Law group. She has also been general counsel for the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, vice president and diversity manager in Merrill Lynch’s Global Wealth Management division, and director of the state of New Jersey’s Division of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action. Prior to that, she was a practicing attorney.

Meyer-Shipp is an active member of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, Corporate Counsel Women of Color and the National Employment Law Council. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Rutgers School of Criminal Justice and her juris doctor at Seton Hall University School of Law.

R. Fenimore Fisher
R. Fenimore Fisher has been named a deputy commissioner and the chief diversity and EEO officer for the City of New York. He is responsible for the leadership of the Office of Citywide Diversity and Equal Employment Opportunity, and will design and implement strategies to position the city as a world-class leader in diversity and inclusion. Prior to his appointment, Fisher was managing partner of the R. Fenimore Fisher Group, a global D&I and alternative dispute-resolution firm. Fisher previously served as vice president of diversity initiatives and analysis for Walmart and as executive director of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s Wall Street Project.

A member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, Fisher serves on the national leadership council for GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) as well as the corporate advisory council for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Fisher holds a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University, a Juris Doctor from Ohio Northern University and a labor-mediation certification from Cornell University.

Jennifer “Jae” Pi’ilani Requiro
Jennifer “Jae” Pi’ilani Requiro has been named national manager of diversity and inclusion at Toyota Financial Services. Her responsibilities include diversity-and-inclusion education and executive scorecards, mentoring and Toyota Business Partnering Groups. She also develops strategies to increase market share, capture more multicultural customers and increase partnerships with diverse suppliers. Requiro has a bachelor’s degree from UCLA.

Barbara Frankel
Barbara Frankel, senior vice president and executive editor of DiversityInc, has been named to the newly established global advisory board for WEConnect International, a corporate-led nonprofit that facilitates sustainable economic growth by empowering and connecting women business owners globally. Others named to the 22-person board include Kathleen Matthews, executive vice president and chief global communications and public affairs officer, Marriott International; Julie Oyegun, chief diversity officer, the World Bank Group; and Catherine Rodgers, vice president, Global Opportunties and Business Development, IBM.

Margaret E. Burke
Margaret E. Burke has been admitted into PricewaterhouseCoopers’ partnership. In her ongoing role as U.S. Advisory human-capital leader, Burke oversees the strategic development, direction and implementation of the Advisory practice’s recruitment, development, talent management, rewards and retention programs. Burke holds a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College. PricewaterhouseCoopers is No. 1 in the DiversityInc Top 50.

Tracy Nolan and Pushpendu Pal
CVS Caremark has appointed Tracy Nolan and Pushpendu Pal to new positions, Nolan to vice president of strategic product delivery and Pal to senior vice president of the information technology division within the company’s prescription benefit management (PBM) business. Nolan, who comes to CVS from WellPoint, is responsible for operationally expanding flagship product offerings and for newly developed products and programs. Pal’s promotion is a reflection of his work in leading the division in delivering stable and robust internal-application services and deploying information technology.

Terrez Thompson
The Coca-Cola Company has promoted Terrez Thompson to vice president of global supplier diversity. She will lead and promote the company’s efforts to maximize procurement opportunities with diverse businesses as suppliers, contractors and subcontractors. Thompson has held a variety of roles in more than 25 years at The Coca-Cola Company, including controller of The Coca-Cola Trading Company. The Coca-Cola Company is No. 46 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.

Kevin Jennings
The Arcus Foundation, a leading global foundation advancing pressing social-justice and conservation issues, has named Kevin Jennings as executive director. Jennings was previously CEO of Be the Change Inc., where  he was instrumental in launching the Opportunity Nation campaign to promote economic opportunity and social mobility in America. Jennings has also served as assistant deputy secretary of education under President Obama and founded the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Jennings has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and master’s degrees from Columbia University Teacher’s College and New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Jesus Soto Jr.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has appointed Jesus Soto Jr. to further solidify the leadership team charged with building the nation’s safest natural-gas delivery system. He will serve as senior vice president of gas transmission, operations, engineering and pipeline integrity. Soto is responsible for overseeing four major functions: public safety and integrity management; project engineering, design and management; gas transmission; and gas system operations.

Richelle Parham
Richelle Parham, chief marketing officer of eBay North America, has been elected to the board of directors of Scripps Networks Interactive. At eBay, Parham directs the company’s core marketing functions. She is also responsible for brand engagement, driving eBay’s seasonal marketing calendar and leading its customer-insights and marketing-analytics functions.

Richard Mark
Richard Mark has been promoted to chairman, president and CEO of Ameren Illinois. Mark’s responsibilities include the company’s natural-gas and electric delivery business, customer service, natural-gas and electric supply, community relations and government relations. Prior to joining Ameren in 2002, he spent five years as COO and six years as president and CEO at St. Mary’s Hospital in East St. Louis, Ill.

Daisy Auger-Dominguez
Daisy Auger-Dominguez joined the Disney/ABC Television Group as vice president of organization and workforce diversity. Auger-Dominguez focuses on helping the company attract, develop and retain diverse talent in support of business objectives, and is responsible for continuing to develop the company’s diversity-and-inclusion strategy, goals and plans. She previously served as a diversity executive at Time Warner and Moody’s Corporation. She has a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University and a master’s degree from New York University.

Ramona G. Blake
Ramona G. Blake has been appointed director of diversity and inclusion at TIAA-CREF Financial Services. She is responsible for diversity-strategy design and implementation, special initiatives and training in the following areas: marketplace, supplier, workforce and workplace. Previously, Blake was manager of diversity and inclusion at PSEG. She has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Certified Diversity Professional certificate from Cornell’s ILR School.

Dermot J. O’Brien
Dermot J. O’Brien has been named chief human resources officer and corporate vice president at Automatic Data Processing. In his new role, O’Brien works with ADP’s senior leadership team to develop workforce plans and programs that align with ADP’s overall strategic objectives. His responsibilities include forecasting ADP’s global talent needs; implementing initiatives that effectively attract, develop, deploy and retain a diverse talent population; overseeing succession planning and management development; and improving ADP’s already strong levels of employee engagement. Prior to joining ADP, O’Brien was executive vice president of human resources at TIAA-CREF. A Dublin, Ireland, native, O’Brien has a bachelor’s degree from Pace University. ADP is No. 27 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.

Dr. Antonio Flores
Dr. Antonio Flores, president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities (HACU), invited DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti to become a member of the organization’s 17-member Corporate & Philanthropic Council. The council’s goal is to provide guidance and assistance to Dr. Flores and the association’s development division and public-affairs office to ensure its mission, programs and events receive support and that its strategic plans are realized. Other council members include: Raymond Arroyo, Aetna; Alma Guajardo-Crossley, General Motors; Jim Fjelstul, Sodexo; Jerry Gattegno, Deloitte; and Angel Herrera, ARAMARK.

Anthony Salcido and Mónica Gil
The Hispanic Scholarship Fund inducted six new members into its Alumni Hall of Fame on Oct. 17 in New York City. The 2012 inductees are: Dr. Yolanda García Romero, professor of history, North Lake College; Mónica Gil, senior vice president, public affairs and government relations, Nielsen Company;  José P. Chan, MIT Sloan Fellow in Innovation and Global Leadership and adjunct professor, Parsons the New School for Design; Cyrus Amado Salazar, equal opportunity manager, U.S. Air Force; and Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros, president and vice president, The Gilbert & Jacki Cisneros Foundation. Additionally, Melanie L. Healey, group president, North America of HSF partner company Procter & Gamble, accepted an honorary recognition on behalf of P&G for contributing more than $4 million to HSF since 1986.

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Diversity management and awareness for increased cultural competence in the workplace have led Toyota Financial Services’ employees to be more sensitive in the community—and that has increased their business, says George Borst, president and CEO.

In this hard-hitting interview on diversity management with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti, Borst discussed the strong emphasis on training, mentoring and succession planning – and the results they are having. He also emphasized TFS’ community involvement and efforts to implement equity in credit ratings. Toyota is No. 41 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.

Borst explained how TFS employs a three-phase program rooted in diversity awareness. All 3,300 associates receive foundational training, and managers receive cultural fluency training, to help highlight individuals’ diversity blind spots and erase the underlying nuances of discrimination. It’s a 360-style approach to diversity management that’s allowed TFS to increase its representation and engagement of people from underrepresented groups.

For more on the importance of diversity training, read Do White Men Really Need Diversity Outreach? Watch our talent development web seminar for best practices from The Coca-Cola Company and CSX Corporation on increasing talent and employee engagement.

A Supplement for Business Success

Luke Visconti: Why is diversity so important to Toyota Financial Services?

George Borst: Our business, our work force has to mirror the people that we sell to and the people that we work with. I would love to take credit for it myself but I have a great expression: If you have two people in the room that think the same way, you now have one too many in there.

That is a very powerful thing. If everybody on the management committee thought the same way I did, it would be easy but as ineffective as it could be. This forces us to look at things in more creative, more innovative, ways.

Luke Visconti: Would you say that you are using race and gender as a proxy for diversity and thought?

George Borst: No. Diverse opinion does not rely on whether somebody is gay or Spanish or a woman. You get people that think differently.

We are a Southern California–based firm. People may look at us and say, “We are a blue state [TFS is in California] so we think differently and make these policies.” There are a lot of people that think differently.

I think race and gender get you different points of view quicker but there are also a lot of different points of view there. I wouldn’t say we use it quite as a proxy but as a supplement.

In the diversity and inclusion area over the last couple of years, we have launched a three-phase program where we had awareness training for all of our 3,300 associates. We had a second phase called “Small Acts of Inclusion” that talked about nuances of discrimination and how you make people feel more part of the group.

We are just launching what we call the third-phase, “Generational Workplace.” People in their 60s look at people working in their 20s and may view them differently. Everybody has different points of view on work/life balance, so we are trying to make people understand how they work together.

Building the Bench

George Borst: That leads us to the second phase—our talent-review system. We are a management committee group of 10 people and we meet a couple of times a year to talk about the work force. We have one seven-hour meeting on succession planning.

Prior to the meeting, everyone rates the national managers, corporate managers, non–management vice presidents, and management committee vice presidents by strengths, weaknesses, readiness, et cetera. We determine whether they have areas to work on, what else they need, what they do well, et cetera. [Hear Borst speak in detail about their leadership selection process by clicking the player below.]

We then post the top 35 jobs in the company that are the next layer under the management committee and we select the top three candidates in the succession plan.

We then look at each one from a diversity point of view. We say, “How do we look on diversity?” For example, if we find out that we have three white men that are 45 years old, we go through the whole thing and adjust for a diverse slate of candidates.

When we put somebody in there, we say, “To be successful in this job, what do they need to do?” We assign them a management committee mentor who is not in their direct line of command. We talk about extra training or cross-organizational projects that they can get on to get more exposure.

We have been doing this four or five years now. It has really led to a much more diverse population for us. There are 10 people on our management committee: 40 percent are women or people of color; the next level down today is now 36 percent women or people of color. Our field national managers now are 21 percent people of color or women and the level underneath them is 34 percent.

We really are trying to build the bench but not only build the bench. It’s one thing to show somebody’s name out there, but if you don’t give them the support to be successful—mentoring, the extra training, et cetera—it really goes away.

We have two internal programs: Advanced Leadership Development and Executive Leadership Development. We have these annually over the last three years. Sixty-eight percent of the people that have gone through the Advanced Leadership Development program are women or people of color; 60 percent of our women or people of color have gone to the Executive Leadership Development program.

We have a much more ready bench. That has helped the organization start to think differently about how we interact with our customers, our dealers and the people that may need help, both in buying a car and socially in the market.

The Danger of Homogeny

Luke Visconti: From the perspective of being a leader of a large organization, why do you think there ends up being a homogeneous selection? What’s the danger of that?

George Borst: I think it’s a legacy carryover. If you go back 20 years ago, the aha moments on what diversity and inclusion bring to an organization were not there. You are dealing with an experienced population who are now in key middle-management jobs that are disproportionately white males. [Click on the player below to hear Borst discuss the need for diversity in the workplace.]

In the last 10 years, people have gotten more enlightened and realized the diverse population they sell to. They have started to realize that you can make a lot of mistakes if you don’t have people thinking differently and, more importantly, creating the environment where they feel safe to challenge and attack things differently.

What you have to do is accelerate good, smart people that maybe haven’t had many opportunities but certainly have the EQ and the IQ to succeed if given the right support. You need to accelerate that to give a more level playing field that mirrors the population.

During Black History Month, I went to three of our African American Collective’s (AAC), a business partnering group, lunches and one of their evening events. I went to learn something.

We had a consultant at one of these meetings—he was an African-American. He was talking about the nuanced discrimination in the work force with women and he was talking about how a promotion opportunity comes up.

In his example, he said, “If there isn’t an immediate qualified candidate, the companyhas to take a risk. They may look at a white male candidate and say, “Let’s give him a chance.” In the same breath, they may say to a female candidate, “Why don’t we give her a project?”

It reinforces the nuanced discrimination. The sad part is that the person saying those things is being diverse in their thinking. They wanted to give this person a project to see what they can do, whereas they were going to give a white male a shot without having to prove himself on a project.

That got a reaction from the audience. That makes somebody like me take notice that we need to be careful. It also reinforces what we are trying to do in this talent-review session and give those people the right support, take the right risk.

Mentoring Improves Morale

We do our associate opinion survey and we added a couple of years ago two questions:

* Have you been formally or informally mentored in the last 12 months? It was about 42 percent. We segregated the people that said they were mentored: their morale was 20 points higher than the general population.

* The second question that we monitored against them was whether they had an opportunity to grow and develop—they were 22 percent higher than the population.

We formalized a mentoring program in the last year. It’s called RPTM (Realizing Potential Through Mentoring). We had a training program—trained mentors and mentees. Sixty-one percent of the 92 people selected were women or people of color. We could start to move the ball there—trying to build a groundswell, a nucleus of a work force that does think differently, feels comfortable—and it’s being appropriately recognized.

The most dangerous people are those that think they are open-minded and non-discriminatory. They have this nuanced discrimination that they are blind to.

That’s why we gave our executives cultural-fluency training: it puts you on a scale from zero to 140 how open-minded you are in acceptance of other groups, of other points of view. Nobody saw anybody else’s individual score. We had a coaching session and a training session, so hopefully they have alerted some people to their blind spots.

Luke Visconti: How long have you been doing that?

George Borst: We just started. It was the first one we did and we are really excited about it. It was a lot of fun and showed where the group scored and where you scored versus the group.

That’s one of the things everybody kept close to the chest—you were shocked that you could have been seen as a bigot. People probably had a lot of “aha” moments that I don’t think a lot of people shared.

Partnering Around Differences

George Borst: We talk about the importance of Toyota’s business partnering groups on campus and the support they get from the executives. I go to a lot of the business partnering groups. I enjoy going to those things because I meet a lot of different people and I always learn something from that.

But here is the thing that always startles me: I get a 150 percent recognition because the people there are so happy that somebody is there supporting their cause and they really appreciated when a member of senior management attends.

I have shared this over the last couple of years with my key direct reports and now a certain amount of their bonus is derived from diversity and inclusion activities and I will tell you the beauty of that—my direct reports started showing up and the people that work for them started realizing this is important. People now going down two and three and four levels are coming to these meetings and people thought they had to be from an underrepresented group to go.

Helping Consumers With Credit

Congresswoman Maxine Waters had come to our campus in California, and if she wins in November, she will be our district representative, our congresswoman from Torrance.

I pulled together some numbers: the focus was how we help people that are less fortunate than us. I started by telling her that Toyota Financial Services, when we approve somebody for credit, we are blind of whether they are African American, Hispanic or whatever.

What we are proud of in the financing of new autos is that TFS is number one in lending money to the African-American community and number one in lending to the Hispanic community.

The biggest issue facing the country over the last three to four years is the blowup in the housing market. There are a lot of very good people of all races that got hurt in the housing crisis and the depreciation of the housing market just put them upside down.

In evaluating somebody’s credit, if they have 120 days behind on the mortgage and they haven’t been foreclosed on, and the rest of their credit is good, we will approve them. Our view is that these people are not credit criminals; they are good people that ran into hard times. They have managed to pay their other bills. You know you should try to help people that have a good credit history except for foreclosure because you need a car to get to work.

We try to do that to help the community, and I think that has really improved things.  We have been doing this for a couple of years and are very satisfied with where it is.

Active Community Outreach

We are not good at being a “checkbook-charity” organization. We like to be very active in our involvement.

About six years ago, we decided we wanted to do charity work in a big way. We wanted to identify with an organization where our associates could be active and where it would not be self-serving. We picked the Boys and Girls Club of East Los Angeles. It’s in the middle of gang territory—a very tough part of town.

When you fast-forward five years, we have offered to just the Boys and Girls Club of East LA 200 partial scholarships to go to college. There is a national Boys and Girls Club week—it’s usually in April—and last year there was an event every day. We have 700 people here on campus; we had 140 people volunteer. Some of the events were on campus. We bused the kids in.

We since upgraded our involvement with Boys and Girls Club. In cities where our associates live and work, especially Baltimore, Cedar Rapids and Phoenix where we have customerservice centers with as many as 500 associates, we are deeply involved with the local clubs.

We now have a more formal program called Diplomas to Degrees with a national Boys and Girls Club that we just launched in the last year. About 41 percent of what we do in philanthropy goes to diverse organizations.

– Luke Visconti

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