Transcript: Forest Harper, CEO of INROADS: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap by Disrupting Corporate Culture
Vanessa Weaver:
– Welcome to “Workin’ It Out.” I’m Dr. Vanessa Weaver, your host. On today’s episode of “Workin’ It Out,” we’re having a conversation on the role corporate America can play in helping to close the racial wealth gap by really disrupting its corporate culture. I’m going to be joined by Forest Harper, CEO and President of INROADS. Welcome, Forest.
Forest Harper:
– Well, thank you Vanessa, for inviting me. I appreciate it.
Vanessa Weaver:
– Forest, before we get into this important conversation, tell us a little bit about INROADS and what your role is.
Forest Harper:
– Well, first, I am, humbly so, the sixth CEO and president of INROADS, an organization that is now over 52 years old, born out of the Civil Rights era, with a 1944 graduate of Princeton University, Frank Carr. He entered this world with all the things he wanted to do coming from an Ivy League school and decided to serve his nation, but most importantly, when he got back from serving his nation, he thought something was wrong in America. There were too many injustices going on.
He was a white stately gentleman graduating from Princeton, from a very wealthy family, but when he got back from the war, he decided he wanted to be a part of solving some of the injustices and disparities in America at that time.
And so, he decided as he was doing this work as a big advertising executive, he wanted to do things right around his community. He started helping young black and brown kids from the community through his Catholic church. And then one day, he decided to go to a little small rally in Washington D.C. on the mall. And that rally just happened to be the March on Washington.
And he took black and brown kids to listen to Martin Luther King speak. When he heard it, he came back with a burning desire and a vision to do something about eliminating those injustices that were going on in poverty and wealth and all types of things. And so, he created INROADS as an opportunity to train young black and brown kids to go into corporate America, and also entrepreneurship to close the racial wealth gap and the poverty gap in America.
Vanessa Weaver:
– And now, 50 years later, as the sixth CEO, you’re continuing in that tradition, and in fact, you’ve taken a pretty pronounced stand on the role that corporate America can play in reversing the wealth gap. In fact, Essence Magazine interviewed you just a few months ago on this topic, and interestingly, you shared in that article your belief that corporate America will still make good on this promise to commit billions of dollars to mitigate wealth disparities in America. Can you… I guess we’re going to say a little bit more about that. But first I want to congratulate you on a phenomenal interview that has generated a lot of buzz in the DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion community, and in corporate America. Congratulations.
Forest Harper:
– Dr. Weaver, so when we’ve seen corporate America apply its strengths together, they can solve almost any problem in this country. They really can.
– And on this one, the first time they tried to assemble and did some work was with the CEO in Action. Over five years ago, over 1,000 now, CEOs signed a document that said, I pledge to do something about social injustice but also about inclusion and also about unconscious bias. And they went to work at it. But once the George Floyd scenario happened and others, the injustices in policing and other things, corporate America says, we’ve got to take one more step. And so not only did they take the step to build actions inside their companies, but outside their companies they pledged publicly, transparently in writing, and in their pockets, dollars for up to five years that they would solve for these injustices across the nation. And today, if it wasn’t for the pandemic, many of them would’ve already activated a lot of these actions.
So now some of them are now putting those actions to life and they’ve come through. Look at JP Morgan Chase. They committed a focus around advancing blacks in corporate America. And they hired, they promised 4,000 blacks to be hired in two years and they did it. So congratulations to those who led that, putting actions, resources to work. And they’re still doing it today.
Vanessa Weaver:
– In fact, Forest, I think corporate America committed $85 billion after the death of George Floyd to address issues, diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. But, interestingly, in that article you noted that even with companies like JP Morgan Chase and Procter & Gamble and some other companies that have really stepped up, a lot of that money still has not been tapped.
Forest Harper:
– That’s right, and part of it, part of it had to do with the macro environment. Remember, when they made the commitment, the pandemic hit. So, a lot of the ideas, strategies, internally in the company and externally in the company, had to be paused. And so now we’re in 2023 where a lot of those are being activated as we speak. So those 80 billion plus dollars are now being activated to now go into action. Look at the recent announcement by Fidelity, $190 million to UNCF, the largest gift that UNCF has done… United Negro College Fund has seen in the history of that organization. You would’ve thought that everything is done after George Floyd. It hasn’t. A lot of it’s from the macro environment that we had to pause for the pandemic. The other part was that it took some leaders with some bold actions to say, let’s just get this done. And they’re just now hiring leaders to be in place to activate those action items that they’ve promised back three years ago.
Vanessa Weaver:
– And who are these leaders that they’ve hired to be in place?
Forest Harper:
– Well, a lot of them came from a combination of the business side of the organization and the diversity, equity, inclusion side. And I must add belonging on there as well.
– But most of them decided to make those diversity, equity, inclusion officers either one seat away from the CEO or report directly to the CEO. Look at MetLife and Cindy Pace, how the CEO, Michel, has done a phenomenal job in ensuring that diversity but also advancing diversity, equity, inclusion was going to be a part of his C-suite. And that’s just one example of many who report directly into the CEO.
Vanessa Weaver:
– I need to make sure I tell our viewers about the name of the article, and it’s called, Despite Some Back Pedaling on DEI Commitments INROADS CEO Forest Harper Believes Corporate America is Still on the Right Track. You’re pretty optimistic, because I know there’s just been a lot of talk about the fact that, you know, some of these leaders that you talked about, corporations were out hiring diversity, equity and inclusion officers and vice presidents and directors. But, in a recent article, it indicated that 33%, a third of those positions have been eliminated. There’s a lot of, I think, concern that people are having about those positions being eliminated, and that we have a big percentage of this 85 billion that hasn’t been spent. When your article came out, it really gave a different perspective and a different understanding of why this is. I appreciate you talking about that and sharing that with us. What kind of reaction have you personally received to your point of view?
Forest Harper:
– What I personally received from those hardworking, I mean dedicated, with just mountains of courage, DEI officers, is the first thing that the corporations had to do was disrupt the norms. There are a lot of norms going on after those commitments were made that were still there. How can you make change and transform an organization or even a human person if you don’t disrupt the norms that they’ve been doing in the past? It took some companies a little longer to disrupt those norms.
One of those would be hiring pools. Who hires those staff that come in the door? If you’ve got the same people hiring them, making the same decisions prior to the commitments on social impact and you’re still there, and there’s still no difference, you got to disrupt that. It took some companies a little bit longer to disrupt the norms and the practices they had inside the organization.
But then there are those CEOs who were so disruptive, and still are, ensuring that we’re not going to do things like we’ve done in the past, and we’re going to advance the actual actions that’s going to see results in our commitment beyond the dollars. Most of the commitments are three to five years. What other initiative has a three-to-five-year commitment other than ESG or some of the others in business? I see it as a disruption of the norms that made… separated those CEOs who’ve taken things and took actions along with their DEI officers.
Vanessa Weaver:
– Well, you know Forest, when you talk about disrupting, or disruption, and I hear when you say that word you have such energy behind it, INROADS was founded on a commitment to disrupt.
– Right? Yeah, I mean its legacy is one of disrupting corporate norms and corporate practices to ensure that black and brown students have an opportunity to enter corporate America, to have those internships which were so important. And I was so pleased, surprised at first, but pleased secondly, to hear that INROADS, through the programming and the fact that you place so many black and brown individuals in corporate America, that you can discover part of the holy grail to position blacks and brown people to overcome wealth disparities. In fact, some recent research by McKenzie revealed a startling fact about INROADS alumni. Can you share that with us?
Forest Harper:
– Yes. Let’s set the table straight first. We’ve got some pain in this country, and we’ve had it for a while, that needs a little bit of pain medicine first, and that is knowledge. According to NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, over 200 companies that literally produce paid internships, there’s a major disparity in that less than 7% of those 200 top companies have students that are Black for paid internships. Less than 7%.
And it’s 6% for Hispanics. That’s horrible, that’s unacceptable, if we’re trying to focus on it. Now, fast forward. Over two years that number has not moved very much. And so what happened? There is an economic impact on that number ’cause what we do know is that there’s plenty of data that suggests that if you get in a paid internship, the likelihood is that you would get a job offer and then get in the middle-income earnings faster than anybody else. Look at it. Ask yourself if you’ve had a paid internship.
What we did, we have 52 years of history and students coming through our program and we have over 40,000 alumni. We decided to do is do some research with WealthEngine and a funding support from the MetLife Foundation to take a look at where our INROADS alum are compared to white executive alum across the nation. And we went to them and looked at their net income, their net assets, and their home ownership rates, of the INROADS alum, then also compared those to white executives’ net income, net assets, and their home ownership rates. What we found was that when a person goes through an INROADS model, black and brown kid, they outpace their white counterparts by 40% of them, in net earnings and net worth.
And when it comes to home ownership rates, they outperform them by 12%. That’s unheard of because we already know that the disparity in wealth favors the majority of white America, but not in this case with INROADS. If that’s the case, what McKenzie did was took it one step further. They wanted to know, if you could scale INROADS by 10 more times, you would see a $755 billion impact in the Black economy.
That is very striking. So, our goal is to partner together with corporate America to ensure that we are scaling what we do to get more black and brown kids on a career path through paid internships.
Vanessa Weaver:
– When you say scaling what we do, tell us a little bit about what it is that you do. What differentiates INROADS to the point that you have this phenomenal data around closing the wealth disparity gap? That’s, I mean that’s amazing.
Forest Harper:
– Absolutely. Our goal? First is the end in mind. Keeping the end in mind. It’s not just a paid internship. It’s meeting students where they are. There are so many talented students across the country. We meet them in high school, at the ninth through 12th grade and really get them to be able to focus in on early looks at what their skills, talents, and their unique abilities are. Once we do that, for four years we rotate these young high school students through programs to test out those areas and expose them to careers they may not have ever heard about, from an economist all the way to a doctor.
And when we do that, we enroll… wherever they go to college we do wrap around what we call power skills for them. What we used to call the soft skills we call those power skills. What are those power skills? We call it teamwork. We also call it how do you work in an environment where it’s inclusive. We also call it problem solving, communication skills, good judgment skills. We put those power skills around their academic skills, that makes a complete student with one more ingredient. And that is community service.
When we get those students and we do that training and that community service and with their academics, we add one more part of the formula, and that’s mentorship. Those elements have worked for us for over 50 years. And then our students take off and they go through their careers, and they get careers and jobs that work and pay them in the upper echelon of middle class income and above.
Vanessa Weaver:
– Oh my. So, is INROADS free to these students and to their families?
Forest Harper:
– Our mission is to identify, partner, develop their leadership skills, and it’s free. That’s our mission. Our founder said it’s our duty, to much as whom is given much is expected. So, we go to work every single day, identifying young black and brown and inclusive students for free.
Vanessa Weaver:
– Well, you know, I must tell you, and I think I might have mentioned this to you before, Forest, that I started my career in Procter & Gamble in the engineering division, which was a very technical division, in the company. And we got our black and brown interns from INROADS and they were always phenomenal. And I don’t remember the company never offering one of INROADS’ interns a position, a full-time position with the company, because they were that prepared, they were that impressive, and they understood how to navigate the political network in a company. So, I commend you for that and continuing to do that. Let me ask you this question, ’cause we only have a few more minutes left. What can companies do that want to honor their commitments? You know, we have those companies that are committed to that 85 billion pool.
– And because of Covid and a lot of reasons that you cited they haven’t really acted on that commitment yet. Well, how can they leverage that commitment to build on INROADS’ success in closing the wealth gap? What would be say the top three things you would tell those organizations they could do to replicate the success of INROADS?
Forest Harper:
– The first thing I’d do is call a meeting with my leaders and I would literally take a whiteboard in the room and just say, “What are the three things that we’re going to disrupt in order to disrupt the norms that’s holding us back from, I mean, scaling the impact we can have?”
Vanessa Weaver:
– Yeah, because you said only 7% of these kids are getting internships.
Forest Harper:
– That’s correct. But remember, with $80 billion, you can literally transform just about anything.
– Why can’t we transform human capital? We can if we disrupt first. So, take the first one. What schools do you recruit from? If you’re recruiting from the same 20 schools and then you add just two more HBCUs, that’s not disruption. What if you added 50% of the schools that your recruiters go to? That’s disruption.
Second thing I’d ask. Look at your norms on who’s doing the hiring in your company. Do an audit. Who has the power to say the final yes to the hire? Do they have a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, to close that gap with women, women of color, and African American, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, and Asians. Find out, put them on the front lines of your hiring. There’s no doubt we’ll see the evidence.
Third, measure everything. Measure everything you do, whether it’s a job fair or career fair. And if you’re not satisfied, don’t accept the circumstances. You’ve heard it. “We can’t find them.” Oh yes you can if you disrupt where you’re looking. As my grandfather used to say, you can’t fish for freshwater fish in a saltwater pond. It’s just not going to happen.
– Let’s disrupt these norms to a degree that they’ve never heard from before. And I think they’ll start to do these kinds of things. I really admire the advancement of putting dollars behind the actions, but then also strategically partnering, Dr. Weaver.
– You may not have the abilities to do it. You may not have, you know, the neighborhoods to do it in. Don’t be afraid to partner.
– With TD partners, with an INROADS, that can help you do it. I can’t make Teslas, but I can partner on diversity talent. Bring me in for those things that will really work for you. I just say that those are the three, the four things that I would start immediately, and then I would share a sense of urgency. We must be urgent, or people will go back to the norms. Those would be my thoughts.
Vanessa Weaver:
– Well first, I would love for you to put a bow on this by telling our viewers and our listeners how they can connect with you.
Forest Harper:
– Oh, it’s easy. It’s easy. First, watch this rebroadcast, ’cause I’m going to say it three times. You can contact me at INROADS.org, ForestHarper@INROADS.org. INROADS.org, you can contact me there. And just follow INROADS on all the social media, from Instagram to YouTube, you name it. We’re on all platforms of social media. Just follow us, see the story.
This is a phenomenal opportunity to see the impact. And then watch our results. One of the only two African American females who are in the Fortune 100 is a product of our program. Thasunda Duckett, the CEO of TIAA. And when they asked her what the key to her success was, she says, “INROADS was a disruptor in my life.” And that’s what we want to be. We want to be a disruptor in your strategy. We can help.
Vanessa Weaver:
– And what I love about INROADS and the information you share, you’re not just talking, you’re doing. And then you do, and you measure and you scale. I just want to congratulate you on that. It has been great talking to you today about how corporations can really activate their DEI commitments to deal with the issue of wealth disparities in brown and black communities. I want to thank you so much for that. And in addition to encouraging our audience, our viewers and our listeners, to reach out to you, we’re going to have that on our website and on our information.
I just want to thank you, and to our audience, if you enjoyed this conversation, please like us and share our episode and subscribe to the “Workin’ It Out” podcast. We would also love a review so that we can better serve you. I’m Dr. Vanessa Weaver, your host of “Working It Out”. And on behalf of our “Working It Out” podcast crew, I wish you a safe, productive, and what we call “Be Happy Week.” Goodbye.
