COMMUNITY ADVOCACY
Candy Johnson: Before becoming President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga in January of 2021, she served as a senior advisor to Chattanooga Mayor Berke. She led community-focused initiatives to create sustainable partnerships and external investments to advance the administration’s economic, racial and social equity agenda with the goal of improving community quality of life. Johnson also led the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Alliance in partnership with Bloomberg Associates and co-created the Styles L. Hutchins Black College Student Fellowship. A native of Clarksville, Tennessee, Johnson was the youngest member ever elected to public office for the Clarksville City Council.
Michael Dzik: Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga since 2001. Much of Michael’s work focuses on community relations, bringing together people of all faiths, cultures and backgrounds to find common ground and understanding while building strong connections and friendships. Through programs such as the Jewish Film Series, exhibits, speakers, and multi-faith panels, the Jewish Federation works to connect all of our Chattanooga community.
March 2021 Black-Jewish Dialogue
Jeremy Spake is a Principal on the Thought Leadership & Advisory Services team at Cornerstone OnDemand, a leading global SaaS-based talent management solution provider. In this capacity, he works to develop continuous performance management, data-driven compensation, and succession strategies to advise organizations on how to drive people theory into practice. Central to this work is providing guidance to embed talent management strategy with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) initiatives for clients. Spake has led pay equity initiatives, Employee Resource Groups, advocated for inclusive benefits offerings and regularly leads talent management strategy workshops for Cornerstone’s clients around the world. He lives in Seattle with his husband David and cat Oliver.
Rayna Edwards is a principal consultant in Mercer’s Workforce Strategy & Analytics practice, where she specializes in DEI analytics, including pay equity analyses. She will address 1) The importance of understanding how the employee experience differs by race and gender. 2) (for business/HR leaders) How to pull meaningful insights from data that is typically housed in a company’s HRIS system. 3) (for business/HR leaders) The importance of a statistically rigorous pay equity analysis in closing pay gaps.
Andrea J. Simon, Ph.D. is an international leader in corporate anthropology and CEO of Simon Associates. She is an Axiom 2017 Best Business Book author of On the Brink: A fresh lens to take your business to new heights, and author of the new book, Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business. Dr. Simon discusses corporate culture and changes needed to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
I’ve always included articles on the environment in the almost 20 years of the American Diversity Report. When I considered doing an article on the iconic Greenpeace movement which started much of our environmental activism, I thought it would be an intellectual and historical project. But, my 93-year old Aunt Polly informed that Green-ness runs in the family. Greenpeace is just a cousin away, including one of the movement’s matriarchs.