The Equity Gap

Today’s conversation is one I’ve been eager to bring to you all. It’s with someone I deeply admire and respect, whose expertise in personal branding is second to none. She’s thoughtful, engaging, genuine and full of practical and insightful tips and insight on the power and possibilities of investing in your personal brand. She’s Chanèle McFarlane and Chanèle is a multiple award-winning Certified Career Strategist, TEDx Speaker, Writer and Podcast Host. As the Founder of career advice website, Do Well Dress Well, she has built an international audience around her approachable and practical advice on personal branding and career strategy. Through her podcast, Careers Uncovered, Chanèle shares honest stories and practical advice to navigate your career.Chanèle is a sought-after public speaker who has spoken for several organizations, universities and colleges across North America. Her expert commentary has been featured in media outlets such as The Globe & Mail, Fast Company, Elle Canada, FLARE Magazine and more. She is also an on-air career expert who has appeared on Breakfast Television, The Morning Show, CHCH Morning Live and Rogers TV Ottawa.Chanèle serves as a Career Strategist in Residence for Accelerate Her Future and a member of the Professional Advisory Committee for Humber College’s Content Strategy program. She is also an accomplished communications professional specializing in talent marketing and thought leadership. Chanèle has been recognized as one of PR in Canada’s Top 30 Under 30, one of the Top 100 Black Women to Watch in Canada and one of the Top 25 Women of Influence.You can connect with and learn more about and from Chanèle at:https://www.dowelldresswell.com/ - OR - https://www.chanelemcfarlane.com/Licensed intro music from NoMo

I lost my beloved Papa on May 25, 2021 and his sudden death was a wake up call to life that I didn't know I needed. Here is my tribute to him and the lessons I've gleaned from the deep reflection I've done since then.  Licensed intro music from NoMo

In today's episode, we’re going to in deep on how authenticity is the key to levelling up in your career and my guest on this episode is someone who shows up as herself in each and every interaction, and someone who has an incredible career to demonstrate how this approach can and will work for you. Celinda Farias Appleby, (she/her/ella) is also known as Celly. She is the Director of Global Talent Attraction at Visa and passionate about employer branding. Diversity and inclusivity are major principles that guide her work in designing human-centered, talent attraction strategies.At the start of her career, Celly recruited in an agency setting, quickly falling in love with matchmaking and helping others make successful career moves.In 2010, she joined Hewlett-Packard and began to launch global, digital media strategies within Talent Acquisition. Celly advanced to Oracle, as the Head of Recruitment Branding. She successfully built and led Oracle’s global recruitment marketing arm. Nike then recruited Celly to join a newly created Talent Brand team, focused on crafting innovative, global digital and social media strategies.Buckle up for just over an hour of engaging, dynamic and thought provoking conversation with Celly and prepare to take notes. Follow Celly on her socials and find her at: https://celly-speaks.comInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/celly_speaks/Clubhouse:https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/level-up-your-careeTwitter:https://twitter.com/celly_speaks/LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/celindafariasappleby/Licensed intro music from NoMo

“In a gentle way you can shake the world.” - Mahatma GandhiYour introversion should be seen as your superpower, yet so many of us are taught that being quiet equates to shy, unseen, unheard. We get looked over for opportunities, may hold ourselves back from pursuing roles that push us out of our comfort zones and may not always allow ourselves to celebrate our quiet confidence.  If you yourself are unsure of how to navigate through this loud world and connect with people through your own brand of quiet confidence, listen on to learn more about how I do it.Licensed intro music from NoMo

Navigating being an only - the first, the only woman of colour in leadership, is exhausting, isolating and almost forces you to confront the things that make you uncomfortable about your lived experience, but you’re not alone and you deserve to have those experiences seen and heard and for spaces to be created where you can thrive in spite of the things that have systematically held you back. In this episode join me as I speak to my own experiences being an "only" in senior leadership and the work I did and do to this day to actively practise moving past the feelings of isolation  to navigate the experience in leadership and beyond.The incredible research cited by Dr. Kecia Thomas in this episode can be found here:https://gender-summit.com/images/GS3NA_ppts/Thomas.pdfSome women of colour who I follow and find solace and community in through their lived experiences and their storytelling include:https://www.instagram.com/itsviviankaye/https://www.instagram.com/iamjamgamble/https://www.instagram.com/_anishinaabekwe/https://www.instagram.com/thetransplanter/https://www.instagram.com/adi.barreto/https://www.instagram.com/celly_speaks/https://www.instagram.com/sunshineblackbird/https://www.instagram.com/statuesse/https://www.instagram.com/latesha_byrd/https://www.instagram.com/michellekimkim/Some communities that serve to connect and engage BIWOC:Accelerate her Future Canadian Women of Colour Leadership Network Licensed intro music from NoMo

How many of us have had that experience of knowing our otherness through our names? It’s interesting to think of all the ways we quiet ourselves to make it comfortable for other people in our lives. We laugh off jokes about our names, we sit in silence as some make zero attempts to ask or clarify pronunciation and we even go as far as to remove any semblance of ethnicity from our identities to avoid the inevitable awkwardness....When you really break it down, it’s more than a name and in this episode I break down why you should correct them, every single time. The mentorship program mentioned in this episode is Accelerate her Future - an early career accelerator program for self-identifying Black, Indigenous, Women of Colour and applications are now open for the Summer 2021 cohort for both mentee's and fellows. Check out the details of this incredible, life changing program here to see if you qualify:https://accelerateherfuture.com/fellowship-circle/become-a-fellow/Licensed intro music from NoMo

“There is a difference in being nice and being kind.” Niceness is rooted in pleasing other people and kindness, though baked in thoughtfulness, has boundaries and allows you to put yourself first. Now that is a novel concept for me and dare I say, probably a number of other racialized women. How many of us are taught to live our lives on autopilot operating out of a desire to please, to never ruffle feathers and always say yes despite any core desires to listen to ourselves, our gut feelings and our instincts? Join Shahzia Noorally in this intimate conversation on boundaries, learning about the roots of our "niceness" as women of colour and what we can do to move beyond our natural, conditioned state to ask for what we deserve, say no to things that don't serve us and stand fully in our worth. The incredible therapists I mentioned in the beginning of this episode include:Dr. Saira Sabzaali - Transpersonal Psychotherapist, http://talktosaira.com/andNashina Mirani Miranda - https://harbourcw.com/The quote was from Taylor Poindexter who can be followed on Twitter @engineering_baeLicensed intro music from NoMo

As a person of colour, my entire existence has been defined in some way by the white people in my life. White leaders, white politicians, white beauty standards and white voices have been at the forefront of my important influences, and as I’ve come to find value in my own voice, presence, identity and worth as a woman of colour, what I struggle with now is reconciling the depth of that influence and its impact on me, both the good and the bad...Join Shahzia Noorally on a journey of personal reflection to reconcile the influence of white privilege in her own life and career, a timely conversation to explore. With all the race related and political atrocities in the US at the hands of white supremacists that have turned 2020 and 2021 upside down, the inner conflict as a person to colour to not "go low" and to not pit ourselves against those in the majority is difficult, but the conversation focuses on challenging ourselves to turn to inner reflection and the opportunity to "go high," changing the narrative to focus on humanity, empathy and compassion. 

We shouldn’t have to be extraordinary to be recognized and acknowledged, yet despite countless examples of impact and influence, so many of the stories of racialized people in Canada’s history have been omitted in our education curriculum. Cinde Adegbesan, Nicole Dodd and Pam Tzeng are working to change that for current and future generations of our province's children by calling on the Minister of Education to alter the curriculum and address racism in schools across Alberta through their work on the Alberta Antiracism Education Advocacy Initiative.  And we’re excited to dig into the conversation and their cause for so many reasons. For us it’s the story of:How three passionate, informed, everyday citizens have been able to enact meaningful conversations and change around the real history of our countryHow three racialized women, through the bonds of their otherness, have demonstrated what the power of friendship and purpose look like in actionHow easy it can be to enact change and start conversations in a political system that can often feel overwhelming and inaccessible More on their work and how you can get involved:https://linktr.ee/abantiracismedu/Follow the Alberta Antiracism Education Advocacy Initiative on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/abantiracismedu/As referenced in the conversation, : The "Problem" Women of Colour in the Workplace (https://coco-net.org/)https://coco-net.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/WoC-in-Organizations-Tool-FINAL-EN.pdf

6 months and counting into the global pandemic and our new normal and yet nothing seems normal. When you have the President of the United States tweeting about Covid-19 calling it the "China virus" - that kind of validation of hate only further perpetuates divide, is highly irresponsible, racist, hate based and normalizes the othering of racialized minorities. What isn’t new is the blame game that often comes from universally crippling experiences  and the "othering" of minorities to place blame and find a scapegoat to relieve anger and fear.In this episode (recorded in September 2020), we dig in on the impacts of Covid on the Asian community, the concept of Xenophobia and what we can all do to better educate ourselves on the language we use and the critical thinking required to push through rhetoric that only further divides and pushes us further apart from the lessons we all need to learn through this global pandemic. UN Human Rights - Office of the High Commissioner: https://www.standup4humanrights.org/en/covid19.html

"The best things in life are on the other side of a difficult conversation." - Kwame Christian2020 has given us a lot to talk about. We’ve got a global pandemic, quarantine and isolation, we even had a potential for killer bees at one point and most importantly and most hopeful - we’ve got a real moment of pause in history for race relations with the black lives matter movement that is finally getting a collective uprising - all from the incredibly inhumane and vile murder of George Floyd, may he rest in peace, and so many more Black and Indigenous people across North America. Something that we can’t ignore or pass by in Canada yet something that us polite Canadian’s get so very uncomfortable talking about. We spend this episode dissecting why race is so difficult to talk about - it's not political, it never has been. It's about human rights, yet talking about race still proves to be hard. Let's dig in on Season 3, Episode 1. Article mentioned in the episode: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/05/how-to-thoughtfully-talk-about-racial-inequality-with-your-coworkers.htmlBIPOC creators we love to learn from (instagram handles):@shaunking@mindaharts@elainewelteroth@sineadbovell@_anishinaabekwe@sunshineblackbird@cheekbonewarrior@staceyabrams@osopepatrisse

Too many women of colour are opting out of vital conversations on the importance of being fully seen, and are ok with the equity and equality conversations not going beyond gender. This is our call to action to the WOC in our lives to start standing fully in their identities and asking for more - to be fully seen and heard and recognized for their differences in ways that will lift them up.

Join us for our last episode of Season 2 to do some reflection on all the learning, the ah ha moments and what we're hoping to call in for the experiences of women of colour moving forward. 

Just as women have been fighting for centuries to be seen for their smarts, expertise and all that they bring to the table, the intersectional layers of experiences that are unique to you as a women of colour also deserve the same level of recognition. For you to be truly seen for who and what you are - all of you. For so long, we've been working off the playbooks of how to navigate our careers designed for and by white men - our stories and our experiences don’t quite match up, so why are we using the same roadmaps? How do we get to a place of advancement without all the blood, sweat and tears? Our secret - build your tribe, your community to accelerate your success. In this episode, we'll dig into all the ways you can find like minded role models, mentors and community that will advance your career and beyond.

In this episode, we're so excited to introduce you to the deeply inspiring, Dr. Golnaz Golnaraghi. Dr. Golnaraghi is an inclusion + belonging advocate, the Founder of Divity Group & Accelerate Her Future as well as a Founding Activator with SheEO and a TedX Speaker. She joins us in conversation about her life's work, her passions and the incredible impact she has made in advancing the conversation around the lived experiences of self-identifying women of colour and on the work she’s done to empower and ignite real change in this space.You can connect with Dr. Golnaraghi through instagram @golehgolgol, Twitter @GolnazG and through https://golnazgolnaraghi.com. You can learn more  about Accelerate Her Future through: https://accelerateherfuture.com and watch her inspiring and thought provoking TedX talk through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgcQiLM5rSk

Being a parent, the worry and fear of being able to help our children - especially our daughters, find their place in this world and be able to feel a sense of belonging and confidence in who they are can feel overwhelming. Adding in the extra layer of being a “girl of colour” in a world that may not look like them or the family that surrounds them, creates a whole different experience and consideration that we have to take on as mothers. How do we raise strong, proud and resilient girls...especially girls of colour?In this episode, we're so proud to feature the amazing Dr. Saira Sabzaali - a therapist with a Ph.D. who helps people incorporate their cultural backgrounds and spiritual beliefs into counselling.  Saira is a mom of 2 strong, proud and resilient kids, and we focus this episode on her experiences raising the beautiful and spirited Rabia. Full of nuggets of wisdom and lived experience, we highlight the layers and complexities of being a mindful and purposeful parent and what it takes to make the right impacts on our children. Dr. Saira can be found and connected with at www.talktosaira.com or on Instagram and Twitter @drsairacares 

As we close off 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to explore the many ways in which the conversation around the advancement of women and people of colour has progressed. 

It's the biggest elephant in the room. As HR practitioner John Sumser says, "HR is a 47 year old white woman." and this leaves little room for women of colour to ever feel like they can find their places within the profession. When the HR departments of corporations don't actually represent the faces of team members for which they build policies, programs and experiences, they fail women of colour from advancing and being truly seen within corporations. 

In this episode, we explore why we believe immigrants and people of colour have the upper hand when it comes to navigating all the change that is to come with the future of work and automation.

"So many women have a hard time liking themselves because they don’t see themselves reflected in the norms." - Michelle ObamaIn our second episode of Season 2, we explore beauty narratives for women of colour and how a lack of representation leads to idealizing westernized beauty over our own.