Business as Usual: EARN Pittsburgh

Transcription: 

So good afternoon, everyone. This is Audrey Russo, President and CEO, the Pittsburgh Technology Council. And today like each day, we're pretty thrilled to have conversations with people who are working on changing Pittsburgh. It's not changing the world, as well as people who are busy having day jobs while they're trying to change the world. So these two people who I will bring on in a moment, Jessica Brooks and Martin Shepherd are going to talk about the executive action and Response Network that they have formed. But before we do, I want to give a shout out to Huntington bank thanking them for their work with us over the past year almost, can you believe that Jonathan, and 40 by 80, which is a wholly owned nonprofit charitable subsidiary of the Pittsburgh tech Council, where we focus on workforce development as well as entrepreneurship, Jonathan kersting, is with us as he is each and every day. And he is vice president of all things, media and marketing, you might be familiar, if not go to get pga.com. And you can see our micro site, I see Jonathan's wearing a new t shirt, and stylish Pittsburgh, very, very stylish, and I hope I can get one of those. I have one. Excellent. So I again want to thank Huntington bank and to give recognition to the work that we're doing on 40 by 80. So we've muted your microphones. And the intent there is to not hear what's going on in the background of each of our homes. Hopefully, you're preparing for some level of festivities during this time of year. And I also want to say that we have a chat and the chat is really focused on our guests, no one else, just our guests, this isn't an opportunity to sell your wares. So on that note, I am pretty thrilled to have Jessica Brooks, the CEO of Pittsburgh business group on health, and we'll put the link out to her site as well in the chat. So you can see what she's up to, as well as Martin Shepherd, he is CEO of arch access control. So first, I'm going to bring up Jessica, and say before we talk about this executive action network, let's talk about Jessica. Jessica, the work that you do. Tell us a little bit about yourself how you got into the work that you're doing now and maybe some of your passions. So welcome, and thank you.

Thank you for having me. Hello, everyone. And thank you for joining today. I'm probably sure you've heard this disclaimer many times, but this is COVID kids are home. Anyone could pop up spider man. You know, who knows PJ Masks. So just so you know that that that'd be I leave the Pittsburgh business group on health. I've been leading the Pittsburgh business group on health as a CEO for seven years now. I'm really excited about the work that we do at PB gh. We are one of the oldest employer healthcare Coalition's in the country. We'll be celebrating 40 years and 2021. And we really were birthed out of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. I was getting slashed Allegheny conference many years ago by the C suite leaders of our corporations at that time, the non healthcare industry leaders who really felt that it was up to them to address health care costs. And it was important for them to get into a room together and convene, share notes and create strategies on how we collectively as a business community can move healthcare in the right direction. 40 years later, we've evolved on cost focus to quality and access. And as of late equity. So we came into this year, not knowing what COVID would share around health disparities in the communities. But we did want to be responsible to after learning of the equity report that came out from the University of Pittsburgh on the health care disparities that exist here. So equity is now a core part of our agenda and how we're defining value. And we activate employers through education and group purchasing solutions, some advocacy work, and a lot a lot of conversations on what we can do to make families and health care possible for our families in our region.

Well, I mean, with COVID, the bifurcation has been quite more noticeable for each and every one of us. And I know from your role, you've seen it up close, even longer. So how are you reacting to some of that? Do you think we're just late to the game, are you how are you feeling in terms of I mean, there's been reports about this being a terrible region for African American women. You know, there's just been, you know, one thing after another of things that we're not proud of,

yes, there's Yes, we're all late. We're late to the game. I had the honor of working prior to this life at a health insurer Highmark, and the honor of working with Dr. Rhonda Johnson, in my role there and knew about healthcare disparities earlier in my career. However, this has not been a business community conversation. It's been tucked away in certain departments and certain organizations throughout our country, including the CDC, from the national level, and some universities and insurance companies, and others and health systems. But it has not been a decision or an area that we've decided to come together and address. And I can't think of a more important group in the business community to be in the business of ensuring health equity, and that the money that we spend on health care benefits, the billions of dollars that we spend, that we ensure all of our employees and their family members have the availability and the experience in our health care delivery systems to get treated with care and dignity, and to avoid preventable deaths and harm. And so, yes, we're late, but it's not too late. And COVID-19 shared that, that we have major, major issues, from the social determinants of health arena, things that we need to address around food deserts and transportation deserts to the actual point of care, someone's going to hospital today, how are they going to be treated? And how do we ensure that they come out, okay. And so it's not too late to get involved. And the PGH will be very, very vocal and hope that many of you, if not all of you will join us on that journey to elevating this as a business imperative, as a healthcare benefits, strategy. And as a way to incorporate our DNI leaders and equity leaders within our companies along with our benefits leaders in the HR framework to ensure that we ensure equity across all lines of business.

It's amazing that this was started four decades ago. And that was quite profound. The tech Council was started almost 38 years ago. So it's really it's really fascinating in terms of the work and the vision that they had 40 years ago, and it remains the same.

Yes, it is. It is very exciting. And again, some years there, it's more the cost issue. As you know, in the recent years in Pittsburgh, it was the access issue. And some issues elevate higher than others equity really hasn't been called caught out, I would say that's new. Quality has and it is embedded in quality of care. But we know our workforces aren't homogeneous and how we should apply health care benefits. And the experience of those who receive those isn't homogeneous, our experiences are very different, you and I will likely have a very different experience, we access the same healthcare system, maybe for the same issue. And so we have to acknowledge that and account for that. And and that is new for us. It's in so we're learning and doing at the same time. And I think that's pretty much the call of COVID-19 in 2020 is we can't wait to do let's do and pivot when we need to. So and I'm looking forward to us both being part members of each other's organizations. And I think there's a lot of opportunity there as well.

Yeah, we go back. I mean, that's really one of the things that we should learn out of this COVID period. Go back. So thank you for that. Let's let's jump in. We're going to get back to Jessica because we're going to have a dialogue here. I want to introduce to everyone Martin shepherd. He is the CEO of arch access control. Hi, Martin.

Hi, Audrey. How are you?

I'm great. It's great to have you both as well. Let's so let's set the table about Martin so where How did you start your company a little bit about yourself and yes, you can tell everyone that you're a Bengals fan. That's totally fine.

Trying to keep a secret Audrey lets all your Bengals fan by by birth in a region. That's all that's all.

It Okay, they deserve.

I'm also I'm also a big fan of Mike Tomlin who's a fraternity brother of mine and I'm a big fan of Ben Roethlisberger, who is an alumni of Miami University where I went to undergrad. So you go to undergrad Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Oh, wow. Nice. So okay, yeah, so

I'm a lawyer by trade, I actually moved to the region. In that capacity to work in the oil and gas industry. I came upon the opportunity, really the entrepreneurial opportunity to get into the security space through a former law partner of mine and some people I know in private equity, who really saw a burgeoning opportunity in security, physical security and cyber security. So I found it arc with a pretty audacious goal to end or middle Companies fear of loss due to security incident or security breach. And since then we've kind of, you know, as all new companies do, or should do, we've, we've iterated and really tried to find our niche, which is explicit now we are cybersecurity and supply chain risk, the entire journey from assessment through to all the solutions that remediate companies gaps, the gaps that they have in their cyber, cyber or physical security infrastructure. So we've come a long way have played with some with a couple of different platforms that we were trying to launch, we're still in the middle of developing an assessment platform, right now have to do assessments across the supply chain, we got a couple clients really interested in that platform. So I just interviewed for an accelerator in, in Florida, that would help me really launch that, that piece of the business. And so it's an exciting, exciting time in security. Because the worlds of securing human beings and securing digital assets are coming together and converging. And we feel like we've got the the secret sauce to be able to play in that space.

So that's perfect timing. Right. And it's a bold leap that you got out of practicing law. Right? It is. It is so what get What gave you that the confidence and the wherewithal to serve.

That's interesting. I and I get that question a lot. And I think sometimes I'm you know, just floating around in a balloon, like not, not not really connected to reality, as much as I should be. I, you know, I was a trial lawyer for time, before I came to the oil and gas industry. And I have tried any number of cases with extreme amounts of complexity, and experts and people to leverage to tell the story that you're telling for your client. And I just think that that experience played into this. I can remember, you know, before I had ever tried a case with an injury in it before the partner telling me, hey, we've got a Medical Library, go down there and start opening books and figure out what all this stuff means, right? And then I've got 15 depositions lined up over the next two weeks where I have to sound intelligent, asking questions to doctors and experts and in their field. And I think that experience just helped me be able to kind of pierce into into this and figure it out. It's security and cybersecurity live in our in our daily lives, right. So we have that level of engagement with it. But I had some friends in the space and those friends have friends in the space and you bring the experts to the table and you can you can put together a strategy for tackling.

I mean, it definitely is like putting puzzles together. And you've got to do that in that job. You've got to be a master of so much content and so much expertise. So good for you. So welcome. Pittsburgh now, right?

Yes, yes, Pittsburgh is home. And I don't see that changing, regardless of my affiliation to the Bengals.

Like I said, they totally earned it last night. So let's let's talk about why another topic, why we're here. Today, we're going to talk about irm. And we're going to talk about why it was formed, what the objectives are. And we're going to take it from there. So who wants to start either Jessica or Martin, either one of

us, I'll start, Jessica does such a great job with the origin story that I'll leave the origin story to her. But I can tell you as we sit here now, and this is well crafted, after launching this thing and working in it, we know our mission, our mission is to improve the overall quality of life for African Americans through access to positions in corporate leadership, in promotion of entrepreneurship, that's that is a very pointed path. For for earn. How we got to that? I I'll start the origin story. And I'll give my perspective on the origin story, which I always think is is, of course my perspective is the one that matters the most No. I was I was very, very frustrated in the wake of George Floyd, by the lack of urgency and the conversations that that were being had about what to do. Everyone, you know, certainly felt the pain and the weight of the moment. In, you know, viewing that that video and, and hearing the sounds and you could you could really feel the weight of it, which is why I think it was was so powerful that hit people in the soul. And in response to that I wanted to be a part of something that was going to change conditions in this country so that that wouldn't happen to people of any race, again, unjust murder by the power structure or, or injustice that keeps people in a certain place within the society. I wanted to do something about actively and I knew that the playbook of the past wasn't going to quite be enough, right? We're in a new time, a new new age, and needed to use different pulled different tools from our toolkit to get things done. Okay,

so Jessica, what do you want to add to that?

So we have no, we know each other. And we have a third co founder, George Robinson that many of you probably have heard before on this platform. I'm Martin, George and I were all a part of the advanced Leadership Initiative, we were in a cohort together the first cohort, and we won't, I won't say the best cohort, because there's there's many of strong leadership on African men from leaders in this room, they're filling the other cohorts. Um, however, we were the first we were the pioneers of that program. And we were able to connect in a way in a deep level that I believe has connected us forever. And so as Tali work to continue to have us stay engaged after that, and even more intentional around that, when having conversations with us, as a result of what happened with George Boyd, the murder of George Boyd, we really felt that it was our responsibility as African American leaders, to not put the onus on protesters and activists to really keep this conversation going and elevate it at the levels of true systemic change. And that we have the acumen, the skills, the relationships, and, and ultimately are in the corporate structures that keep racism alive, which is the business, corporate community. It is it is the foundation of corporations, that's embedded at the root. And so being a part of those institutions, and being active contributors, we felt that the African American leadership voice needed to be more prevalent, focused and intentional in a way that leveraged our relationships across race, across socio economic status across communities to bring solution to this. And so that's really where that were earned was birthed is us having conversations together. at an event that George invited us to, and this, we couldn't escape it, and we didn't want to hover, it was overtaking us. And and it's either it was either going to be one way or another, how do we come out of this powerful with a response, as leaders at or how do we let this eat us alive, right, and quite for our families and fighting for our sons and our daughters. And so while we're in the midst of both of those, we created arm. And so that's really how the foundation started.

So yeah, those are both powerful perspectives and and more than timely, and probably both of you would say very late to the process. But but so let's talk about what are what are some of the house we heard about the why. So what are the house? What can we one of the things that we hope is that for the tech community and beyond, can get engaged, right and to get engaged in a material way? So talk about what the How is, how are you going to execute this? Both of you have amazing full time job. So does George who's over at UPMC in diversity and supply and the supply chain? How are you going to do this?

So I mean, first shout out the boxes, we are assembling partnerships. Other folks and organizations who provide services and products that speak to in we haven't referenced the letter that we sent to the area CEOs, but in in the letter that kind of got us started at our origin. We made eight urgings to corporate leadership. And those eight urgings are sort of very specific things that we feel like organizations should be doing in order to advance their their African American they presence in the community, their recruitment and progression of African American talent and in creating and nurturing those folks to keep them and get them to stay in the region. And those eight urgings have kind of been our guideposts for assembling the solutions that we then, you know, can can bring to corporate corporate leaders. So I have those, I think prominently. Hiring is is the biggest issue, right. And so, we recently announced a partnership with with nonprofit talent, which is a executive search for firm for placing nonprofit executives here in the region, we are within 30 days of announcing a joint venture with an executive search firm on the for profit side, where we're forming a a new third entity that will specialize in search and recruitment of African American professionals nationwide, and, and bringing those people here to fill positions in the region.

And then what else? Jessica, are there some other examples? Because I know that you've been in conversation with folks who do some anti racism training as well.

Yeah, so a huge part of our focus is the sustainability of anything that we implement, right? We were very clear in our letter, that this is a state of emergency that there needs to be a sense of urgency. However, as business leaders, we're not oblivious to the economy, to the fact that some industries are thriving now, and some really aren't. Some can hire and some can't, at this moment, but how do we prepare a culture and a level of commitment that when you when we are ready, when there are open positions, that we not only have the mechanisms in these relationships to place, but we're able to have environments that are welcoming, inclusive and effective. And so anti racism training is a core focus of ours, and we have a strong partnership. Conscious anti racism is an organization, medical doctors, very unique specialized approach to addressing the training and we we have urged boards of directors and C suite leaders to be the first. This is an interpersonal work as well as organizational work. And we just don't believe it's sustainable to have million dollar billion dollar commitments to fight anti racism if you're not willing to go through the interpersonal interdisciplinary work that it does take to really make this a culture shift in a business shift. So anti racism training is one that we hope, the Pittsburgh Western pa region will be the leading region from a philanthropic and corporate structure leading and being trained, and the training and the way that we need to train and that we roll that through the corporate structure structure through middle management and individual contributors at some point. So our goal is that Pittsburgh is that leader, and that we showcase that in the way that we provide funding in the way that we partner with vendors, you know, have our vendors, go through trainings, align your vendors with your values is a key part of our recommendations. So yes, thank you for bringing up the anti racism training. Also, we mentioned health equity and pay equity. In our letter as well, pay, we haven't really focused on as much outside of the alignment with corporate search firms. However, on health equity, we've been talking quite a bit and of course, COVID, again, made that ensure that was a priority. So we are working with a structure and a plan to address health equity as well and have some tools at our disposal to help organizations who are ready to do that address health equity. And of course, that helps, it helps that I've worked with PB GH and and that we're focused on it as well and work with businesses already around establishing those strategies. And at the core of it all, we want transparency and accountability. We don't want the major commitments, the headlines, the click to be clickbait we really want substance behind our words as a region and as a business community. So we are working on how do we help businesses who want to be transparent around their work and their commitment and their actions to fight racism to employ at higher levels in their organization and address equity and other areas. How do we help them be visible around that? So that's a project that we're working on right now as

well. So Audrey, if I can hot off the presses. This is an exclusive for PTC on this podcast. We will it at the beginning of the year we will be formalizing that request to the The same organizations that received our initial letter will be formalizing the request to their leadership to do the anti racism training that Jessica just spoke of. So so that's coming very soon. And then Jessica hit on it, we have four months now been building the back end of an accountability tool to roll out to these organizations to so that, hey, we love the fact that people are making commitments and that we can read those headlines. But let's measure the success of those headlines and make it transparent to not only your employees, but your community stakeholders, to the folks that that really have an interest in this region, in in the work that you're saying that you're doing, and making sure that that that's transparent to everyone.

And so I think it's very interesting for those of you who are on this call, and for any later recordings per download is that, that the approach around anti racism training is something that at the tech Council, we will look to find ways to to partner and participate in that we've been in early conversations with this group, to talk about how we can help the tech community, both small companies, startups, all the way through people who sit on advisory boards to participate in this process. We're in the early stages of this conversations. And we hope in January, that we'll have more material behind that. But this is, to me, like no other training that I've heard about. So because it's both what Jessica said, is both personal as well as professional. And I'm not trying to to, you know, minimize the importance of other training. But I think having these hard conversations, and having them consistently, is something that will allow us to systemically start to address what these disparities have been. We certainly as you know, as a white woman, I know that we have a long way to go. But I like the urgency. And I like the fact that this group has talked about action, urgency, and senior executive level commitment, because it's got to start there. And I applaud that approach. I do think I hope to 2021 we can accelerate this kind of engagement with with the training like both of them conveyed.

Yeah, we're excited about your membership, to larger I mean, your your membership is is at the forefront of what's next. Younger cultures, younger organizations, and really excited to be able to work with those type of growing, that these are the people who are going to shape the future, right. And hopefully we can play a part in helping them shape when

they are tomorrow. Well, are there any other points that you want to talk about Jessica, on the health side, anything related to COVID, the vaccine, Martin anything else that you want to bring up while you have the floor?

Sure, I'll share a little bit of around, I would encourage everyone to join our webinars in 2020, we'll be doing a lot more education as we didn't 21 as we did in 2020. There is when you merge the mission and purpose of earn. When we talk about health equity when we talk about access to health and quality of life. The vaccine is definitely at the center point of that right now in these conversations we meet and I know Paul mango was on yesterday, I heard a little bit of that. And the question around mandating vaccines or not and

the world,

open corporations, compassion and understanding of the lack of trust in the healthcare system, including vaccines is something that we're, as a business community have to figure out how to have. And we need to know which of our population we need to communicate at, at levels differently than others, that some need more education and more proof. And that's the reality of it. We didn't get here overnight. And so I understand that our approaches have to be very intentional. And we need to take in what we learned in 2020 into that process, and just look at it if you want to just know what can you do tomorrow, look at your policies, procedures and practices and assume that there's bias in them. We're safer, assuming there's bias than believing that there's not because you're not as soon as biasing your policies, practices and procedures, and just call it out departmental wise or line leader wise to say let's make this a priority. And really try to have an equity lens to our former processes and then our way forward.

That's Well said. So thank you, Jessica Brooks. She is the CEO of the Pittsburgh business group on health. She has been there for seven years, she has a long background in health care, and insurance. And, Martin, is there any final things that you want to articulate? To describe?

Yeah, I think just to piggyback a little bit on where Jessica left off, nothing great in this country, around the issue of race and racism has ever been done, without white allies, without allies from the power structure, who recognize the difference between what's right and what's wrong. And I think we're at a pivotal moment in this country in so many ways. But but certainly within the corporate power structure, there is a major opportunity here to make certain that the United States of America is strong and continues to lead the world. And innovation continues to lead the world in production, or starts leading the world again, in production of things that matter for the future. But that's going to take the these the real engaged people who are white and who come from different backgrounds than us to get involved and to help them.

Yeah, none of us can do that without each other, and have a really deep, authentic continual conversations that are always being held. And that's one of the things that I really appreciate it about the both of you in this work is that your authenticity, and candor, and I really appreciate that. So I would like to I'm gonna wrap up, I want to thank Jessica Brooks and Martin shepper. for their work, we'll put the links out, I asked anyone to reach out to them they are they're great people fun, and have a very practical approach about what what needs to be done and they're relentless. So anyone who knows that the tech council we always say innovate or die, and we're relentless in our in our mission. So I applaud the both of you, as well as George George Robinson, wherever he may be right now, but we we care about him too, because he definitely has made this a huge priority for himself and for the work that he does. So thank you both. And we will stay in touch with you. Stay safe, have a great holiday. And for everyone else, we'll see you tomorrow. Okay.

Happy Holidays.

Yeah.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai