Andrea Richardson of Zeno Group: How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Increased diversity helps people bring their authentic selves to work. Specifically in the Black and Latino communities we have always felt the pressures of having to code switch for fear of being judged in the workplace. Speaking from experience, this is a heavy burden, and it takes so much energy to have to do that.
As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrea Richardson.
Over the last two decades, Andréa Richardson Zeno Group’s Global Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion has provided strategic counsel to top global corporations, nonprofits and public entities on diversity, inclusion & equity strategies, multicultural marketing, crisis management, reputation management, branding, customer engagement and corporate social responsibility. Over the course of her career, Andréa has been named Out & Equal’s Outstanding Champion, Black Enterprise Magazine’s Top Female Executive in Advertising & Marketing and was recently named one of the 100 Most Influential Persons of African Descent in Business and Entrepreneurship as proclaimed by United Nation’s General Assembly.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?
Definitely and thank you so much for having me! To start, I would consider myself incredibly blessed to have had early childhood exposure to a multicultural mindset. I was born into a family with a range of cultural and ethnic influences including Black, Caribbean/West Indian, Afro-Latino, Irish and of course American influences being born in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I’m very fortunate to have parents who took education seriously; sometimes too seriously. They both have MBAs and I felt like my entire life was about education and school even when I was at home on the weekends. I am more grateful now, but not so much back then. I’ve worked for media companies, non-profit organizations, PR/marketing/government affairs agencies and Fortune 100 companies. I’ve always been really focused on my career progression, graduated from high school at 16 and had an MBA by the age of 24. I am incredibly grateful to have had the unique opportunity to cultivate my marketing and communication skills while building a deep competence in multicultural marketing communication and diversity, equity and inclusion. My first relevant job was at the Better Business Bureau of New York doing multicultural communications even before I truly knew what it was. My role was to connect and engage small businesses to become members of the organization. Most of these small businesses were run by people of multicultural descent and this role required knowledge of various communities, their mindsets, needs, goals and lots of relationship building.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
This is not so interesting, but perhaps funny! In 2006, my former colleague and one-time direct report who has since moved on to do some amazing things in her career had a nickname that is still true of my personality today: “Corporate Andréa.” She would tease me and say that she always knew when I was about to get down to business because my voice and mannerisms would change. Corporate Andréa still exists today, but I like to think of it as like pressing a button that says “Activate Boss Mode” and then, surprise, we have Corporate Andréa.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
The life lesson quote I carry with me is: No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. As human beings it is natural for us to want to shout to the world all that we have learned and studied. My approach is generally listen first, speak later. I truly want to listen first to understand the needs of others in helping to find a solution for all parties involved. There is always a smart solution!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
I have to say I have been blessed to have several allies and business sponsors who have given me amazing advice and said my name in rooms that I wasn’t in at the time or even challenged me to be fearless in my approach to my career and life in general. But there is one constant, and that is my Aunt Angela who has always provided a supportive listening ear. No matter how out of the box the ideas have been, her response has always been “go for it” and “trust your intuition — it hasn’t led you wrong yet”.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Daily, we do work that helps our clients achieve something better for humankind. Zeno Group’s purpose is to champion the courageous to achieve something better for humankind. It’s such a good feeling to work with people who are likeminded in this quest. It adds new meaning to work when we are empowered to act courageously in our day-to-day to get a better outcome for us all as human beings.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
I am especially excited about the equity work we are doing across various industries at Zeno. Do I think this will help people? Absolutely. I am confident that it will. For the most part, companies have begun their journey on the D&I aspects of DE&I, but in general have lagged on the equity component. It’s unknown territory for most companies and some companies are still struggling with the difference between equality and equity. It’s courageous to take on the challenge of equity because it may require doing things differently and that can be scary territory. I am always up for the challenge; in the end this work is too important, and it will create better outcomes for humankind.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
My job is innately impact and purpose led; I take this extremely seriously because I try to live a purpose-driven life. Some may say well it’s just a job; it’s how you pay the bills. Yes, it pays the bills, but I’m also grateful that the work I do helps people. It is very rewarding work. Work that makes people feel like they are welcomed and cared for in the workplace. Work that stands up for the least empowered voices in a room. Work that advocates for and creates more equitable experiences with businesses and in society. Work that holds organizations accountable and upholds inclusive corporate citizenship.
Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Increased diversity helps people bring their authentic selves to work. Specifically in the Black and Latino communities we have always felt the pressures of having to code switch for fear of being judged in the workplace. Speaking from experience, this is a heavy burden, and it takes so much energy to have to do that.
- Increased diversity makes way for more diversity of thought. This allows people with varying lived experiences to bring their best thinking and solutions to help a company navigate business challenges. The outcome of this is better innovation.
- Better innovation leads to profitability and better financial performance.
- With a truly diverse workforce, a company should have diversity at every level of the organization. From senior management to entry level, this is important because each person should see themselves represented across the organization. Representation matters, it’s difficult to aspire to a level when no one that looks like me has ever made it to that level at that organization.
- Finally, it helps with retention. As human beings we are community seekers. If I am always the only one in the room, at some point I may ask myself if this is the right room for me. Whereas seeing people like me in the room makes me feel like this is a room that welcomes people like me.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?
Be quick to listen and slow to judge. Create spaces for people to share their lived experience because there is always something we can learn from someone else. Collective learning helps teams grow and work better together.
What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?
Make the time to allow your team to share new and sometimes non-traditional ideas. We are such a productivity-driven society and sometimes we miss the opportunity to find better ways of working and smart ways to innovate because we are so busy doing.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this :-)
Rihanna is a woman who makes me proud to be a woman of Caribbean descent. I see how she approaches business with a DE&I mindset in such a fearless way and it truly inspires me.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Please connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-richardson-mba-15a6764
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
