Reverend Fred Davie is a Senior Advisor for Racial Equity at Interfaith America, where he executes programming with a primary focus on the intersection of race and religion. He is also a minister in the Presbytery of New York City, and recently served as the Executive Vice President at Union Theological Seminary.
Hear Rev. Davie address these vital questions:
Why does Interfaith America consider religious diversity a foundational American strength?
Why should religion be front and center in conversations about both diversity and social change?
How does religious diversity help build better institutions and a better civil society?
You will be inspired to engage in ongoing discussions of …
The need for a positive conversation about religious pluralism.
How our diversity conversation should be more focused on highlighting the contributions that America’s varied communities bring to our potluck nation rather than continually centering tension and oppression.
How religion is a force that inspires many and is a bridge of cooperation between our diversity and the largest contributor to our civil society.
Everett Harper is an entrepreneur, strategist, and the CEO and Co-Founder of Truss, a technology infrastructure company. In his new book, “Move to the Edge, Declare it Center,” Harper shares effective methods for decision making in situations where there may be a lack of complete information, ways to sustain teams during uncertain and stressful periods, and effective techniques for managing personal anxiety—a crucial leadership skill. Hear Everett discuss:
Does being a Black CEO influence how you lead, solve problems and build teams?
Why is diversity, equity and inclusion important for companies?
Advice to companies that aren’t currently diverse, but want to start addressing the issue?
How to create measurable and sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion processes – and how companies can begin to adopt them to achieve their business goals.
Navigating tragedy and the unknown, and how leaders can apply these life lessons to their organizations.
Born prior to WWII Giselle Roeder spent her early life in the relatively tranquil setting of a rural village in Pomerania, the most eastern part of Germany ceded to Poland in 1945. The bloody trauma of the fighting between the advancing Russians and the retreating German army in her neighborhood meant that thousands of people, including her family became displaced persons. l
Giselle lived in 3 Germanys: 1) 10 years under Nazi rule, 2) 10 years under Communist restrictions and 3) 10 years in the capitalistic West Germany. Giselle learnt early not to talk about anything she heard at home. After the Russian invasion witness to rapes, gruesome acts of murder; evicted and part of the ‘wall to nowhere’ next to the Russian war machinery on their way to Berlin & Victory. Starving, sleeping under the stars, against all odds she grew up and always found a way to save herself and her family. Escaping East Germany, and in a way, also West Germany , she married an unknown pen friend from Canada.
Be inspired, especially given current events in Ukraine, by her determination to stay alive and her courage to tell the stories that nobody wants to talk about.
See Giselle’s website for her books::
“Healing with Water” – Kneipp Hydrotherapy at Home
“Sauna” – The Hottest Way to Good Health
“Forget Me Not” – Bouquet of Stories
“Ein Mensch von Gestern” – German Poems
“Flight into the Unknown” – Part 2 of “The Nine Lives of Gila”.
Deb Hunter was a USA Today best selling author, historian & podcaster. A former executive director of the World Chamber of Commerce, she was active in Atlanta’s British-American Business Council.
Her journey with the Cherokee Nation began in 2021 when she contacted them for permission to explore their history for a Civil War discussion. That lead to numerous conversations.
The revelation by Secretary Deb Haaland of the Indian Boarding School Initiative is synergistic as the report includes a Cherokee School in Chattanooga TN – the Brainerd Mission – (Deb was originally from Chattanooga). Note: She worked with a historian from the Cherokee Nation to verify this information.
Joe Santana is Chairman of the CDO PowerCircle and the creator and host of the ERG PowerTalk podcast. The CDO PowerCircle is an association of top diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders within highly respected companies that collectively generate nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars in annual revenue and employ almost one million people. Joe, a former line executive and diversity officer, is a published author and futurist whose mission is to develop DEI leaders at all levels for success in our new, highly disruptive world.
The First, the Few, the Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America
DEEPA PURUSHOTHAMAN is the co-founder of nFormation which provides brave, safe, new space for professional women of color. She is also a Women and Public Policy Program Leader in Practice at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to this, Deepa spent more than twenty years at Deloitte and was the first Indian American woman to make partner in the company’s history.
KALLIE MARIE is a recording engineer and record producer who has worked with a variety of artists and bands. She is also an award winning composer, whose work with MPath Tracks won a Broadcast Production Music Award. She has written music for film, TV, choreographers, and has a strong interest in creating music for video games. She is also a freelance writer for Sonic Scoop, as well as a published author with Routledge Taylor Francis, and her latest title with Rowman & Littlefield.
Hear Kallie discuss:
How her research about women in this industry come about?
Who did she interview?
What can some one not involved in audio/music production take away from reading this book?
How can we keep our conversations and efforts for gender equality intersectional?
Christopher Johnson is the President of Global Financial Services at Pitney Bowes, where he manages the financing and lending businesses, as well as the consumer and merchant payments and risk management functions across the company. Christopher also holds leadership responsibility for Pitney Bowes Bank, a state chartered industrial loan company.
Diversity in a predominately white industry like finance continues to be important. Now is the time to make changes to ensure inclusion in the future. Main Street is going to be hit the hardest in the post-pandemic world as interest rates increase and buyers demand doesn’t meet pre-COVID levels. If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur having a hard time getting a loan from your bank, there are alternative routes to financing your business.
Hear Christopher discuss the important trends he sees in the small business lending space , particularly for diverse people. And take advantage of his advice for someone looking to follow in his footsteps.
Andrew Feiler is a fifth generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he has been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South. Feiler has long been active in civic life. He has helped create over a dozen community initiatives, serves on multiple not-for-profit boards, and is an active advisor to numerous elected officials and political candidates. His art is an extension of his civic values.
Feiler’s photographs have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Architect, Preservation, The Forward as well as on CBS This Morning and NPR. His work has been displayed in galleries and museums including solo exhibitions at such venues as the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC, and Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C.
Andrew documents the history of the Rosenwald schools program which transformed education for African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. The founders were Julius Rosenwald, born to Jewish immigrants, who rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and Booker T. Washington , born into slavery, who became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with Black communities to build public schools for African American children. Andrew examines the role of education as the onramp to the American middle class as well as the past, present and future of the Black/Jewish progressive alliance.
Hear Andrew discuss:
What was most innovative about how Rosenwald and Washington structured the schoolhouse construction program?
What was the impact of the Rosenwald schools program?
How he developed his approach for telling this story visually.
Luis Martinez-Fernandez is a Professor of History, University of Central Florida teaching Latin American and Caribbean history. He is a multiple-award winning author who has recently reinvented himself as a syndicated columnist at Creators Syndicate.
CLICK for books and articles by Dr. Martinez-Fernandez …