My personal experience, and certainly the experience of my family, really shows the positive impact education has made when it comes to gaining opportunity. I do not mind sharing that only one of my grandmothers was able to attend teaching school, and that was under very dire conditions during segregation in the United States.

My grandmother faced legal and de facto restrictions on her ability to travel within the U.S. and never could barely imagine traveling outside its borders, yet within a couple of generations, her grandson became the chief legal officer for a company that, at one stage, spanned 30 countries.

This really shows that in the span of just 50 to 60 years, education can change your family situation. Even more inspiring is, if you can replicate this thousands, or hundreds of thousands of times – you can change society.

Such massive change can seem like a daunting task. But you have to start with one family at a time, one institution at a time. That is how society can move forward.

Making it affordable

As a company, Laureate has always been on a mission to create opportunity for its students, faculty and community. We believe that access to affordable, quality education is essential to increasing opportunity.

Although the history of our company has been global, we now work in Mexico and Peru, where we educate a combined total of about 380,000 students. Many of the countries that Laureate has operated in have suffered from vast inequality. There is this nexus that the more people you bring into the economic livelihood of a community, you will, by definition, promote and expand diversity.

Laureate is a for-profit company, so unless we can deliver quality educational experiences to our students, the students won’t come. We know very well that our services have to be affordable. Moreover, our institutions have to be of a certain quality as well.

We know people get educated not just for the value of that education, but for what that education can really do for them in their lives. So, it is important to ensure that our students get a return on investment.

For example, when we were operating in Brazil, our universities had some of the highest enrollments for minorities and women. But, diversity in the Brazilian legal profession was lacking. A group of local lawyers started a program  to encourage Black, or Afro-Brazilians, to join the legal profession. As a company, we were very quick to partner with this program to get our graduates additional training and to give them the best chance to compete in this highly competitive profession.

There is the social aspect of education, but there is also the economic aspect. The two are interrelated and that is why we focus on quality and affordability. Different markets have different needs. The US market is the most expensive market in the world; this model does not work for other countries. So we adapt. Some countries offer very little financing for non-public education, so that is a huge driver for us to make things affordable.

Leveling the playing field

When it comes to building a more diverse and inclusive legal profession, the first barrier is the difficulty of getting positive exposure to who lawyers are, what they do, and what are the many avenues that a career in law can provide.

There are a lot of good people trying to make the profession more inclusive. But the profession, by its very definition, is designed to be exclusive. You have to take difficult entrance exams and professional exams. It’s all designed to make entering the legal profession even harder.

So, when people make it through law school the question is not who gets to become a lawyer, but who stays a lawyer? Retention is an area that often gets overlooked. People have to ask: are diverse lawyers getting the same exposure and making it to the higher ranks of management?

It is important that diverse lawyers do get the opportunity to move up the corporate ladder. If you do not have diversity in the people who make laws and the people who enforce laws, you will get unequal results. One group will be favored over the other – and we have seen that happen time and time again in countries around the world, not just in the United States.

My legal team has always been diverse. At one point, my group was about 75% women and that was across lawyers and non-legal staff. I am very proud of that, because it has been in countries where the barrier for women to achieve senior leadership roles is even higher than in the United States.

In the past, we have also intentionally focused on diversity among our interns so that we are training the next generation of diverse lawyers. That includes diversity in gender, race and economic disenfranchisement. Interestingly, when you focus on economic disenfranchisement, you can end up impacting other cleavages of inequality.

You are welcome too

Institutions are made up of people, and if you want institutions to grow and enterprises to be effective, then people have to be happy. People are speaking up now. They are saying that their beliefs, goals and wellbeing should not be separate and subservient to some corporate or institutional goal that they did not help to define.

An interesting example, which I think is going to become more common generally, is gender identifiers in your email signature block. This is a strong social shift that I can see taking place at universities. Universities tend to be ahead of everybody because they have young kids who are cementing change.

A few years ago, I attended a planning meeting at a large U.S. university. As we went around the room all of the students, faculty and administrators introduced themselves, while also sharing their pronouns: he/his/him, her/she/hers, they/them, etc. Now, I have seen this shift happening within corporate circles and in business meetings.

I never had to grapple with feeling shut out due to my gender identity, but over time I have realized that what is important is the community. If people are telling you they do not feel welcome, you need to listen. If I introduce myself using gender pronouns, I am signaling to others in the community that they are welcome.

This is a critical pivot in worker management and corporate behavior. The key is to listen and try to make the workplace an environment where everybody can excel on their merits and performance. You cannot sustain a world in which people are forced to work in ways that they believe are antithetical to their very existence, to their very being.

If colleges and workplaces are willing to have the tough conversations, we are moving in a positive direction to building more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces.

I’m a proud alumnus of Marquette University and during my time there, I was enrolled in the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) that motivates and mentors first generation college students. Although I was studying Engineering at the time, EOP’s director, Dr. Arnold Mitchem, changed my life by inspiring me to pursue a career in policy – and the rest is history.

There is no excuse

The numbers tell the story here. 2020 American Bar Association research shows that 37% of US lawyers are female, 5% are Black, 5% are Hispanic and 2% are Asian. We have a lot of work to do to increase diverse representation in the law. There’s no excuse. We must break down barriers and lay an open pathway that attracts, welcomes and cultivates diverse talent.

The lack of intentionality compounded with ineffective processes are the biggest barriers that I see. Clients haven’t historically demanded diverse talent. Recruiting firms, driven by client requests, go to the same networks that don’t necessarily include diverse talent pools.

However, the tide is turning, due to the demand for diversity from many organizations, especially after the 2020 racial equity movement.

Being intentional

Diversity, equity and inclusion have to be part of a company’s core values. At HP, we believe in the power of diversity to drive innovation. This means diversity in thought, background and experience, as well as the traditional dimensions of diversity. This has led us to assemble one of the most diverse board of directors in tech. We even went as far as testifying in front of the California State Senate to support legislation that would require diversity in corporate boards. We also have a very diverse executive leadership team, with 53% total minorities and 30% women. Together, they make up the backbone of our DE&I infrastructure that propels us to make meaningful progress over time.

A tangible example is how our leaders have rallied behind our ambition to become the world’s most sustainable and just technology company. As part of that, we set some of the most ambitious DE&I goals in the tech industry – such as to achieve 50/50 gender equality in leadership by 2030 and meet or exceed labor market representation for racial ethnic minorities in the US– and launched an inaugural Racial Equality and Social Justice Task Force.

Working towards a better future

Diverse leadership matters. It creates a domino effect, where everyone becomes more intentional at hiring and retaining talent. It also fosters a mindset of change to eliminate processes and policies that have historically held underrepresented groups back. In other words, we must affirmatively adopt processes that reduce unconscious bias and create a more inclusive and welcoming environment. It’s a journey, not a destination.

Last year in my legal organization, we started requiring 50% of our candidates to be diverse. One of the ways we make that happen is by partnering with organizations like the Black General Counsel 2025 Initiative (BGC) and the National Bar Association. Ultimately, we want to be certified by Diversity Lab under the Mansfield Rule. When candidates are interviewing, we intentionally put together a diverse panel to get a well-rounded perspective.

Internally, we remain committed to creating a sense of belonging for all of our employees. This requires paying attention to a host of small and large practices to retain the talent we want and need.

Externally, the legal department has a ‘holdback’ program, which has been in place since 2017, and it requires our US-based law firm partners to maintain minimally diverse staffing on HP matters. The compliance rate doubled from 46% at launch to nearly 100% today.

While we’re proud of our progress, we are constantly evaluating opportunities to push the envelope.

Where we all belong

My vision is to build a workplace that has a strong sense of belonging and inclusion so we can help our business reach its full potential. This means DE&I must be a business imperative, not a ‘nice-to-do’. It will require all of us to step up, become change agents and question the language we use, the assumptions we carry and the seemingly benign processes we use that may actually work against our goals.

Finally, in our efforts to find the best talent, we must refrain from only looking at a portion of the total talent pool. We believe, as shown by many studies, that diversity improves business outcomes. It’s not a zero-sum game. When we champion diversity, we all succeed in the long run.

I have had mentors that saw valuable qualities in me that I did not see in myself.

I have been very fortunate in my career. I spent many years at a law firm before making the leap to in-house counsel and, during my journey, I ended up meeting mentors who saw leadership potential in me.

They foresaw that I had the ability to take on stretch assignments outside of my focused disciplines, and roles as an executive leading teams. Over my career, I have led  a number of legal teams in leadership roles including as General Counsel for the Americas region of a chemical company and in my current role reporting to the General Counsel of a global public company.  I believe I have made good on all those opportunities that my mentors and managers have entrusted to me. I am so grateful to all the folks who have seen something in me and supported me for opportunities and promotions and hired me into leadership roles. This is one of the reasons that I am passionate about giving back and helping others on their career paths. It was a driving impetus for me co-founding the Black General Counsel 2025 Initiative (www.blackgc2025.com).

Labor of love

It all started in the summer of 2017, at the annual convention of the National Bar Association. During an event of the Commercial Law Section, I was asked to give a presentation about the ‘State of Diversity in the In-house Bar.’ In the talk, I challenged the Black general counsel in the audience to set an aggressive goal and work together to increase the number of Black GCs in Fortune 1000 and other large companies.

In the audience at the time was April Miller Boise, then general counsel of Meritor and now general counsel of Eaton Corp., both Fortune 1000 companies. Together, we founded the Black General Counsel 2025 Initiative. The Initiative is a labor of love to help other talented lawyers receive the benefit of mentoring and networking. Our primary aim is to draw attention to the talented Black leaders in the legal profession who are ready now for top level general counsel roles.

Our initiative creates a strong network by connecting current and former Fortune 1000 general counsel with aspiring Black legal leaders. The Advisory Council has developed a list of the key skills required to secure a top-level general counsel role. Through the Initiative, we share general counsel job opportunities with various corporations, and we create connections with executive recruiters who lead those searches. This gives the members of the cohort of the initiative a chance to put their names in the hat and be considered when opportunities arise. We currently have a cohort of 41 legal leaders in the initiative.

The community created by the Initiative is also a good resource for recruiters or anyone who wants to find diverse talent. One of the hardest parts of moving up the corporate ladder is knowing about opportunities. High-level jobs are rarely advertised, and we rely on our network to help make these job openings known to the lawyers in the cohort and in the Black legal community generally.

Meaningful mentors and the power of networks

Mentoring is so important to grooming future leaders in the corporate world, and this is especially true for underrepresented groups, such as women and racial minorities. Not every lawyer will get the chance to become a general counsel, but when selecting the pool of people who will get exposure to opportunities to expand their leadership skills and qualify for general counsel roles, we need to strive to make sure there is diverse talent in that pool.

Having a mentor and a champion in my hiring manager and first boss at DuPont was a game changer for me, and that is why I tell everyone that mentors are so important. Various mentors in my career have helped me see my own leadership potential and they have guided me through some low moments when my confidence was shaky and I could not envision myself doing bigger things.

I have given back by mentoring many others. I am proud to say that a number of my mentees and former direct reports are now general counsel and/or hold leadership positions in national and international corporations.

Networks are powerful resources. Networks include a wide variety of people at all different levels from a cross-section of areas who have some common connection to us and provide a bridge to opportunities and to other people who can do the same. Strong networks include people who will put our name forward for opportunities. It is critically important that rising attorneys have networks that include people who will help them move along their career paths.

One of the simplest ways to create more diversity is to make sure that people not traditionally thought of when discussing future leaders are intentionally included. Building a network of Black rising leaders, as we strive to do in the Initiative, creates a pipeline of diverse talent for leadership positions. Providing diverse talent with a realistic road map on how to become general counsel will inspire more lawyers from different backgrounds to prepare themselves and aim for leadership positions.

In the right direction

When thinking of ways to help increase diversity, we all have to start somewhere, so do not despise small beginnings. If your efforts enable you to hire even one or two diverse employees, that will make a difference. People tend to gravitate to the places where they can find allies and people who look like them. In my own career, I have seen that employing diverse talent leads to more diverse talent in the workplace. When an organization has diverse lawyers, especially at the leadership level, they attract other diverse employees to the organization. Most people in underrepresented groups do not want to be the ‘only one’ at their company on in the department.

There is a past history of women and minorities being excluded from professional opportunities. The current statistics demonstrate that the number of women and minority executives in Fortune 1000 companies remains low. Ultimately, we need professional diversity initiatives aimed at trying to address any lasting effects of the past exclusion of underrepresented groups. Our goal should be trying to level the playing field for everyone in the future.

Overall, many companies and law firms state that having a diverse team is critical to them performing at their optimal level, based on various studies supporting this conclusion. There is evidence that the legal profession is trying to create more opportunities for underrepresented groups. Over the years, we have seen improvements for some groups but, for others, including Black professionals, improvement has been lagging.

Having major corporations and law firms engage in intentional effort to find diverse talent when opportunities arise will go a long way towards making the profession more equitable. The Black General Counsel 2025 Initiative is striving to do our part to answer the common question of “where is the diverse talent?” In addition to the 41 members in our cohort, our website (www.blackgc2025.com) has two lists of current and former general counsel which include more than 200 names of Black lawyers who are or have been general counsel of a range of companies. One of those two lists is the Fortune 1000 and Global 1000 Black GCs.

I ask recruiters, CEOs, and hiring managers to visit our website and contact us when looking to find diverse talent for a GC or other legal leadership search, and for board director positions as well.