Everybody Is at the Table

Having recently become a #WBENC certified business, as a long-time member of the #AGLCC (Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce), and currently creating positions for those who are otherwise-abled, I was curious to see what the panel "The Power of Diverse Partnerships" at the #AmericanExpress #SummitforSuccess would be about. That @RozLewis, President & CEO of the Greater Women's Business Council (our certifying agency), and @JustinNelson, Co-Founder and President, the #NationalLGBTChamberofCommerce, were on the panel helped me decide to attend. These panelists, as well as Candace Waterman, President, #WIPP (Women Impacting Public Policy) and Stacy Key, President and CEO of #GMSDC (the Georgia Minority Supplier Diversity Council) all provided significant insights on what I view as a basic tenet: We are all at the table.

If everyone is not at the table, how are we going to be able to pass the food? This is so fundamental, so simple, that it is incomprehensible to me that this is not evident to every one. For all of you economists out there, an economically viable position on full inclusion is that your market consists of people who are, know, are related to, work for, work with someone who you may not have even thought of as your market until now. Think again.