 What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people, which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate-related disaster can only start again. It's not about how it's affecting you now, it's about how it's affecting you your entire life. The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, really there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals. We have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drive change forward. The world I would want to live in, it's a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope. Hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. Hello there, welcome to this roundtable that is focused on scaling action on achieving racial justice. It is part of this year's Sustainable Development Impact Summit. I'm Celeste Headley, a journalist and author, and we have an incredible discussion set for you today. This first part is going to include four discussion leaders, and but the whole entire roundtable is focused on three questions that I wanted to give to you to make sure that we're all sort of narrowing in on the same issues. How can we align on strategic priorities and invent interventions to build racial adjust economic systems, identifying policies for measurement, transparency, and accountability standards around racial equity, and talking about models of public and private collaborations that can accelerate progress toward racial justice. We have an incredible group of speakers today. First up, we have Winnie Ben-Yahima, who is Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNAIDS. Also with us, Porter Braswell is Chief Executive Officer of the Diversity Hiring Platform, Jopwell. Louise Pentland is the Executive Vice President and Chief Business Affairs and Legal Officer at PayPal, and Manny Masita is part of the International Business Council and CEO of Bain and Company. I do want to let everyone know that this is an interactive roundtable. During the second half, we will open up for discussion with broader participation among everyone, and three fire starters will lead some separate discussion groups. And we are taking your questions. The Q&A window is disabled in Zoom, but we're using Slido and you can submit your questions there. So let's get started. And Winnie, I'd love to begin with you and talk about access to products and services, which is a significant part of equity in the marketplace. And I wonder if you could give us guidance on how private and public sector organizations can work together to make sure that all communities, including underrepresented communities, have access to resources. Thank you, Celeste. Can you hear me? Yes. Good. And I'm delighted to join you, Porter, Louise and Manny, on this very important topic that I feel so strongly about. I also congratulate World Economic Forum for their partnering for racial justice in business. Allow me to share some figures first. Black gay men in the United States have a one in two risk of contracting HIV across their lifetime, one in two. This is a higher lifetime risk than the average in my low income country of Uganda, where I come from, and it's almost as high as the risk in very hot sport regions such as South Africa and Zimbabwe. In the United States, a black child is twice as likely to die in their first year than a white child. In fact, black children in the US are more likely to die before their first birthday than, guess what, children in war-torn Libya. In the richest country in the world, a black child is more likely to die before his first birthday than a child born in war-torn Libya. These are just some of the appalling numbers that tell the story of systemic racism, and that keeps me awake at night. In June last year, just after the brutal killing of George Floyd, I joined senior officials of African descent at the United Nations to make a statement, a public statement. We expressed our outrage at pervasive and systemic racism all over the world. We highlighted the need to go beyond condemnation and to actively, deliberately end racism in our institutions. That starts with all of us standing up and speaking against racism. We couldn't keep silent as UN officials. We spoke of African descent, and I was asked to chair, to co-chair the United Nations Senior Africans Group, which I'm honored to lead. So ending systemic racism against people of African descent and other races within and outside of the United Nations is one of my key objectives. Now, we had to start by acknowledging that the United Nations itself is not immune to racism, even though we are custodians of anti-racism and all the values of the UN, but we had to admit that it exists. And that recognition is indeed the starting point for action. Then to examine how the system supports racism is our next step, to do a thorough analysis of how the system enables, supports, even creates opportunities for racist behavior. UN was created many years ago, before many countries had even been created. When it was created, I was myself a British subject. I'm not born yet, but when I was born, I was born a British subject. My country became independent and part of the UN when I was already three years old. So many of its practices and its structures reflect this reality of many people being colonized people, enslaved people, when the UN was created. You see that in the composition of the Security Council, who has a voice there permanently, who has a voice sometimes, you see that in the official languages of the UN, in the location of its headquarters and the approaches to leadership and to hiring and all that. So we need a better balance between nations within the United Nations, and this is part of the reform that many people seek. We must make the existing systems more equitable for the people who work within themselves. For example, how we hire, how we promote, how the culture we build in the organization must reflect all our diverse histories, and we must dissect it to understand who does it make comfortable, who does it give opportunity, and who does it exclude. At the UN AIDS, which I lead, 70% of my staff work in countries and regions, only 30% work at the headquarters where I am in Geneva, that's already too many. Our staff come from 122 countries of the UN, of the world, member states. But 40% of the international professional staff, that's the leadership really, are from a handful of countries in Western Europe and North America. So while we are all there from 122 countries, really the leaders are coming from a small number of countries, Western Europe and North America, that has to change. It can only change by looking at the systems, the rules, the practices, and deliberately opening room for excluded groups to be part of it, and that's part of what we are trying to encourage within the UN. The Secretary-General is leading a very important policy, anti-racism policy, and we as an informal group are there to support it, to guide it, to challenge it, so that we come towards United Nations that works its talk on racism. That's what I can say just now. Thank you so much. I want to move on to Porter-Braswell and get everyone's voice in here, especially in terms of our, the key action strategies, like specific things that organizations can do to make some, to move the needle. And Porter, your area of expertise is in recruitment and hiring. And not only that, but pathways to success. I wonder what changes does an organization need to do? So many organizations talk about really valuing diverse teams, and yet they then have trouble carrying that out. Yeah, so there's a lot here. The way in which I like to try to break it down is that it's both an internal and then an external strategy, but really beginning internally. And I think a lot of times while companies want to engage in this conversation of diversity, they forget step one, which is defining diversity. Like what does diversity mean for your organization? And then when you're talking about underrepresented groups being specific and being able to name what those groups are, and then why are we focusing on those groups? And that has to start at the CEO level, the board level. That has to be a top-down dialogue. And it's easier to talk about we have a diversity challenge rather than being incredibly specific about what the actual pain points are. So I would say the first thing is being able to be confident enough to define what diversity means for your organization, the why behind it, and what are the actual underrepresented groups you're going to be focusing on. The second thing, once you've been able to define it, is that you then start the dialogues. You then start to welcome in the conversations in the corporate setting that historically has been a little bit awkward to necessarily step into. But the world that we live in now, especially in a virtual world, it's impossible to expect your employees to literally look at a TV screen and see what's playing out and then to turn back to this screen and not feel like they can talk about the topics that they're seeing on that screen. So you have to create dialogues within the corporate setting, but it's incumbent on the companies to create the space to allow those conversations to flourish. Then once you start to have those dialogues, you get into strategies. So based on those conversations and the learnings and hearing from your colleagues about their experiences and contacts, what strategies are we going to put in place so that we really start to level the playing field and see the outcomes that we're ultimately looking to get to, which then generally leads to programs. So how do you put programs in place that enable different communities underrepresented communities start to get their seat at the table and actually find success when it comes to promotion, pay equity, hiring, hiring opportunities. And then once you get into the programs, lastly, you can get into the actual hiring. And so when you have the programs and strategies in place, your organization is feeling confident having these dialogues. You've clearly defined what diversity means. When you actually hire people, they'll stay because you've done the internal work. So this has to be thought of as a holistic strategy. And throughout that entire process, you have to measure it. And you have to be transparent about it. So those are some of the things that I've noticed. Measurable goals and transparency is something that we will talk about more. Louise, let's bring you into this discussion because obviously as we move towards racial progress, the idea of at least narrowing that racial wealth gap is I'm sure something that's on your mind. And I wonder what role businesses can play in underserved communities that can really move the needle. Again, a lot of these topics are things that we've been talking about for decades. So what are the strategies that we know actually work here? The great question, Celeste. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay, great. I think the first thing you have to do, and I think all corporations have to do, is they have to level set on a couple of items. One is, one size doesn't fit all. We have to understand what is important, what fits the ethos of a company, its mission. Because I think part of the challenge is latching on to something that is sort of in the moment, isn't always going to equal sustainable solutions. And so I think having a real understanding of what works within your organization. And then I think be very intentional about the need. And what I mean by that, and maybe I can give an example here, about what PayPal has done. After the George Floyd murder, we really did look at and reflect on what our social justice support was. And we do a lot supporting underrepresented communities in general. But here is where we took the opportunity to really lean in. And we announced a fund of $535 million to support social justice. And the premise of this was to really address the economic underpinnings, the wealth gap, the racial tensions, inequality. And there is a lot of need. And instead of immediately just rushing to sort of distribute the funds, we really took the time to listen. We listened to where the need was. And I think a big part of what we want to try and accomplish is, how do we not just give money and try and solve a singular issue? How do we actually support and sustain? So we had different components of that fund. Part of that fund was actually giving grants to underrepresented communities. We worked with leaders in those communities, with nonprofits, with NGOs. And we figured out where that need was required. And we don't just give them money. We also give support. So we give mentoring support to entrepreneurs, to business owners, who need that sort of additional sort of long-term sort of support that will allow them to give back into their community. So it just become a self-fulfilling moment, I think, when you can start to get that at scale. But we didn't rush into it. We really listened to the need. And another big part of our fund that we created was actually, it's one of those issues where people sort of, corporations say, well, we have rules on what we can invest in or what we can't invest in. And a lot of the times, the black communities of banks of private equity funds just haven't been given the same access to capital. And I think that's an area where corporations can really lean in, because there are a lot of organizations, and we've been able to distribute most of our fund through some of those mechanisms. These are important issues that hopefully we can talk about a little bit more. But I want to go to Manny and ask you about integration. Because in the recent years, we have discovered that part of the problem for organizations is that diversity, equity, and conclusion have been their own department. And those values from DEI departments are not always integrated into the actual processes and systems of each organization. How do we integrate these systems that bring about more racial justice, more racial equity? How do we integrate them into all parts of a business? I think you're muted. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Celeste. And privileged to be on this panel with Winnie and Porter and Louise. I'll come back to the broader question of integration, but maybe just contextualize that by building on comments. Everybody said that the issue of racial justice for all of us global organizations, we recognize that's an inherently, it's global, but it's also very national and regional issue. And so we have to work this topic somewhat differently country by country. Racial justice and equity in the United States is a different issue from St. Japan or the Philippines where I'm originally from. I would say that the comments both Porter and Winnie made that you start by role modeling what we do in our organizations, which includes measurement, which is a part of holistic integration. I'm one of the international business council members. We have all signed up for 22 sustainable development goals that we publish. Like many companies PayPal and us included, we are now publishing this year for the first time our diversity performance so that if it's measurable, you can integrate it. If you join the business round table as we're members of, you have to publish your di metrics. So there's a set of things we do internally building when Porter's issue, you measure it, it's holistic. And ultimately we're trying to recruit, retain, develop, and build underserved communities. And the issues are very different. You take any given country, we can double click on block issues in the United States and Hispanic issues. Asian American issues received a lot of hate in the last year and in COVID times. And then the second is what you can do externally, either by donating your goods and services as PayPal's doing or in our case, finding organizations that can address systemic issues where we provide our services to, such as it did last year by supporting the launch of an organization called 110, a group of companies committed to hiring Blacks without college degrees. Because back to Winnie's comment, the average white family in the U.S. makes eight times the average Black family. And 80% of sustaining jobs in the United States require four-year college degrees, well, three-fourths Black Americans don't have them. So I raise all of that in that in order to integrate all of this into the agenda corporation, as one example, it has to be built into the purpose, mission, and strategy of the company. It has to be an initiative that flows through your products, your customers. So as we do that, as an example, as a services consulting firm, to actually help our client become more diverse would be upset that was part of a customer value proposition many years ago, probably not, it is today. And then you fold it in into all of your operations and if it's measured, it's built into your incentives, it becomes a holistic part of your strategy. And for corporations to do that historically, it's the classic redefinition of what is the purpose and mission of the corporation. You know, we have this overuse sometimes term now called stakeholder capitalism. Well, if we think about the mission is not to maximize your share price, but to make a difference with your customers, with your employees, with your communities, with your impact on the world, you make that part of your commitment, you make that part of your measurement, and you publicize it, and that's how you can make progress. But it's a many problems and we'll take a concerted action by organizations of all sorts represented on this forum. So we have less than 10 minutes left in this section of our roundtable and I want to try to drill down on some specific items here. Louise, let's talk about coming, recovering from the past year and a half, which have been very difficult for a number of organizations. And we have seen over and over again that oftentimes when businesses or organizations are trying to recover from crisis, many of these issues of racial justice and equity get kind of shunted to the side. They're in crisis mode and so they focus on other things. How can organizations not do that? Can they recover from a crisis and at the same time keep these values front and center? Yeah, look, I think actually it's a little bit what Manu is saying. I think it really is a redefinition of company mission. And I think there's sort of two components to that in my mind. One is what is the company doing and how is it operating in the community? And the second piece is how are you taking care of your employees? Because actually if you take care of your employees and really lean in to support their needs, and those needs are very diverse, then they can actually lean back into the community. And I think what we found at PayPal is actually because we put our employees first and we've made sure that they have a healthy living wage, then they can give back to their communities at scale actually. And so then when we're driving initiatives to actually make the company services and goods support that community and not leave them behind, then really it does come very much from the employees and the communities they live in. And so I think it becomes somewhat self-fulfilling if you can drive it in a very intentional way. But I think it's easy to sort of create excuses as to why we've got to focus on this first and not that. But actually what we found is it's been incredibly rewarding for both our employees but also we're seeing the results of some of the early funds that we've given to some of the the racially, I think, divided places where we've been able to support. And we're actually seeing pretty incredible results where they're able to now help other organizations within their own community. So it does sort of go to the old adage, you know, a high tide lifts everybody's boats and I think that's what's needed here. So Winnie, another issue and you referred to this is the fact that this pandemic has really exposed and highlighted a lot of the racial disparities when it comes to healthcare and how healthy communities are to handle crisis. And I wonder Winnie, what specific things do you think are preventing healthcare systems from becoming more racially equitable? I realize that those are complicated systems. But what are some of the things that you can point to and say, this is an area that we could improve that might make healthcare and access to medicine, etc., more equitable. The most important challenge today is to achieve COVID vaccine equity. That's really the starting point. Today it is shameful, it is immoral, it does not make economic sense. And it is even racist that there is a part of the world where doctors, nurses are dying every day because there are no vaccines and that in some parts of the world, they are talking about a third booster. Just in case because there's not even any evidence that it's needed, but just in case. So this vaccine equity points to something that is to a number of underlying inequalities and injustices, one of them is racial injustice. If perhaps the people who are lacking vaccines were the same race as those who have it now, maybe it would be in a different place. So I think we need to look at inequalities and how they intersect to put some people at the bottom and address them very directly, including racial injustice. Health systems are part of the global national systems. They carry injustices like the data I've just shown you, I've just shared with you about black people in the United States in this great country. The health system in their locations where they live, the way they live their lives, the social determinants of health put them at higher risk than other people. That's why we saw the higher dead. So people who work on the front lines, bus drivers, tell us in interest, waitresses, people working in the supermarkets, those people in those jobs were at more risk for many reasons, including how they live lives in poorer contexts, in more deprived contexts. And we are also at risk by being on the front line of the health system. We need to look at those inequalities within the health system and around the health system and address them frontally. And I think COVID just exposed an ugly picture in every country. Sorry to keep using the United States as the example. Usually it goes to the richest country, but it exposed that ugly picture in every country where systems without health, of education, of social protection work for some and don't work for others. And we must do this analysis. We must talk about it. The dialogues are important. The honest dialogues about where the problem is, and of course the measuring it and getting results on it. But let's not forget, you must not projectize fighting racism or fighting any injustice. A project is important to have results to be measured, but the political age must stay there. You must have champions who champion politically for an answer. That we need that balance. Thank you. Thank you. We have come to the end of this first part of this roundtable discussion. So I want to say thank you to our panelists so far. You just heard from Winnie Bin-Yahima, Undersecretary General of the United Nations Executive Director of UNAIDS. Porter Braswell is Chief Executive Officer of the Diversity Hiring Platform, Jopwell. Louise Pentlint is Executive Vice President and Chief Business Affairs and Legal Officer at PayPal. And Manny Masita is part of the International Business Council and CEO of Bain and Company. We are not done with this discussion. In just about a minute or so, we will break out into sessions. It'll become more interactive. But in the meantime, I wanted to say thank you to all four of our panelists. Thank you so much for participating.