An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Increased diversity drives a more talented pipeline. When it comes to ensuring that your company attracts, develops, mentors, sponsors, and retains talent for the next generation of leadership, increased diversity is an absolute necessity.
As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Maureen Frank.
Maureen Frank is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Disruption Officer of Emberin, a global leader in delivering award-winning diversity and inclusion learning solutions that focus on accelerating results with impactful outcomes.
The daughter of a Persian father and Irish mother and having grown up in regional Australia, diversity has always had an important place in Maureen’s life and led her to become an authority in the global diversity space.
Initially her career began as a lawyer and she was a major player in the fledgling mergers and acquisitions insurance industry, however, since she moved into the DEI space, she has amassed almost 20 years’ experience on global stages, mentored 35,000+ people worldwide, and influenced the D&I strategy and experience of 15,000 international leaders — across every industry.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?
Thank you for having me!
I would love to share my backstory with you. Like many entrepreneurs it’s the story of my “why” and drives me to show up in my business each and every day.
Inclusion has been a big part of my world since I was a kid — but I was only conscious of that later. I was brought up in an immigrant family in country Australia where my Persian scientific father loved to make Indian banquets, drink wine, listen to classical music and read books! And of course, the huge difference was that the biggest feminist in my household was my dad — he wanted my sister and I to be educated, and he wanted us to have independence and economic security. The dads of my friends were quite different on all those fronts. I learned early to adapt to fit in. I learned early to develop a persona for inside the safety of my home — and the outside persona. I tried desperately to ‘fit in’ — and I never really did!
Fast forward many years and I had become the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions for Aon Corporation in APAC. I was also a single mum with twin girls, one of whom had a disability. Again, inclusion and fitting in was a key part of my existence and my survival.
It was then that my call to action happened — I was fortunate to win a Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award in Australia and as a result, I received emails from women from all over the Aon world — literally hundreds, all asking me how, for help and for inspiration. I printed all those emails and went to knock on the CEO’s door and said: “Right…we need to do something about this!”
I started my journey inside my organization and then in my own business. My focus at first was on gender diversity and inclusion because that was what I knew. Very quickly it became about INCLUSION more broadly — and that’s where I spend most of my time with leaders now, helping them embed my 6 Habits of Being Inclusive.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
When I first started 15 years ago, I was asked to speak to a bunch of male mine site supervisors about why they should embrace gender diversity. I swear if they had had eggs and tomatoes — they would have pelted me. They were really angry. They stood with backs against the wall, they wouldn’t even sit. I held my tongue and my irritation, and I listened. One of those gentlemen went on to win an award for his amazing commitment and work in the gender diversity space!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
My favorite is: “We will always find a way, because we always do.”
Conscious of the issues around self-confidence I saw in the women we mentored, this mantra of ‘calm down and have confidence that you will sort it’ was what I said over and over to my twin daughters on our drive to school and when things were tough, and they doubted themselves.
Now, at age 21 — they like to recite it back to me at times!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
Yes, when I was first nominated for the Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards, I was taken under wing by a lady called Elizabeth Broderick — she was a partner in a big law firm and had previously won the award. She later became our Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner — and now she represents Australia in the UN. She decided to make me her project! It was the first time I had experienced a female sponsor. She pushed me into those awards and coached me all the way.
In being one of the winners she then gave me another push — she helped me understand that I had a responsibility to help other women.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
My frustration with DEI efforts has been around the lack of results. I believe the historical ‘Noah’s Ark’ approach has not worked, and yet we persist.
We have taken a different approach. The focus is on helping leaders BE inclusive — creating a sense of belonging for all as the starting point. We support leaders to get better at inclusion and build the skillset via our 6 Habits of Being Inclusive. Once they have built that skillset and they can demonstrate that — we get them to increase the degree of difficulty — which is adding diversity and the traditional dimensions to the mix.
So, we are taking a reverse approach — inclusion skillset first and then let’s get to our masters in inclusion by adding the dimensions of diversity that you don’t understand.
We also ask leaders to experiment and count the impacts — so we have bottom line result for training rather than just saying we have put people through training!
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
One of the figures that continues to astound me is that companies, globally, are spending $8+ billion on DEI strategy each year and are constantly seeing little to no results on this spend.
This essentially means that companies are throwing their money at programs to help train up their workforce to be more accepting and inclusive of difference, but nothing changes. Their bottom line continues to feel the brunt of failed DEI programs.
It’s this complete lack of ROI that really frustrates me! Companies clearly WANT to invest, but the solutions aren’t bringing about any change.
This is the driver of one of my most exciting projects right now — a program that focuses on changing habits to promote inclusive behavior.
I am laser-focused on ROI and after running the program as a pilot within many organizations, I have been able to clearly demonstrate to executive leaders and executive officers that changing habits directly impacts inclusiveness of diversity. How do we know this? Because at the completion of the pilot phase can see exactly where on the bottom-line improvements are being felt.
It’s very exciting stuff because it disrupts how DEI programs are traditionally felt within a workforce AND it’s delivering real results!
And most importantly, leaders are not being told the theoretical business case for DEI — they are experiencing it themselves during the period of the Inclusion Habits process. They are truly understanding the ‘what’s in this for me!’
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Well, I try all the time. There is nothing that excites me more than to receive an email from a participant to explain how we have changed their lives, their approach, and their thinking — and they tell stories of the amazing impact that has on individuals. That’s why I do what I do!
Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line. (Please share a story or example for each.)
Absolutely! This is the crux of most of the conversations I have with company leaders.
- Increased diversity leads to skyrocketing innovation and creativity.
Time and time again, research by leading bodies in the D&I space tell us that when companies embrace diversity — in both their leadership teams as well as their employees — innovation and creativity skyrockets.
When a workforce prioritizes and welcomes difference, and they are supported by diverse leadership teams, new ways of thinking emerge.
The company’s people start questioning the way things have been done in the past. They get courageously curious and they’re not afraid to bring their ideas to the table.
They know their difference is accepted and because of this, new ideas become new realities, and this can have a massive impact on the bottom line.
One of the ways I have seen this firsthand was when a group of leaders undertook an experiment where they unlocked a bottleneck in the business by requiring people from two different teams to ‘spend a day in my shoes’ the result was great collaboration and big increases in customer engagement. The two groups had traditionally been at odds with each other — so this was a big business breakthrough!
2. Increased diversity positively impacts trust and loyalty leading to lowering attrition rates.
When diversity is welcomed, employees are more loyal, they trust their employer and in turn are more likely to stay longer with the company.
This can impact your recruitment efforts and spend in two ways:
- Employees naturally become your company advocates, happily spreading the word about new roles, new opportunities, new projects and how wonderful your diverse and inclusive company is to work for; thereby cutting down your advertising spend.
- Because your employees are happy to stick around longer your need for running recruitment campaigns drops. The cost of hiring, training, and firing diminishes drastically and your bottom-line benefits. This decrease in employee turnover is an absolute impact on bottom-line.
I’ve specifically seen this when a number of leaders experiment by taking someone under wing and getting closer to them with virtual coffees etc. Particularly they focus on individuals who may appear to be not quite right — now I have seen that in really asking new questions, showing that they care and creating and tailored ‘sense of belonging’ we have had many leaders report that they have saved someone from leaving the organization.
3. Increased diversity expands your client reach and market
If a company is looking to increase their sales and client numbers or expand their market or reach, an increased diversity could do them well. Diverse teams attract diverse audiences because the company understands the uniqueness of their diverse consumers and discovers insights that may not have been available with a homogenous workforce.
More accessible organization representations build brand trust, recognition, and authority leading to greater outreach and increased customers base, obviously impacting a company’s bottom-line.
I have seen this impact directly when a client has won business because they have openly discussed inclusion and created an environment of inclusion around a pitch!
4. Increased diversity increases productivity
Companies that value diverse teams reap the benefits of more productivity from those teams. Why?
A lot of research and insights over the years have shown us that teams achieve better results when they are made up of a group with different ways of thinking, approaching problems, and making decisions.
So, when a company demonstrates values that align with their employees’ values, and prioritizes welcoming, including, connecting with their diverse teams, individuals feel happier to be their usual authentic selves.
In turn they work more productively and efficiently.
When leaders are proactive in reaching out to individuals and teams and taking a more inclusive ‘human’ approach, where they are really taking the time to lean in and say, “I see you”, I always see that leaders then report the outcome is an increase in productivity. This makes sense because the research says that just one small act of micro exclusion reduces productivity by 25% — so I see quite clearly that the opposite is also true.
5. Increased diversity drives a more talented pipeline
When it comes to ensuring that your company attracts, develops, mentors, sponsors, and retains talent for the next generation of leadership, increased diversity is an absolute necessity.
The global companies who are “winning” in their DEI strategy are those who have been investing in inclusion, equity, and diversity for generations. These are the companies that know that the high returns diversity brings to their bottom-line are worth investing in sooner rather than later.
This means actively running ERGs, providing mentorship programs for women to promote leadership roles, and backing sponsorship advocates.
I’ve seen the ripple effect of such groups when a senior leader shows an individual that they care, that they understand and that its okay to be yourself and success YOUR way: sponsorship tailored to the talents and needs of the individual rather than superimposing MY WAY on you!
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?
From the literally thousands of conversations I’ve had personally with leaders across many global companies, there is one stand-out piece of advice I’d like to share:
Help your employees to thrive by empowering your leaders to change their habits.
Many managers and leaders won’t happily admit it, but: being inclusive of difference is hard and managing difference is difficult.
Being open to change, getting curious about your team, and changing your habits slowly and consistently is a way to truly change the landscape and organizational culture.
If you think it can’t be done, change your thinking, because I’m seeing real, meaningful change time and time again.
What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?
In the current climate of Covid, the way leaders manage teams has changed. Whether you have a small or large team, you need to understand that creating a sense of belonging for each team member is harder right now. You need to stop and see the current reality, which is that many people are in burnout, they are fatigued, they are on the edge, and you may not even be aware! You need to go deeper and uncover what’s going on.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂
Mariska Hargitay — as the lead actress in SVU I have admiration for her on and off screen with her persistence and determination on a tough issue over a sustained period of time!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I am active on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/diversity-and-inclusion-training/) and welcome any new followers or connections who are interested in learning more about diversity and inclusion best practice.
We regularly publish insights and posts on diversity and inclusion best practice and send out weekly tips to our newsletter subscribers. Sign up to the list and download one of our most popular inclusion tools for leaders here: https://emberin1.kartra.com/page/InclusionNudges
Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.
Thank you so much for your well wishes, and thanks again for having me!
Maureen Frank of Emberin: How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
