DSM North America
Welsh tells of his own painful ‘epiphany’, and how conscious inclusion, rather than diversity efforts, holds the key to a successful future.
For the first 12 or 13 years of my career, I was blissfully, painfully unaware of genuine issues on inclusion and diversity. I knew how to say the right things because I’d gone through all the training programs, but I didn’t really feel it in my heart of hearts. I’m a white male from the New York City area, so I was always part of the majority culture in whatever major law firm or major US corporation that I worked for.
Then I came to work for DSM, which is a Dutch-headquartered company, and I found myself travelling at least once a month to the Netherlands for internal meetings. It was all Dutch people, and they would speak in a language that I didn’t understand, they’d talk about sports teams that I didn’t follow, they’d eat food that I found very strange, they wouldn’t invite me to dinners or lunches or even just for coffee because I was the outsider in many respects. I would find myself flying home on the plane feeling depressed, angry and frustrated.
