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Day Two Recap: DE&I Conference

After the incredible information that was delivered on Day One of the conference, participants (and Chamber staff) were eager to launch into Day Two!

The day’s keynote was Darrin Goss, Sr., Chief Executive Officer with the Coastal Community Foundation. With every word, his passion for connecting communities and companies became even more clear.

Good diversity and good inclusion ultimately lead to equitable outcomes.

Darrin Goss, Sr.

According to Darrin, equity-centered leadership is more important than ever. How does that look?

  • Understand the masters of dichotomy that exists/policies that are present – as leaders, to bring your organization through this difficult time, we need to challenge communities to embrace what’s best
  • Acknowledge and build opportunities for diverse populations to have a seat at the table and be heard
  • Challenge systems and change structures – know your WHY (Why isn’t this being discussed? Why don’t we highlight them more? Is this work creating a disservice or service to our community?)

Check out the full presentation

After this powerful keynote presentation, we moved into a general session around racial equity with LaVanda Brown, Executive Director with YWCA Greater Charleston.

Racism is the root cause of disparities in our system.

LaVanda Brown

LaVanda challenged participants to look at their inner circles. Who do you communicate with the most and what do they look like? What do they represent? If they look and act like you, it may be time to broaden your circle. It will allow you to bear witness to each other’s humanity and be more open and understanding.

Three great resources for you to look into:

  • Attend the Racial Equity Institute, hosted by the YWCA
  • Read the The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
  • Read Just Mercy: A story of justice and redemption by Ryan Stevenson

If you are less of a reader and more of a numbers person, this next session was the one for you. Kenya Dunn, Owner of The Power-Filled Woman LLC and DE&I Executive Fellow for the Charleston Metro Chamber, and Jacki Renegar, Director of the Center for Business Research, gave a statistical representation of our region today.

Key Takeaways:

  • 7% growth rate in the African American population in our region compared to 22% growth in White and 22% growth in Hispanic or Latino populations – after digging into the data to understand why, African American populations are leaving our region more than other populations
  • LGBTQ+ populations are increasing by 32% in our region
  • Non-white poverty rate is 2.3 times larger than the white poverty rate
  • 1,301 minority-owned firms employ 12,012 workers and generate $1.2 billion in annual sales revenues

With this data in mind, we jumped into the breakout sessions:

Breakout Session One: Education, Talent and the Future of Business

Quinetha Frasier, Chief Executive Officer, The Global Foundation for Education and Economic Mobility, and Phyllis Martin, Chief Executive Officer, Tri-County Cradle to Career, took us on a deep dive into the educational disparities that exist in our region and what some organizations are doing to address the issues. Organizations learned how they can help close the gap in education and build a talent pipeline to develop the region’s future workforce.

Breakout Session Two: How Improving Transportation Helps Improve the Disparity Gap

You may be thinking…how do transportation and the disparity gap go together? Well, they do, and it’s a very interesting take on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Keith Benjamin, Director of Transportation with the City of Charleston, and Melvin Williams, Senior Business Developer and Officer with S&ME Inc., explained to us the correlation between improvements in transportation and improvements in disparities in marginalized communities. We also gained a better understanding of what the future of transportation looks like for the Charleston metro and its implications for marginalized populations.

Breakout Session Three: Disparities in Healthcare: A Healthy Workforce is GOOD for Business

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare disparities had a large impact on marginalized communities. These impacts were only amplified by the pandemic. In this session, we heard from Kimberly Butler Willis, Director of Community Health with Roper St. Francis, to understand how improving healthcare is good for business and take a deep dive into some of the biggest issues in healthcare facing the Lowcountry.

Breakout Session Four: Minority-Owned Businesses and Their Importance to the Lowcountry

Diana Saillant, Chief Executive Officer with Saillant Language Services, offered powerful reminders about the importance of minorities in our community.

An interesting question was asked and I think it’s important to talk about it, because non-hispanic employees may agree with this, too. The question was, “How do you gain the trust of Hispanic employees and show them that they are valued?”

The simple answer was get to know them! This seems difficult for some people, but relationships are huge for many in Hispanic culture. Once you get to know what they enjoy and learn more about their family and background, you will begin to understand them better and the relationship will be stronger for it.


After the breakout sessions were complete, we ended the day with powerhouse speaker, Anton Gunn, Chief Diversity Officer and Executive Director of Community Health Innovation with the Medical University of South Carolina.

If your organization lacks diversity, equity and inclusion, it harbors a negative culture that breeds low morale, low productivity, underperformance and higher turnover.

Anton Gunn

To avoid this, your organization and its leaders have to be intentional. You have to have someone focused on DE&I in your organization that has an open mind and a positive mindset about the future.

Before you go, remember these three questions that employees have in their minds when they think about whether or not they’d want to stay with your organization:

  1. Do you care about me?
  2. Will you help me?
  3. Can I trust you?

How do you think your employees would answer?

Check out the final day recap of the DE&I Conference!


Special thank you to our sponsors!

Presenting Sponsor

Roper St. Francis Healthcare

Premier Sponsors

First Horizon Bank
Ingevity
South Carolina Federal Credit Union

Technology Sponsor

eGroup :: Technology Solutions for Serious Competitors

Session Sponsors

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina
Dominion Energy
Floyd Lee Locums
Morris Financial Concepts, Inc

Posted on
October 22nd 2020
Written by
Madison Beard
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