Diversity And Inclusion Are Linked To Innovation
I recently saw a tweet from Scott Lenet, Founder & President of Touchdown Ventures, that deeply resonated with me and my firm’s mission:
The tweet linked to a Forbes article that resulted from Lenet’s interview with Christie Pitts, General Partner & CEO of Backstage Capital, which has invested $5M in 100 companies led by underrepresented founders. In the informative interview, Pitts discusses her views on diversity & inclusion, and how her experience is relevant to corporate innovation professionals.
Some themes on the same wavelength of what we, humble ventures, are seeing in the innovation space include:
- Be innovative about reaching new audiences to compete against competitors.
- Think about diversity as a business problem.
- Reaching diverse customers should be a corporate goal.
- There is a business case for funding underserved founders.
- Innovation is about envisioning the future and big companies don’t always consider who their core customers will be in five to ten years.
- Diversity is a blindspot for not only established corporations but also many tech startups.
- Diversity shouldn’t be relegated to HR or used as just a PR strategy.
- You have to be authentic in the approach and mirror who you’re serving.
- Break down silos.
humble ventures is a venture development firm that accelerates growth for tech-enabled startups in partnership with established organizations and investors. We focus on diverse entrepreneurs and those creating solutions for diverse audiences because they are solving problems for the fastest growing demographic segments in the US, provide opportunities for disproportionate returns and represent the markets of the future.
Through our partnership with Ogilvy Consulting, we’ve found that enterprises that are looking to solve problems are realizing diversity and inclusion are inextricably linked to innovation. humble’s mission and expansive network enable us to help enterprises to vertically incorporate diversity as an innovation strategy to acquire new customers, gain innovative insights and be better positioned for the future.
Click here to read the full interview and visit humble.vc to if you’re interested in learning more about what we do.
