Latest / Chief in Tech Deep Dive Shortcast / Chief in Tech S1E26 - Liane Hornsey, Ron Guerrier, Graciela Perez, Annette White-Klososky : Panel Discussion – Inclusion and Diversity in the C-Suite

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Chief in Tech S1E26 - Liane Hornsey, Ron Guerrier, Graciela Perez, Annette White-Klososky : Panel Discussion – Inclusion and Diversity in the C-Suite · Chief in Tech Deep Dive Shortcast

• 0:00
  Imagine spending two decades climbing to the
• 0:04
  absolute peak. of the corporate IT world. You
• 0:07
  have built this absolutely flawless resume. Right.
• 0:11
  You're at the very top of your game. Exactly.
• 0:13
  You are the global CIO of a multi -billion dollar
• 0:16
  company. You're at a major industry event. You're
• 0:19
  about to walk on stage to give a keynote address
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  to a room full of your peers. And someone just
• 0:26
  walks up and hands you their valet keys. I mean,
• 0:28
  it's just a jarring image. But the crazy thing
• 0:30
  is, it is a completely real scenario. Yeah, it
• 0:34
  really happened. And today we're looking at how
• 0:36
  the world's top executives take moments of profound
• 0:39
  exclusion exactly like that one and actually
• 0:41
  reverse engineer them into multi -billion dollar
• 0:44
  product innovations. It's such a powerful pivot.
• 0:46
  It really is. So welcome to today's Deep Dive.
• 0:49
  If you're listening to this, you are probably
• 0:50
  trying to cut through the endless corporate buzzwords
• 0:53
  surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• 0:55
  All the acronyms. There's so many acronyms. Right.
• 0:58
  We all hear them. But what does the actual machinery
• 1:01
  of inclusion look like when it's operating at
• 1:04
  the highest possible level? That's our mission
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  today. We are looking at how C -suite executives
• 1:09
  operationalize this for real world impact. And
• 1:13
  the source material we're diving into is just
• 1:15
  a phenomenal resource for exactly that. It's
• 1:19
  a panel discussion from the Women in Tech Network.
• 1:21
  Yeah, moderated by Annette White -Klososki, right?
• 1:23
  Exactly. And she sits down with three absolute
• 1:26
  heavy hitters. You've got Ron Garrier, the global
• 1:29
  CIO at HP. You've got Leanne Hornsey, who's the
• 1:32
  chief people officer at Palo Alto Networks, and
• 1:34
  Graciela Perez, the VP and chief digital program
• 1:37
  officer at GE Healthcare. So we are talking about
• 1:40
  leaders who manage massive global workforces.
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  Oh, yeah. And budgets that honestly rival...
• 1:45
  the GDP of small countries. OK, so let's unpack
• 1:48
  this, because today is all about moving from
• 1:50
  theory to practice. We're going to see how the
• 1:52
  mechanics of inclusion change, like literally
• 1:54
  everything, right down to the physical products
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  we buy and the way we combat burnout. Which is
• 1:59
  huge for anyone in the workforce right now. Absolutely.
• 2:02
  But to understand how these leaders shape those
• 2:06
  massive corporate policies, we first have to
• 2:09
  start somewhere incredibly personal. We have
• 2:11
  to look at the painful lived experiences that
• 2:14
  you know, forge their perspectives in the first
• 2:16
  place. Right, because high -level policies don't
• 2:19
  just materialize out of thin air. They're almost
• 2:21
  always born from a highly specific lived experience,
• 2:25
  which brings us back to that opening scenario.
• 2:27
  Yeah, that valet key story. In this panel, Ron
• 2:30
  Garrier shares that exact story. I mean, he's
• 2:33
  a highly successful executive with 25 years in
• 2:35
  IT. And he is the one giving the keynote. Exactly.
• 2:38
  And he recounts these moments where even as a
• 2:40
  sitting CIO, attendees would just assume he was
• 2:43
  the coffee. Or they'd hand him the keys to park
• 2:45
  their car. He even mentions two specific cases
• 2:48
  where security was actually called on him at
• 2:50
  events. Wow. Yeah, because people assumed he
• 2:53
  was just wandering around trying to get free
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  food. That is just staggering. But, you know,
• 2:57
  what is truly fascinating here is how these early
• 3:01
  feelings of being an outsider naturally evolve
• 3:04
  into this lifelong drive to address broader systemic
• 3:07
  inequalities. Right, because when someone hands
• 3:09
  Ron their valet keys, he doesn't react poorly.
• 3:12
  He doesn't, like, throw... the keys into the
• 3:14
  bushes. Which, frankly, many of us might be tempted
• 3:17
  to do. Oh, absolutely. I would be furious. But
• 3:20
  instead, he uses it as a mechanical intervention.
• 3:23
  How so? He stops, he looks at them, and he just
• 3:26
  says, no, I happen to be a peer of yours. I'm
• 3:28
  going on stage in 10 minutes. I hope you enjoy
• 3:30
  the talk. Oh, that's brilliant. Right. He intercepts
• 3:33
  their bias and turns it into an educational moment
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  right there on the spot. He takes that profound
• 3:38
  feeling of being marginalized and he operationalizes
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  it. He builds a bridge instead of a wall. Exactly.
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  And the panel doesn't just focus on race or gender
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  in this regard. Like, Leigh Ann Hornsey shares
• 3:50
  a very different but mechanically similar experience.
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  of being an outsider. Yes, so Leanne grew up
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  in a working -class family in the UK. She is
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  white, but she points out that she's Irish and
• 4:00
  Catholic, which in her specific environment was
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  not a thing that blended in easily at all. Because
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  she was a very bright kid, so she got sent to
• 4:08
  a school for other high -performing children.
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  Right, but she didn't have the money, she didn't
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  have the proper uniform, and she had what she
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  called an appalling working -class accent compared
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  to her... you know, affluent peers. And the lengths
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  she went to just to survive in that environment
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  are incredible. Like, at 11 years old, she spent
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  18 grueling months taking elocution lessons.
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  Wow. 18 months. Yeah. 18 months of actively trying
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  to erase her accent and permanently alter her
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  voice just to sound like the majority. And the
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  realization she takes from that is just foundational
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  to her work as a chief people officer. Yeah.
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  Because she realized she was physically capable
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  of changing her voice, right? She could successfully
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  emulate the majority. Right. But it took massive
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  effort. Exactly. And she points out that many
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  people, people of color, people with different
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  genders or different physical abilities, they
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  cannot simply change their physical appearance
• 5:01
  to blend in like that. To put this in tech terms,
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  since we're talking about IT executives here,
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  it's like running a background operating system
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  that eats up, say, 40 % of your CPU just to maintain
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  a fake user interface. This is such a good analogy.
• 5:15
  Right. Because if you are using almost half your
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  brain power just trying to sound, look, and act
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  like the majority, you only have 60 % of your
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  energy left to actually do your job. Yeah, that
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  CPU drain is real. If an employee's processing
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  power is drained by emulation, they aren't using
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  that energy to innovate. Leanne's ultimate thesis
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  is that forcing people to emulate the majority
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  is just an exhausting burden that entirely saps
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  human energy. which naturally shifts the conversation
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  from how empathy feels on an individual level
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  to how empathy literally builds things on a corporate
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  level. And this is where I really want to push
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  back on the kind of cynical view of this topic,
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  because a lot of people view DEI as just an HR
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  initiative. Like a training module you click
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  through once a year. Exactly. But here's where
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  it gets really interesting. Does having diverse
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  perspectives in a company actually change the
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  physical, tangible products that a multi -billion
• 6:09
  dollar company manufactures? If we connect this
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  to the bigger picture, Graciela Perez from GE
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  Healthcare provides an absolute master class
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  on exactly how it does. She brings up a really
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  striking data point, doesn't she? She does. She
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  notes that over 70 % of healthcare providers
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  are women. Yet historically, the technology they
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  use hasn't always been built with them. or their
• 6:31
  patients in mind. Right. And she talks about
• 6:35
  this concept in artificial intelligence called
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  data artifacts. Now, I've heard that term thrown
• 6:39
  around in text circles, but like, what does it
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  actually mean in the context of building a product?
• 6:44
  Is an artifact just a bug in the code? Not exactly.
• 6:48
  Think of an artifact as a historical bias frozen
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  in data. Okay. Frozen how? Well, let's say a
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  development team is training an AI model to detect
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  anomalies in medical scans. If the historical
• 7:00
  data they feed into that AI comes from a demographic
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  that leans, say, 80 % male in Caucasian. The
• 7:06
  algorithm just mathematically optimizes for that
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  specific reality. Exactly. It treats that male
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  anatomy as the absolute baseline. The AI doesn't
• 7:14
  know it's biased. It's just calculating based
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  on the only worldview it was ever given. So if
• 7:19
  the engineering team all looks the same and they
• 7:21
  all have the same lived experience, they might
• 7:23
  not even realize the data is skewed in the first
• 7:25
  place. Right. The product literally inherits
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  the blind spots of its creators. That is terrifying
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  when you're talking about medical AI. It really
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  is. And Graciela points out that this goes far
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  beyond just software and algorithms. It dictates
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  the physical manufacturing of hardware, too.
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  Oh, like the MRI machines. Yes. She uses this
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  incredible example of magnetic resonance imaging.
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  GE actually went back and physically changed
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  the engineering of their newer MRI machines to
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  increase the opening space, the bore of the machine.
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  Because as she so perfectly put it, people don't
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  come in one size. Precisely. The original dimensions
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  were largely based on a specific historical standard
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  of the human body. which really excluded a lot
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  of people. Absolutely. So by widening that space,
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  they reduce patient claustrophobia, they accommodate
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  different body types, and they actually change
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  the entire diagnostic experience. But here is
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  the mechanical hurdle Graciela highlights right.
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  You can have all the data in the world suggesting
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  you need a wider MRI machine, but it takes diverse
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  people actually embedded within the design team
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  to spot the flaw. And to champion the redesign.
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  Because changing hardware is not cheap. No, not
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  at all. And crucially, it takes a diverse C -suite
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  to actually sign the checks. The executives holding
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  the budget have to understand the why behind
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  the redesign, or the inclusive idea never makes
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  it off the whiteboard. It just dies in committee.
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  Exactly. If you're managing a team right now,
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  it makes you ask yourself, like, how many metaphorical
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  MRI machines is your team building with blind
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  spots simply because you haven't given the budget
• 9:00
  pen to a diverse voice? Which brings up a massive
• 9:03
  logistical challenge. Let's say a company understands
• 9:05
  this, right? They know diverse perspectives are
• 9:08
  an absolute requirement to avoid engineering
• 9:10
  blind spots. Okay, so they know they need the
• 9:12
  voices. Right, but how do they actually ensure
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  those diverse voices feel safe enough to speak
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  up in a high -pressure boardroom? Because getting
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  a seat at the table is one thing. Having the
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  authorization to use your voice is something
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  else entirely. And the panel was incredibly candid
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  about the barriers here. Graciela shared that,
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  early in her career, she was literally told to
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  cut her indigenous curly hair so she would, quote,
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  look the part for her executive level. Which
• 9:38
  ties directly back to Leanne's warning about
• 9:41
  the danger of emulation. The CPU drain again.
• 9:44
  Exactly. Leanne argues that a significant reason
• 9:47
  many women fail in corporate business is because
• 9:50
  they try to emulate aggressive male behaviors.
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  Right. They force themselves into a posture that
• 9:55
  just isn't authentic to them. And it leads to
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  utter exhaustion. It results in failure because
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  you're spending half your energy just wearing
• 10:02
  a mask in every meeting. So if the solution isn't
• 10:04
  just sending out a company -wide memo that says,
• 10:07
  hey, be yourself, how do leaders actually dismantle
• 10:10
  that expectation of emulation? Well, Ron Garry
• 10:13
  has this tactical approach he uses that I just
• 10:16
  found fascinating. He calls it identifying wildflowers.
• 10:19
  Wildflowers. I love that term. What does that
• 10:21
  look like in practice? It's a brilliant piece
• 10:23
  of active management. So Ron notices a pattern.
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  During informal prep sessions for big executive
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  meetings, everyone is chatting, the ideas are
• 10:33
  flowing, and the diverse candidates on his team
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  are just brilliant. OK, so they know their stuff
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  in private. Exactly. Yeah. But the moment they
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  step into the formal boardroom with the broader
• 10:42
  C -suite, certain individuals who he affectionately
• 10:46
  calls wildflowers suddenly clam up. They just
• 10:49
  shrink back. But hold on, if someone is already
• 10:51
  an introvert, or if they already feel marginalized
• 10:54
  in a room full of, you know, type A executives,
• 10:57
  isn't cold -calling them in front of the entire
• 10:59
  C -suite the exact opposite of psychological
• 11:02
  safety? Like, that honestly sounds terrifying
• 11:04
  to me. Oh, it would be absolutely terrifying
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  if you did it blind. But the mechanism that makes
• 11:08
  this work is prep session. His strategy is entirely
• 11:11
  proactive. Okay, so he plans it out with them
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  beforehand. Yes. Before they ever walk into the
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  boardroom, he sits down with his wildflowers
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  and says, listen, be ready. At some point in
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  this meeting, I'm going to throw you a softball
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  or a t -ball question. He tells them, I am going
• 11:26
  to intentionally create a gap in the conversation
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  for you. And I want you to show your value. Ah,
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  so he leverages his own power and privilege as
• 11:36
  the leader in the room to construct a safe off
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  ramp for them. Precisely. He tees them up so
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  they don't have to fight to interject over all
• 11:43
  the loud voices. They just have to step up and
• 11:46
  knock the softball out of the park. He doesn't
• 11:48
  just hope they find the courage to speak over
• 11:50
  loud executives. He actually engineers the environment
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  so they can prove their immense value to the
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  rest of the room. That is real leadership right
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  there. It really is. And this raises an important
• 12:01
  question about... which Leanne illustrates with
• 12:04
  a really powerful anecdote from a previous company
• 12:07
  she worked at. Oh, the hoodie story. Yeah. This
• 12:10
  story completely stopped me in my tracks. It's
• 12:13
  incredibly moving. It was an all -hands meeting
• 12:15
  during Black History Month. A young black tech
• 12:17
  employee gets up on the stage to address the
• 12:20
  company. And what does he tell them? He explains
• 12:22
  to the crowd that his entire life, for his own
• 12:25
  physical safety in his neighborhood and with
• 12:27
  authorities, he was trained to keep his hoodie
• 12:29
  up. keep his voice low, and stay quiet. That
• 12:32
  was his literal survival mechanism. Yes. And
• 12:35
  then he walks through the doors of a fast -paced
• 12:37
  tech company, and suddenly management expects
• 12:40
  him to act like a loud, extroverted, table -pounding
• 12:43
  Stanford grad. They expect him to totally reverse
• 12:47
  a lifetime of survival conditioning just because
• 12:49
  he walked into a corporate office. It's a profound
• 12:52
  realization of how historical norms of corporate
• 12:55
  behavior are completely alien. or even historically
• 12:59
  dangerous for the very people we are now inviting
• 13:02
  into the building. So Leanne emphasizes that
• 13:04
  inclusivity cannot just be a broad sweeping initiative,
• 13:07
  right? It's a highly individual people issue.
• 13:10
  Exactly. Because you have white male introverts,
• 13:12
  you have working mothers, you have young black
• 13:14
  men carrying the weight of systemic caution.
• 13:17
  And they all have completely unique operational
• 13:19
  needs. Which is exactly why she aggressively
• 13:22
  champions things like flexible work schedules.
• 13:26
  Inclusion means looking at the individual and
• 13:29
  realizing that the rigid 9 -5 aggressive boardroom
• 13:34
  structure only optimizes performance for a very
• 13:38
  specific type of person. Right. If you want the
• 13:41
  absolute best out of your entire workforce, you
• 13:43
  have to offer flexible environments that meet
• 13:46
  them where their CPU runs most efficiently. Perfectly
• 13:49
  said. So what does this all mean for you, the
• 13:51
  person listening right now, trying to navigate
• 13:53
  your own career? The panel tied this back to
• 13:56
  a phrase we hear constantly, personal brand,
• 13:59
  but they approached it completely differently.
• 14:01
  Yeah, they really flipped it on its head. Graciela
• 14:03
  said you have to find your brand, secure your
• 14:05
  foundation, and then just flaunt it. Think about
• 14:08
  how a multi -billion dollar corporate brand works.
• 14:11
  If consumers don't quite get a company's brand,
• 14:13
  the company doesn't panic, abandon its identity,
• 14:16
  and pretend to be its competitor. Right. They
• 14:18
  go back to their core foundation, they strengthen
• 14:20
  their messaging, and they communicate their value
• 14:22
  better. Exactly. Inclusion isn't a one -off email
• 14:26
  you send out in a designated month. As Graciela
• 14:29
  frames it, it's the difference between going
• 14:31
  on a crash diet for a week and fundamentally
• 14:33
  changing your lifestyle to be healthy. Inclusion
• 14:36
  has to be a daily operational habit. You can't
• 14:39
  invite someone to the table and then demand they
• 14:42
  use your exact manners, your exact tone of voice,
• 14:44
  and your exact aggressive posture. You have to
• 14:47
  let them be who they are because, as one of the
• 14:50
  panelists noted, everyone else has already taken.
• 14:52
  That's a great quote and this is where the timeline
• 14:55
  of our discussion really shifts. Because when
• 14:58
  an organization actually masters this internal
• 15:01
  inclusion when they remove that emulation tax
• 15:03
  from their employees Exactly when they do that.
• 15:06
  It doesn't just stay trapped inside the walls
• 15:07
  of the corporate headquarters It creates this
• 15:10
  massive ripple effect that spills out into global
• 15:13
  community impact Yes, and this transition is
• 15:16
  crucial because when a massive company starts
• 15:18
  deploying its resources to do good globally It
• 15:21
  actually solves one of the most pressing internal
• 15:24
  crises companies face today, which is the desperate
• 15:26
  craving for purpose among their own employees.
• 15:30
  And Ron detailed some incredible mechanics of
• 15:33
  how HP is doing this. Right because a lot of
• 15:35
  companies just passively write donation checks
• 15:37
  to universities. Yeah. But HP actively partners
• 15:40
  with historically black colleges and universities,
• 15:43
  HBCUs, to physically shape their tech curriculums.
• 15:47
  Wait, so they actually help write the coursework?
• 15:51
  Yes. Ron literally sits down with academic leaders
• 15:54
  and says, here are the exact IT skills I need
• 15:57
  as a global CIO today. He helps them build the
• 16:01
  coursework so that when these students graduate,
• 16:03
  they are perfectly calibrated to be hired immediately.
• 16:06
  That is so much more valuable than just a check.
• 16:08
  He also shared that HP's treasurer made major,
• 16:12
  highly intentional cash deposits into black -owned
• 16:14
  banks in Detroit and Houston. They didn't just
• 16:16
  leave all their capital in Wall Street institutions.
• 16:19
  Right. They placed it there specifically so those
• 16:21
  local banks could lend that money out and reinvest
• 16:24
  directly into those local communities. It's all
• 16:26
  about intentionality. But the story that truly
• 16:28
  showcases the intersection of global supply chain
• 16:31
  and personal purpose is Ron's connection to Haiti.
• 16:34
  Oh, this story. It's amazing. So Ron's parents
• 16:37
  migrated from Haiti to the U .S. in the late
• 16:40
  60s. Tragically, during the devastating earthquake
• 16:43
  there, he lost 12 family members. Just heartbreaking.
• 16:47
  It is. And he shared a really haunting detail.
• 16:50
  One of his relatives actually called him the
• 16:52
  Knight of the Quake, and he didn't answer. That
• 16:55
  missed call has just stayed with him ever since.
• 16:58
  Man. So to channel that grief into action, he
• 17:01
  serves on the board of SBP, an organization that
• 17:04
  rebuilds homes after natural disasters. Right.
• 17:06
  But here is the amazing way his corporate life
• 17:09
  intersects with his personal mission. HP actually
• 17:12
  set up a recycling center in Haiti. And they
• 17:14
  employ locals there, right? Yes, they employ
• 17:16
  locals to pull ocean -bound plastics right off
• 17:19
  the beaches. And that recycled material is integrated
• 17:22
  directly into HP's core supply chain. This blew
• 17:24
  my mind. It makes up 60 % of the physical material
• 17:27
  in the HP Dragonfly laptop that Ron himself uses
• 17:31
  every day. It is not a charity write -off. It
• 17:33
  is core procurement. And to bring the story entirely
• 17:36
  full circle, Ron recently discovered that his
• 17:38
  own second cousin is employed at that exact recycling
• 17:41
  facility in Haiti, building a sustainable living
• 17:44
  for his family. that is a company's inclusive
• 17:47
  supply chain, literally changing the trajectory
• 17:49
  of a community and the very family of the executive
• 17:52
  leading the charge. When you hear the mechanics
• 17:54
  of a story like that, you really start to understand
• 17:57
  Leanne's advice regarding the daily news cycle.
• 17:59
  Oh, absolutely. She pointed out how watching
• 18:02
  the news every day can make us feel incredibly
• 18:04
  sad, overwhelmed, and just completely disempowered.
• 18:08
  Yeah, the world just feels too heavy to fix sometimes.
• 18:11
  But she offered a very pragmatic antidote. Doing
• 18:14
  good. She stresses how vital it is for companies
• 18:17
  to let employees choose where they want to direct
• 18:20
  their community efforts. So don't just dictate
• 18:22
  the corporate charity from the top down. Exactly.
• 18:25
  Empower the employee to solve a problem in their
• 18:27
  own backyard. Because community service isn't
• 18:29
  just a corporate public relations strategy. It
• 18:32
  is a vital operational tool for employee mental
• 18:35
  health. It's how a workforce gains understanding
• 18:38
  and shifts perspective. As she simply put it,
• 18:41
  when you do good for others, you biologically
• 18:44
  feel good for yourself. And this directly explains
• 18:46
  the massive labor shifts we've seen, you know,
• 18:48
  what the media calls the great resignation. People
• 18:51
  aren't just quitting to sit on the couch. No,
• 18:53
  they're migrating. Right. If you are a highly
• 18:56
  skilled worker in an organization that doesn't
• 18:58
  value your authentic self, you're going to leave
• 19:01
  and find a company that actually serves a higher
• 19:03
  good and offers a tangible sense of purpose.
• 19:06
  Exactly. Retaining top talent today means giving
• 19:11
  your workforce a reason to be intensely proud
• 19:14
  of the logo on their paycheck. If the company
• 19:17
  is actively engaged in the community, the employees
• 19:20
  feel a shared sense of ownership over that positive
• 19:23
  impact. So let's take a step back and look at
• 19:25
  the trajectory we've been on today. We started
• 19:27
  out trying to cut through the buzzwords of corporate
• 19:29
  culture, looking for the actual mechanics of
• 19:32
  inclusion. And what we found is that it is deeply
• 19:35
  personal, rooted in painful experiences, and
• 19:38
  highly operational. We saw how a personal feeling
• 19:41
  of being an outsider, like being mistaken for
• 19:44
  the valet or spending 18 months trying to erase
• 19:46
  your own accent, can evolve into a leadership
• 19:49
  style that intentionally engineers off -ramps
• 19:52
  for quiet voices in the boardroom. We explored
• 19:54
  how removing the exhausting burden of emulation
• 19:57
  frees up the mental processing power required
• 20:00
  to redesign life -saving medical equipment, ensuring
• 20:02
  that MRI machines actually fit the diverse reality
• 20:06
  of the human body. And we saw how a corporate
• 20:08
  commitment community can literally pull plastic
• 20:12
  out of the ocean in Haiti, turning it into a
• 20:14
  laptop while providing sustainable jobs for the
• 20:17
  very families of the executives leading the company.
• 20:19
  It all comes down to the architecture of the
• 20:21
  environments we build and work in. It really
• 20:23
  does. So here is a final thought to mull over
• 20:25
  as you close out this deep dive and go about
• 20:28
  your day. We've spent this time exploring how
• 20:31
  human beings must avoid emulating the majority
• 20:34
  just to fit into a corporate machine. We know
• 20:36
  that code switching drains our vital energy.
• 20:39
  Right. But as we increasingly rely on artificial
• 20:42
  intelligence to write our emails, to screen our
• 20:44
  resumes, and to manage our schedules, are we
• 20:46
  unknowingly building a digital infrastructure
• 20:49
  that will force the next generation to code switch
• 20:52
  just to be understood by the algorithm. That
• 20:55
  is a terrifying thought. Are we finally freeing
• 20:57
  humans from the burden of emulation in the boardroom
• 21:00
  only to program that exact same bias into our
• 21:03
  machines? Take a hard look at where you spend
• 21:06
  your 40 hours a week. Are you spending your energy
• 21:09
  trying to emulate someone else or are you in
• 21:11
  an environment that actively amplifies your authentic
• 21:14
  self? It's a profound question about what we
• 21:16
  are optimizing for in the future. Something to
• 21:19
  keep a close eye on as technology evolves. Thank
• 21:22
  you for joining us on this deep dive. Until next
• 21:25
  time, keep looking beneath the surface.