Students pursuing master’s degrees in corporate communication heard from three alumni in a panel organized by Professor Caryn Medved for her “Introduction to Corporate Communication” course. The theme was “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Challenges and Opportunities for Communication Professionals.”
The alumni were Mary Anne Ravenel, diversity business partner at Facebook; Sabina Mehmood, product manager, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index; and Meeckel Beecher, global head of DEI at Shutterstock. They were joined by Carmella Glover, DEI director for the Arthur Page Society and president of the Diversity Action Alliance.
Glover’s organization would like to see the communication industry “as diverse as the United States is by 2025.” That will require a major acceleration in progress, but she said it’s become easier to get organizations to sign on to DEI goals in the wake of the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd’s murder.
But because DEI is a relatively new area, “there’s no real roadmap” for achieving goals, Ravenel said. The speakers agreed that simply collecting data and being transparent about demographics is a key starting point for any organization–though that’s often easier pledged than done. But you can’t identify gaps or track progress without detailed information on a company’s makeup and how it changes over time.
The speakers noted that improving DEI isn’t just about recruitment and hiring. It also involves an unflinching examination of track records and policies in areas like promotion, salaries, and retention. At the same time, “DEI is not just HR,” as Beecher put it. Depending on the company, DEI principles may also need to be applied to areas like product development, marketing, and how customers are cultivated.
