Janice Bryant Howroyd, founder and CEO of ActOne Group, reflects on navigating racial and gender prejudice while pitching corporate clients during the growth of her workforce solutions company.
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“I'll tell you candidly, and I'm not proud of it, there were times when I would gift my intelligence to other members of my team and have them go in and make a presentation or them make the pitch. So that the client wouldn't have to interact directly with me as an African American or as a female.”
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More from Janice Bryant Howroyd
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Howroyd: Teacher Stood on Desk Claiming Black People Were Suited for Slavery
“And we had a teacher who stood up on the desk that day, the first day I went into his history class, and explained so eloquently, if you can even see the paradox of that, how blacks are so suited to slavery.”
Howroyd: Black Female Founders Face "Can We" Scrutiny Rather Than "How"
“I think the questioning and the scrutiny would be different. There would be more question of can we than how will we. Whereas if I sent someone different on my team in, the questions around how are we going to do this happened a lot quicker in the conversation…”
Howroyd Sent White Colleagues to Pitch Clients to Avoid Racial Bias
“I'll tell you candidly, and I'm not proud of it, there were times when I would gift my intelligence to other members of my team and have them go in and make a presentation or them make the pitch. So that the client wouldn't have to interact directly with me as…”
Howroyd: You Cannot Teach Experience, Common Sense, Confidence, or Unwilling Minds
“In our company we teach that there are five things you can't teach people. You can't teach people experience. You can't teach people common sense. You can't teach people confidence. You cannot teach people anything if they don't want to learn it, and you can't…”
Howroyd: Initially Resisted Minority Business Certification as Intrusive
“Initially I thought that certification was a strip search. I needed to open up my business to total exposure to someone, to in return, have them come back and say, yes, you are a minority. Yes, you are a woman. And yes, you are running this business. And it ju…”
“Now, we were segregated, make no mistake about that, but we had that southern etiquette that went along with it, so there was a politeness That occurred amongst people, but we also were very aware of the injustices.”
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