Adam Torres and Jennifer Ingram discuss diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.
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Show Notes:
Many employers are looking for new ways to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. In this episode, Adam Torres interviewed Jennifer Ingram, Equity and Inclusion Evangelist, Entrepreneur & Executive. Explore Jennifer’s story helping companies with their equity and inclusion initiatives, and the upcoming book Jennifer will be launching with Mission Matters.
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About Jennifer Ingram
Jennifer A. Ingram’s career has been forged through her greatest passions- inspiring others to embrace their journey, live their truth, and thrive authentically while promoting a unified vision for more equitable and inclusive communities. A student of life and continuous learner, Jennifer has traveled the globe, visiting six continents and over thirty countries. She approaches differences with curiosity and humility seeking to understand how others experience life, foster a sense of belonging, and practice inclusion.
She embodies the qualities of servant leadership, driven by an unwavering commitment to strengthening communities. Leading through collaboration and influence, Jennifer never meets a stranger; seeing and valuing individuals equally from all walks of life building and maintaining relationships with intentionality. Her multifaceted experiences have generated the keen ability to address complex challenges methodically, with ease and simplicity. Jennifer has been described as a dynamic communicator with an energetically infectious presence. She is a nationally sought after presenter and well-respected thought leader with extensive experience captivating audiences both large and small.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, for those that have been listening to this show for a long time, you know my f.
Favorite type of episode is when I’m introducing a new author and a new member of our community. That’s exactly what we’re doing today. So I have Jennifer Ingram on the line. She is an equity and inclusion evangelist, entrepreneur and executive. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Adam. It’s a pleasure to be here.
All right, Jennifer. So thrilled to work with you today and excited to go further into your career and really what it means to be an equity and inclusion evangelist and to talk about some of your work and also recognition. So I know top 50 women in San Francisco, and you have some other accolades that have come your way.
I mean, you, you, you’ve been a busy, busy woman on your mission, and I’m excited to get into that. But just to get this kicked off, We’ll start this interview the way that we start them all with our mission matters minute. So Jennifer, we at Mission Matters. We amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts.
That’s our mission. Jennifer, what mission matters to you? Thanks so much for the question, Adam. And that’s honestly one of the reasons why I was most excited to join this community. The mission that matters most to me is positively impacting the lives of others. And I don’t necessarily limit how that comes, it has in my life expanded in many ways.
But what I would say is I think that leaning into the process of fostering greater senses of inclusion belonging and equity and seeing and, and acknowledging. And celebrating differences in diversity is the mission that truly does matter most to me. And, and ensuring that we’re looking at systems and structures and how we can reinforce them to be accessible to all.
Oh, great. Having you on the show and love bringing mission-based individuals and entrepreneurs on the line to share, you know, why they do what they do, how they’re doing it, and really, you know, what fires ’em up to get up in the morning and to make a difference in the marketplace and also the world.
So, great having Jan and Jennifer, I guess just to get us kicked off, I mean, lots of people have. You know, ideas or missions or even even callings, but you know, how much, how much or how little time we spend or how, like drawn to we to that, that we are. I mean, it varies, right? But what I’ve seen in terms of what you’ve done, the brand you’ve built, and really the path you’ve created is that, you know, you’re, you’re all in on equity and inclusion and your mission.
Like, like how did that all get. Yeah. So I grew up in a very diverse community. I oftentimes say that I, I sat on my first diversity committee when I was actually in elementary school. And so it is something that I, I would say, has been in me and, and a part of my journey. More specifically, it started with volunteerism volunteering with youth when I was a youth.
I’m much older now than gray of my hair, but volunteering and giving back and it turned into me. Volunteering with corporate initiatives within the organization that I was with at the time and really did evolve into a, a full-time role after my graduate work did my graduate studies and leadership and generational diversity.
And so from there ended up transitioning into several d e i roles with leading organizations leading this work in, in institutions across industry and sector, philanthropy healthcare nonprofits not housing, so on and so forth. And so it really has just evolved in this space, but the passion.
The, the rigor the approach you know, has evolved. But I would say that what primarily differentiates me is just the approach and the vulnerability that I use and, and how I approach this work. And so it’s been an evolution. It, it’s a, a, a story of transparency and, and quite a bit of vulner.
And, and, and, and as well as being a practitioner of the work and how I’ve studied and continued to evolve my own experiences. And so one of the things that that I’m a fan of, especially in your career is that as you, well, I didn’t know by the way that you started your first your first committee in elementary school, but one of the things that I like is that you’ve, you’ve kind of seen this, this evolution of de and I like, before it was even, you know, we called it that in, in the past.
It maybe had other names and other phrases and ways of talking about it in business. But you’ve, you’ve worked in both and with. Both large corporations, you know, small businesses and, and other individuals in between. So what, right now, from your vantage point, do you find kind of interesting in, in the de and I space, just overall that you see, and that in terms of its evolution.
Yeah, I think that we went from this notion of diversity equals inclusion and the thought that the two were synonymous and that representation and isolation would be the game changer. I think that consistently so that that notion has been proven wrong. While it definitely does matter, you know, representation matters.
Representation and isolation is insufficient at driving. The types of change and transformation that so many organizations and communities are. And so with that evolution, I would also add in that, you know, the focus on equity is tough, right? It was not always a part of the conversation explicitly, but I think that to approach this work and ensure that there’s access equity, And and inclusion are the activators or the action diversity as a noun in a presence of difference.
The ability to lean in and see and create environments in spaces that foster and create the type of security or safety, psychological safety, physical safety for folks to be transparent and, you know, really let the walls down and share aspects of their identity beyond those things that you can.
I think are really important. And so I think that with the shift, we’ve definitely seen greater focus, greater intentionality on equity and inclusion. Mm-hmm. And, you know, adding onto that accessibility. The other thing that I would add on that I think that we’ve seen is a shift from it being kind of the right thing to do and it being more of a, a moral or, or values based, which those things are still very important, but I think it’s more of an imperative for organizations if you are to be.
If your brand is to continue to grow and, and remain in a space of growth in the marketplace, you know, having some degree of understanding of how this impacts your organization, your consumers, your customers, and how your brand, you know, and reinforces a sense of inclusion and and the marketplace is also very important.
So that’s another. So I wanna build this out a little bit. So some of the things you said, and maybe take it a, a layer deeper, because I, I know there’ll be individuals that watch this or be executives of, of companies and, and small business owners that, that maybe have wanted to bring more de and i initiatives into their workplace, but they don’t necessarily know how, or they don’t, there may be not even necessarily aware of some of the, some of the phrases that you mentioned.
So for example, You mentioned that it started with with diversity, but there was some isolation there. Maybe let’s start with that, that concept and kind of unpack that for a moment, if you will. Absolutely. I think that early on there was a focus on increasing the number of diverse individuals in a workplace on a team.
And you know, that we were like checking boxes, right? So we’re saying, okay, we have this type of person, we have that type of person. Okay, we did our job. Am I understanding that exactly? Okay. Yep. So checking boxes, and often it fell along the lines of gender and race, ethnicity. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, what we know is that individuals with disabilities are also present within our workplace.
And if you have an invisible disability or something that you can’t see you are less likely to self-identify or self-disclose to the organization. And as a result, you have folks that may not. Of filling that sense of inclusion largely because, you know, there may not be the safety or they may not feel that there is an openness or a sense of inclusion or a pathway for the organization to be responsive.
Yeah. Another aspect is, you know, again, beyond the things that you can visually see it has reinforced a sense of people not necessarily disclosing or even minimizing parts of their selves as a way to fit in. As a way to, you know, not be seen as different and not to rock the boat, and not to be disruptive to, you know, what some may consider the status quo due to, you know, present conditions, historical conditions and or experiences, lived experiences, professional experiences in the workplace.
And, you know, perhaps having had a negative experience or having someone conveyed an experience that was less than positive when they did. You know, I can’t tell you how often, especially when working with LGBT plus folks, you know, there was this notion of, you know, I’m not gonna put a family up on my a photo of my family up on my desk, right?
Because it may spark questions that folks aren’t necessarily aware of how their comments might be received. And so those are some of the more practical, you know, aspects of the visible versus the invisible aspects that folks would oftentimes minimize in the workplace. I mean, just to share a story, I think that.
Part of what fuels my passion in this work was witnessing, you know, people in my family, folks in that I was very close to you know, not being out, being very afraid of, you know, be it retaliation or discrimination on the basis of race and gender, which were the things that they could see especi.
And, you know, fields such as technology let alone sexual orientation and the ways that, you know, that added layer of identity or complexity to identity that deviates from, you know, what we know to be norms mm-hmm. Impacted their experience. And so, you know, from a very young age, I, I witnessed that I wi witnessed, you know, folks that I love not being able to fully be authentic.
And be themselves you know, largely from a space of, you know, fear of inclusion and fear of, you know, how it could limit their trajectory. And so I think those are aspects that definitely have. No pun intended, calibrated my lens from a very young age and how safe or unsafe workplaces or environments can be based on geography, based on industry as well as based on the, the level that you may be at within an organization.
Yeah. And, and I, I like that you gave us a very practical example because, you know, for people that are listening to this, just to, you know, reflect and think, like, what if you were, you couldn’t put a picture of your, of your, of your family on your desk, right? That’s your personal space within the office.
And if you’re, you know, in, in the office. Than, you know, to think that you couldn’t because, or you maybe wouldn’t feel comfortable to because of the environment. Like, that’s a, that’s a problem. So when we think about things like going back to what you said a moment ago about the, the business side of things too.
You think about having a, a workplace where employees feel safe. You think about how to, you know, cut down, turnover, all these other things, you know, increased job satisfaction. I mean, after the, I would, after the pandemic, I would argue we. Maybe took a step back and, and had a little bit more of a thought about how we spend our days and how we spend our time.
And so this discussion, in my opinion, is really important cuz this is all part of it. Absolutely. And there’s actually a documentary that I’ll be in called What the F Is Happening to the work place from Work design magazine. Talking about these very topics. To your point, there’s research that came out late last year that talked about pre pandemic, you know, we talked about work-life balance, right?
What we see as a trend for 2023 is work-life integration and how do. You know, remove some of those barriers and the, the, the lines that have you know, somewhat historically been in place to segment the two and bring more of ourselves to work mm-hmm. Each and every day. And not to go too deep into that space, but we also know that women and, and pupil of color are leaving the workplace at higher rates than others, in part because of not having access to the things.
You know, could create a, a more inclusive environment, you know? Mm-hmm. Childcare is a huge one. Caring for elder parents is another. And these are all dimensions of diversity that we oftentimes, you know, we may talk about in proximity, but we don’t necessarily dig into the nuances of how it impacts life and the experiences that people have both, you know, in the workplace.
And I haven’t necessarily touched on the communal aspects yet, but that’s another avenue and. Yeah. I wanna, I wanna take a pause here for a moment because I, I think for the viewers, and ever that’s listening what does it mean to you to be an equity and inclusion evangelist? Because when I seen your title and when I thought, I mean, it just, it warms me up and it made me smile.
Like, like what does that, that title mean to you? Yeah. So not at all in a religious sense. I wanna start there, right. In the early days, and I’ll tell the story when I was in college I was interested in the diffusion of, in. And that is the rate or in which people tend to adopt change.
And that’s just a really lay description of that. But Microsoft in the early days actually had evangelists. These are people that went around and talked about technology and how it could solve problems and, and getting folks really ex. Excited about this new and emerging thing. And while equity isn’t necessarily new and emerging, I think that the energy that I bring to it and the approach and the passion is definitely reflective of spreading the good news and talking about how good this could be, not just for folks from, you know, underrepresented groups are for everyone.
And so I think the, the term evangelist is really one that spreads good news and really does promote and accelerate. And so to your earlier question regarding how has this work evolved, I think that equity is the newest kind of addition to the diversity and inclusion conversation. And so bringing energy and excitement to the thing that we know is essential mm-hmm.
To truly bring about a sense of inclusion, which is. So now I, I think, and I think it’s evolving quite a bit, but I, I don’t think we’re there quite yet, like d e and I initiatives and, and the concepts. I mean, at when they were first introduced, let’s just say in business, at least as I remember, you know, they were kind of looked at as these luxuries for these, you know, large corporations only.
That’s the way I, at least I understood them at first. Now, Feel like as the ideas spread as we can, you know, even track back, you know, performance and, and growth of workplace and all sa job satisfaction, all these other things I feel like the, the market for that has, not saying broadened from the standpoint of there wasn’t always a need, but it’s broadened from the standpoint of now we’re recognizing that there’s more of a need, whether you’re a small business, a mid-size business, or you know, whatever size business of understanding that, hey, Your most valuable resources, your, you know your employees, you better take care of them.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I, I totally agree. And I, I would also just add on to that employees and also community and, and your customer base, right? So internal and external stakeholders, I think have, have a new expectation of organizations. And so, you know in consulting I work with organizations across industry and sector.
You know, small organizations, nonprofit organizations for-profit institutions ranging in size and scope. But I think that the, the common denominator here is that, you know, it’s essential to being responsive to what’s happening in the world and having a lens and a sense of understanding around how you can continue to position your brand.
And your, your organization’s repre rep reputation in a way that really does align with, you know, the needs of people. And, you know, I, I put people just at the center of each and everything in that, you know, I think we’ve gotten away from human centered design and approaches, but I think that what we are seeing is a return.
Even in the face of ai, that’s another conversation for another day. But I, I think that putting people at the center, you know, reinforces a sense of necessity to have a focus on the things that are impacting people, the experiences that they’re having. You know, walking down the day, walking down the street every day, walking in and out of the supermarkets, the fears, the concerns, the celebrations, the pride, the identity, all of the things that come together.
And really being able to have a lens and a view on that. And connecting the internal and external stakeholders, realizing that, you know, in many respects, they are synonymous with one another. The last point, Adam, that, you know, I’ll just add to this. Also looking at what is happening. And so with inflation and you know, the, the, the various impacts of, you know, the economic impacts of COVID and other things, I think that many organizations that in 2020 we saw almost a 43% increase in organizations creating d e I.
And, you know, while I can’t say that it is not surprising mm-hmm. But we are also seeing the number of positions and the, the focus and the positioning of those positions decline. There have been several articles that have, you know, come out recently just reinforcing that this isn’t the space that organizations should roll back.
Instead, they should remain steadfast in the commitment and in the journey. And what that looks like. You know, I think that some things, you can start a new product line and you can discontinue. Starting down this journey and discontinuing, you know, this pathway of equity and inclusion could be extremely damaging to your brand and really reinforce a disingenuous nature of how your organization embraced it.
If it was disposable or, or something that you viewed as, you know could be minimized or, or, you know, rolled back when, when times got hard and when there were tough budget decisions. Yeah. Yeah. It make, it makes total sense. I mean, you wouldn’t necessarily get rid of your C F O, right? Or you can’t get rid of your, your HR director or you can’t like, like certainty.
So, so why or how is that not a key role? So I get completely what you’re saying. Mm-hmm. So one of the things, Jennifer, that I like to do on this show is I like to. Give, you know, some actionable tips. As I mentioned before, a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, will, will watch this now and in the future.
And let’s just say that an organization maybe hasn’t made the progress in de and I that they’d like to or hope to. And, or maybe they’re just kind of just getting started. Let’s maybe start the conversation there on the, the ex, the organization that hasn’t necessarily done this in a very structured manner.
Where, what are some of the starting points that they should be thinking? Yeah. I, I oftentimes like to, you. Reinforce that there’s a top down and a bottom up approach that happens almost synonymously. And, and so the bottom up approach will continue to happen. You’ll hear people within your organization asking questions and serving as disruptive agitators to, for the betterment of the organization.
But I think where there’s truly the greatest area of opportunity is from the top down for leaders to, you know, understand what it means to be an inclusive. And really understand the power that they have in shaping an experience for their employees. And so I, I would say number one is for a leader to, you know, become more self-aware, understand what it, you know, a journey or a pathway towards inclusive leadership might look like.
And taking stock and really understanding their own lens and how they’re viewing the world. So often, and I’m gonna introduce a new term, we view the world through a monocultural lens, which is our own lens, shaped by our own experiences, our own perspective, without the ability to understand the social or impacts or the, the experiences of others and how the two come together to create experience.
And so the more leaders can become self-aware and understand their lens and their selves in relationship to. I think is a, a, a first step. The second is to, you know, ask for candid feedback and, and assess, you know, how you’re showing up. I think that, you know, so often we have a view of how we would like to engage and our intent, but our intent doesn’t always align with impact.
And so look at, you know, how you can strengthen and develop trusting relationships with those that are on. With those that report to you. And especially with those that are from underrepresented groups you know, when we think about how we oftentimes approach data or look at organizational metrics, especially things like engagement metrics or.
Attrition. We look at those numbers in aggregate request that your data team start to disaggregate your, your measures to truly understand and assess where folks might be having a different experience based on their identity. And as you start to see where their gaps in that experience, ask, follow, following one questions, but also, you know, understand that you may not get the answers that you are seeking.
And so I would also say engaging with the sense of humil. As you’re having those conversations, but, you know, many organizations are data informed or data driven but as you look to, you know, make those steps, I think it’s the qualitative and the quantitative and, and balancing the two. You know, historically we’ve had a over-reliance on quantitative data, but, you know, not minimizing your discounting, not qualitative or the direct responses and feedback from individual.
Yeah. I wanna circle back to that term to make sure I have it right cuz that is a new one for me. So monocultural lens, is that what what you said? Yeah. So one culture for example. So for example, if, let’s say that if somebody went to, you know, high school, everybody looked the same college, everybody looked the same.
Now you look at the board of advisors and everybody looks the same, then you kind of don’t have another view than maybe what you grew up with or who you’ve been around. Am I understanding that correctly? I just wanna make sure to get that right. Absolutely. Okay. I got I I’m adding that one. You got, I knew you were gonna teach me something today.
You always teach me something every time we talk, but I, I need to come with it, so, thank you. I wanna, I want to take another side of this. I, I love all the tips you gave, by the way, the advice, everything. I wanna get a little bit more on the side of things for, let’s just say you’re an organization who maybe feels that you’re doing pretty good and, and you, and you’re thinking.
Still be doing better. Maybe you have the role, maybe you have the position. Maybe you’ve, you’ve been, you know, making improvements, but you’re not necessarily feel, don’t feel that you’re, you know, kind of ahead of the trend or where you wanna be. What, what should they be thinking about when they’re kind of self-reflecting on this?
Yeah, I, I would say that, you know, a profile of a leading edge organiz. You know, has a few things in place. You know, if you have a d e I role, I think that understanding where that role is situated within your organization really does either serve as an accelerant or a limiting factor. And so if your role, you know, I would say a leading edge organization has a head of d e I that reports directly to the ceo.
You know, if you’re in hr, you tend to be more limited on human capital or talent related topics versus a broader view of really integrating it into the operations of the organization. Additionally, you know, thinking about the level of priority of this work, you know, again, having it at a higher level or a, a direct line to the c e o just really does reinforce the decisions that are being made from the top levels of the organization.
I would also say, you know, most organizations be non-profit or for-profit, have a board of directors. If you’re a leading edge organization, your board of directors are having conversations and are asking you guys tough questions about the progress and either the lack thereof or the supports or the, the things that are you know, serving as barriers and making the types of progress.
And they are holding the organization accountable from the very top levels. And again, they’re looking beyond represe. They’re asking for metrics beyond a diversity profile. They’re also seeking out information and data that conveys a sense of inclusion or belonging or understanding the rates of attrition based on identity and where there could be gaps in experience.
And, you know, another aspect that I think is extremely important for leading edge organizations is to also view the economic power they have. And so approaching you know, the, the this work through a lens of economic inclusion in looking at where they’re spending, you know, dollars are they spending dollars with small, you know, Diverse business enterprises with veteran owned businesses with LGBT plus owned businesses, with diverse businesses.
And so, you know, also thinking about this in terms of you know economic inclusion and. I said that was the last one, but there’s one more. I would also say there, they’re corporate social responsibility, right? What is the, what is your broader impact in the community towards doing, you know good for society and how are you leveraging your brand to, you know, highlight or shine a light on where they’re, you know, areas of opportunity that connect to the work that you may do specifically?
And how are you, you know in influencing and encouraging others to join? You know, the, the, the steps that you know can be taken to look at broader systemic and structural changes you know, that we all know are necessary. Jennifer, I want to spend a little bit of time here today, and I, and I say a little bit for everybody that that’s watching.
This is intentional. We’ll be bringing Jennifer back on the show for part two of this interview. So this is just part, part one of two. In the next interview, we’ll be covering in depth Jennifer’s contribution in the upcoming book that we’re working on together. But keeping it high level for today, Jennifer, we don’t wanna, we don’t wanna spoil everything.
We’re a little, little bit of a teaser. What are some of the ideas that you hoped propose in the upcoming book? Yeah. I, I, there are two that I think are, are extremely salient. One is how we’re defining leadership. Right, and who is a leader and, and reinforcing, you know, not this, this level based on social status or hierarchy, but instead, what does it mean to be a leader?
And then the second aspect of you know, the, the topics that I’ll cover in the book is around authenticity. And, you know, what does it mean to be an authentic leader? And I think that we oftentimes talk about these two topics right there, there, there, there’s nothing new under the sun about the two topics in isolation.
But I think what we oftentimes don’t talk about or we don’t discuss are the, the opportunity cost and the risk. And so I’m not gonna give away too much, but what I will say the framing that I use in the, in the chapter is, you know, the, the tax of authentic. And the cost of covering. As you know, a framing and how we think about when we choose to expend our, our capital, our social capital, or to lean in and be authentic and what are the conditions that are most important that reinforce and, and really do promote and foster.
A sense of authenticity and, you know, inclusion and belonging and how to really do connect and the role that leaders play in shaping environments that, that foster a sense of authenticity and how they can model those behaviors themselves. All right. That’s it. That’s you. You probably gave away too much already.
No, it’s perfect. That, that’s a teaser again. We’ll be bringing Jennifer back on the show for part two of the interview on the books live, and we’ll do a full deep dive into her work. But Jennifer, you know, I was not gonna let you off the show without bringing up top 50 women in San Francisco.
I know, I know you’re humble. I know on some of these things, but I, I have to toot the horn on that one. Like, how’d all this come? So someone actually kind of threw my name in the ring and I was selected, you know, I’ve done extensive work both, you know, domestically and internationally. Mm-hmm.
And one thing that I tend not to talk about a whole lot is just the, the impacts that I have on individuals. I never minimize the impact that I can have. I don’t care if I’m speaking in a room. A thousand or a room of five I treat all of, you know, those engagements just the same. And, you know, there were several organizations that I previously worked with.
In the bay before even moving out to the area. And so it was a great pleasure to, to be recognized and to know that I had made such an impact on the lives of others. And, you know, I think that my commitment to gender gender equity it is something that you know, is reinforcing.
You know, my civic engagements. I sit on the board of directors for Global Women for Wellbeing. I also sit on the advisory board for j Xavier universities center of women in leadership. And so, you know, reinforcing how we can continue to promote gender equity at the intersection of all of the other dimensions of difference is something that I just feel so strongly.
And I, I really do, you know, just care, a great deal about, and thinking about how we highlight all women regardless of, you know, how folks might identify. Yeah, I, I think it’s great and, and well deserved and I’m, I’m glad that you are recognized. That being said, I just have to ask, I I, I know you’re a busy person.
I know you’re cons, you can you do consulting around d Nni as well? I just have to ask, I mean, what’s next? What’s next for you? What’s next also for your, your career and your consult? Yeah, so there are a few things that are giving me a lot of energy right now. You know, I think that speaking on authentic leadership, speaking on topics of equity and inclusion are definitely kind of top tier.
But I would also, you know this is actually first time I’m publicly sharing this Numis Maddox new. Which means dark Coin Collector. Mm-hmm. I’m a coin collector and so I, I launched a new brand Nuna Maddox Noir just to, you know, reinforce and highlight and, and diversify the community of coin collectors as well as, you know, how we can view coin collecting as an asset building strategy.
Mm-hmm. You know, unlike, you know, maybe collect. Other items, you know, these are things that could appreciate. And for me, the types of coins that I collect also held you know, they’re all US currency and they feature, you know my collection anyway, features African American folks. And so, you know, there are about 25 coins that are US currency that have featured African Americans throughout the course of history.
The first being in 1946. And the most recent was actually just this year. The second African American woman. Bessie Coleman, who is the first African American, native American pilot in the US is featured on a, on a quarter last year and I guess gender equity. Last year, Maya Angelou became the first African American woman featured on US currency on the quarter.
And so that’s the part of the Women’s Quarter Program. But numismatic Noir is something that I’m really excited about. You can find information about it on our calibrated lens. Additionally you know, I would just add that I’m, I’m really interested in continuing to, to, to support young leaders.
And so you know, I’m a, a, a big fan of mentoring and really, you know, equipping leaders with the. And I, when I say leaders, young folks are leaders as well, but helping them to, to see and understand the pathways that they’re navigating. And so I’m also doing some work with some of my mentees just to continue to reinforce you know, what it looks like to continue to grow into the next generation of leaders.
I think that’s probably, you know, more important than you know, my journey is those that are coming behind me. Yeah, big, big fan of paying it forward and to know that you’re a coin collector now as well. You’re just, I knew you bring the knowledge for me, Jennifer. I knew you would, but I didn’t know that I, we’ve talked multiple times.
I didn’t know that. So this is, this is interesting and I’m, we’ll probably talk offline about that one as well. But that being said, Jennifer, if somebody does want to continue to follow your journey whether it’s the mentorship to consulting that just in general, like, like how do people follow up and how do they.
Yeah. So a few ways. You can always connect with me on LinkedIn if that is your preferred space. Jen Ingram. You’ll see my face on the, the photo. I would also say that you can visit me@www.jeningram.me. Or Jen Ingram me on Instagram as well. Fantastic. And we’ll put all that information to show notes so that our audience can just click on the links and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters or engaging in an episode or listening to the content, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, and experts, and having them share. Their mission, the reason behind their mission, really what we can all learn from it so that we can all learn and grow together.
If that’s the type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you Hit that subscribe button because we have many more mission-based individuals coming up on the line, and we don’t want you to miss a thing. And Jennifer, really, it has been an absolute pleasure. I can’t wait till the next time we get to do this when our book is live.
Absolutely. I can’t wait. Adam, looking forward.
