Revlon’s Jolorie Williams: 5 Steps We Must Take To Truly Create An Inclusive, Representative, and Equitable Society

Your executive leadership team needs to represent the community. I think every company needs to have a diversity and inclusion council, but it’s important that the companies have people internally and externally who can bring a fresh perspective on how the company as a whole is viewed, should be viewed, and how they need to make sure they are recruiting from every walk of life.

As part of our series about ‘5 Steps We Must Take To Truly Create An Inclusive, Representative, and Equitable Society’ I had the pleasure to interview Jolorie Williams.

Jolorie Williams, General Manager, Revlon Multicultural and Contract Services and alum FAMU, who spearheaded the Creme of Nature Legacy to Leadership HBCU scholarship program. Jolorie owns complete P&L Responsibility for Revlon’s Multi-Cultural brands and Contract Services which includes marketing and sales.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I’m a little country girl, born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. Everything we did was outside. We enjoyed the outdoors. I always knew I wanted to attend Florida A&M University, one of the HBCUs — historically black colleges and universities — because it was right there in Tallahassee. I was excited about becoming a part of the culture and tradition that comes with attending an HBCU — meeting black people from across the US and the Caribbean.

I’m a first-generation college graduate. Neither one of my parents attended college. Family is extremely important to me and everything we do centers on family coming together, and we really pay homage to one another and support and lift each other up. At one point in my career, I moved a total of nine or 10 times to various cities throughout the country. Each time that I moved, my mother made it her business to come visit me in every location, including when I lived in Pittsburgh — it was the first time my mother had really seen snow. In Florida we don’t get snow. In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, cooking, and flipping houses. I love flipping houses because that was the business my father was in. My father was a contractor and taught me everything I needed to know about building a house from the ground up. I currently work with my brother to flip houses and we enjoy it. Its our way of keeping our fathers legacy alive.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I always try to refer to the Bible when I’m looking for inspiration or looking for direction on where to go, or how to make decisions. When I was baptized, one of my gifts was a Life Application Bible that really breaks down the Bible in layman’s terms so that I can understand the stories. I can understand the foundation of the message that they’re trying to convey. So I refer to that all the time. I love how you can go to the back of the bible and you’re looking for something about happiness, about loving, about forgiveness and it will immediately take you to certain scriptures. Today, my Bible is a little ragged, but it’s still my favorite book.

Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

The best life lesson quote I’ve always heard is ‘If you do what you always did, you get what you always got, so try to do something different.’ This quote I constantly live by in my personal, professional, and spiritual life. I always try to do something different because they always say the definition of insanity is keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. So I try not to live in the insanity moment. I always try to do things differently because I’m looking for a different outcome. I’m looking for ways to be new different and better in everything that I do.

How do you define leadership? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

For me, leadership is a skill set that allows you to adjust to any situation and to be able to listen and come with a very open mind to how to problem-solve. As a leader in a leadership role, you’re always looking for a new way of doing things. You’re always looking to be strategic and be more of a visionary. A leader, in my opinion, is not someone who does the same thing over and over again. If you look at the great leaders that we’ve all seen in our lives, I think about even my parents. My parents were perfect leaders from the standpoint they were always doing something different. They were building a legacy. They had a clear vision, a clear strategy and they left me with a beautiful legacy.

I look at even our current president of the USA, Joe Biden. He had a vision and a strategy. And he worked hard as a leader to bring that vision and strategy to life. I look at leaders of Fortune 500 companies. The leaders that have been successful continue to elevate and take their companies, to take themselves, to the next level. So you have to be a visionary. You have to be strategic. You have to be a mover and a shaker.

In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress. As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high-stakes meeting, talk, or decision?

For me, before I go into a high-stakes meeting, I always take at least a week or a week and a half to prepare whatever materials I have. I literally stand in front of the mirror, and I rehearse. I rehearse how I’m going to present. I rehearse what are the key bullet points I want to make sure I get across. Besides the presentation, at times, I have recorded myself to make sure that I’m clear, I’m articulate, that the gist of what I’m trying to communicate is there. And I also think in my mind, “What are some of the questions I could get asked?” and I do role playing. I will roleplay with one of my friends to say, “Hey, this is what I got to do. I want to present this to you. Tell me what you think. Stop me if things aren’t clear.” And it’s always good to do that with people who are not in your business, because they will ask you questions that will get you to think about how you present a point. I used this method when presenting to our Revlon CEO, Debbie Perelman. Even presenting at industry meetings, I will rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

OK, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. The United States is currently facing a very important self-reckoning about race, diversity, equality and inclusion. This is, of course, a huge topic. But briefly, can you share your view on how this crisis inexorably evolved to the boiling point that it’s at now?

From my perspective, it’s not an issue. It’s a way of life. From day one I’ve known that as a black woman, I have to work twice as hard. I have to be twice as smart, and I have to look for ways to make sure that I am recognized for my skill set and what I bring to the table. We’re taught that from day one. It has just now come to the forefront where companies have realized that people should be judged not on the color of their skin but on their character and on their skill sets and what they bring to the table.

I always ask people, “If you had to describe me without using race or gender, how would you describe me?” Because a lot of people don’t know when they hear the name Jolorie, is it a male or a female? They don’t know. And they don’t know if I’m black, white, Hispanic. One person shocked me by describing me this way: “This individual is confident, well-spoken, very intelligent, true subject matter expert, passionate, driven.” That’s how African Americans and women want people to use those types of adjectives to describe us. Don’t describe me as a woman or a black woman first. Describe me on the skills and what I bring to the table.

You look at the fact that as a race, and especially as women, we’re now being invited to have a seat at the table, whereas in the past, we sat at the kiddie table. When a seat became available, we waited our turn to be asked to come to the table. Now you have women who are saying, “I no longer need your permission to come to the table. I’m going to build my own table.” That’s why you’ll see a lot of female entrepreneurs, especially minorities. And this is just the beginning. It’s not like this is an aha moment. It’s been here for years. It’s just now become a topic of discussion. It has now been put on everybody’s radar as to how do we show that we are committed to minorities in a positive manner and committed to women in a positive manner.

Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience working with initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion? Can you share a story with us?

The experience in promoting diversity and inclusion stems from the Legacy to Leadership scholarship initiative that was created for Creme of Nature this year. We started this out by looking at what can we do to give back to the community that has supported us for over 40 years. When you’re owned by a company that doesn’t really understand historically black colleges and universities or even what HBCU means, you can educate them on the importance of the HBCU community, on the fact that although we are not a black-owned or a black-founded brand, we are a brand that was born in the black community and have been here for over 40 years. This is one way we support the community that has long supported us. We also wanted to come up with an initiative that really catered to our customer, a sustainable initiative that would thrive and grow.

While I was presenting this initiative to our CEO, she stopped me. Did I say something wrong? Is she getting ready to squash it.? No, she said, “I want to know more. What more can we do? How do we make this bigger? How do we make this better? Can this go on beyond just the scholarships?” And that’s when I unveiled our three-step approach with the scholarships first, then acknowledging the students and doing things around them to bring to life our commitment to their career and their education. The third piece for this year will be the pitch competition that we’re doing with Thurgood Marshall [College Fund].

And next year, this Legacy to Leadership program will be amplified. We are working on it now with the head of diversity and inclusion at Revlon. We’re also working to bring on our sister division to be a part of the Legacy to Leadership initiative for 2022 and beyond.

Revlon’s CEO Debbie Perelman is behind this initiative 100% and she is charging other team members and partners with amplifying this initiative. Our Diversity and Inclusion team has identified numerous HBCU schools to set up interviews with in order to recruit for next year’s internships. Also, we’re super excited about the pitch competition. We want to have this in New York, where Debbie will be one of the judges. We’re looking for key partners, influencers, and notables to be judges. It’s going to be a diverse group of judges whom students will pitch their ideas to.

This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have a diverse executive team?

It’s important because you get a first-hand perspective on a different consumer that you may not currently be targeting. A diverse executive team can bring a new dimension to the table. A lot of executives don’t really understand how to engage with other cultures. They don’t know what is socially acceptable, they don’t know the right language, the right approach. I’ve seen a lot of companies fail in trying to reach African Americans, Hispanics, the LGBTQ+ community, so it’s important that you bring a set of diverse executives who can help you engage with these consumers. If you don’t have the right people at the table, you could go down a difficult path.

Can you please share five steps we must take to truly create an inclusive, representative, and equitable society?

1) Your executive leadership team needs to represent the community. I think every company needs to have a diversity and inclusion council, but it’s important that the companies have people internally and externally who can bring a fresh perspective on how the company as a whole is viewed, should be viewed, and how they need to make sure they are recruiting from every walk of life.

2) Inclusion in terms of the media. Carefully consider the faces we put out there to represent our brand and the media vehicles that we use to reach our consumer.

3) Minority agencies need to be utilized. A lot of people underestimate the value of these minority agencies. We use a female, black-owned PR agency out of Chicago. We use a black-owned agency that buys our digital for us out of Atlanta.

4) Many of us who have started businesses came from big corporations, so they know what to do, they know how to do it, but they bring that level of expertise in how to engage with a diverse culture.

5) Your staff who work on your brands needs to be diverse, so that they can look at things differently, versus always looking at it one way.

We are doing all of these things today with Creme of Nature. As head of the Multicultural Group, I am a member of the diversity council. The agencies that we use are all primarily minority-owned agencies. The faces that we use in our advertising campaign, they look like me, and they have different hair textures, different skin tones. The texture has to be authentic and represent the consumer.

We’re getting through a rough period now, are you optimistic that the issue could eventually be resolved?

At the end of the day, whether it is Black Lives Matter, whether it is the pandemic, there is going to be a resolution. You look at where we started with Black Lives Matter, and how far we’ve come, but we haven’t gone far enough. We’re still on that journey.

It’s the same thing when I look at these very influential professors and administrators who are taking positions at HBCUs, they are forgoing the Ivy League schools in order to come to an HBCU. That shows we’re moving in the right direction. That shows the importance of HBCUs. And it shows the importance of African-American women. You look at the fact that a lot of these retailers are bringing in these entrepreneur brands. The Lip Bar — a young woman started at FAMU with an idea and now her product is sold in Walmart and in Target. You have The Honey Pot. The Honey Pot is a black-owned, female brand that got its start in Target. You’re definitely seeing movement in the right direction.

Is there a person with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

The two people I would really love have breakfast with are Barack and Michelle Obama.

I would love to have a conversation about their views, about their time in the White House, about their struggles and what they are doing to teach their children that brighter days are ahead of us. And what’s the legacy they want to leave for America, how a young black man who probably never thought he could be president of the United States? His story is one that everybody should know. He defied all odds because he was driven and because the day he was born, it was all laid out for him, and he just stayed on that journey. And I think that’s something they need to share. I think what Michelle is doing and the fact that she didn’t want to be boxed in as a first lady — she broke a lot of molds. It’s the simple things that she did. Having her arms exposed. Being able to be authentic and true to who she is. I would love to have a conversation with the two of them.

Do you have any other insight you want to share?

The Legacy to Leadership initiative is just the beginning of where we will be going. Revlon is 150% supporting this initiative, from all avenues of the company. All I keep hearing is, How much more can we do? What else are we doing? What will it look like next year? How can I help you? That’s what I keep hearing from Revlon. I really do applaud them.

Jolorie Williams’ social handles — joloriewilliams for both Facebook and Instagram.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!