‘There’s so much work to do’: BlackNorth’s Dahabo Ahmed-Omer on why you can’t improve diversity without data

Article content

It has been more than a year since the BlackNorth Initiative was formed and Dahabo Ahmed-Omer was named executive director, and there are signs that the push for greater diversity in boardrooms and senior management is gaining traction. Among the key components Ahmed-Omer says are needed to keep the moment going: collecting and using data to set goals, and tying those goals to compensation to make sure they’re built in to corporate culture. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Article content

Q: What are some of the biggest game changers you’ve seen in the past year?

A: A lot of our signatories are starting to tie their (equity and inclusion) targets to compensation. Enbridge is an example. So now there’s the moral argument — this is the right thing to do — but it’s also the smart thing to do because (it acknowledges that) a more diverse and more representative company will do better. So how do we make sure that we’re meeting the goals and the mandate of our company? There’s a clear link. It’s great because people should be compensated (for success).

Q: Do you think this will change the culture at companies that adopt this model? Will it make diversity more durable or sustainable?

A: I think it’s important to do this work in such a way where it’s for the long term. This is important stuff. This is not something that we should be doing on the side of our desk. It should be dedicated, it should be CEO levels and leadership roles. And yeah, if you hit your targets, you’re compensated for that and your company does well financially, so that tie is being made. It’s really about leaders of companies taking that initiative, making sure that it starts at the top, and then it trickles down throughout the organization.

Article content

Q: When Enbridge announced that its chief executive Al Monaco would hold himself and his leadership team accountable for increasing the number of ethnic and racial minorities within the company by linking performance against those targets to executive pay, did that sort of make other people sit up and take notice? Have other companies been more receptive to this idea of tying compensation to diversity and inclusion targets since then?

A: We’ve seen the trickle down. I can tell you the number has been growing significantly since Enbridge did that. We leveraged that. We made the announcement together, we sent it out to all of our signatories, we put it everywhere to say: ’This is the next, this is the next wave. This is how we do it.’ There’s so much work to do — we’re playing catch up now. And so there’s a lot of creativity and a lot of new ways (of measuring success) that need to be implemented because there’s some things that haven’t worked. Tying compensation to (equity, diversity, and inclusion) targets is one of those really important steps that companies have taken.

Article content

Q: Do you see this as the solution for everyone? How widespread will this get?

A: Not all companies can do that. We have a lot of small companies, a lot of growing companies and so they may not be able to do it, totally understandable. But there are some that are doing and can do it and we love to see that because it’s important.

Q: Whenever diversity is discussed, there is talk about measurement, and that you can’t make lasting changes without collecting data about your starting point and tracking progress. What developments are happening in that area?

Article content

A: A lot of the assistance that we’ve been providing now includes research and statistics and measurement guidance — making sure that our signatories (of the BlackNorth CEO pledge) understand that if they don’t collect it, then they don’t know the realities of what they’re dealing with. A lot of times it really just has to do with explaining to your staff that if you know the representation, then now you know where your gaps are, which means you can implement solutions to address them. If you don’t know the background and the stories of your staff, then how will you ever be able to create an environment or culture that’s going to be really conducive to their reality? We’re now going away from just numbers by putting faces and stories and people and experiences to these numbers. There’s so many communities within the Black community. So how do we drill down into that to the point where we know the experiences of these people? We’re hoping that in the last quarter of this year we’ll be able to launch the actual performance measurement framework to all of our signatories.

Financial Post

• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: BatPost

_____________________________________________________________

 If you liked this story, sign up for more in the FP Finance newsletter.

_____________________________________________________________