The INNclusion Council
A diverse cross-section of INNOCEAN came together with the collective goal of creating an INNclusive workplace for everyone regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, or religion. The mission statement needed to be thorough, thoughtful, and straight to the point.
To launch the council, three co-chair members were selected at the agency, David Mesfin, Linda Palacios, and myself. Our first task was to build a charter driven by data and insight. Once the data was analyzed, we created sub-committees that tackled specific areas of interest such as Education, Outreach, Insight, and Social Media Engagement. Each team worked autonomously to produce the following work in one year:
Real Talk - A reoccurring town hall discussion about issues of systemic racism, social injustice, and inequality provided through the eyes, ears, and voices of “Real” experiences.
Anti-Racist Book Club – A book club dedicated to reading literature with the specific goal of opening the mind of the reader, often providing a perspective that they have never before considered or attempted to comprehend.
Multicultural Moments – An initiative to celebrate year-round holidays such as Eid al-Adha, Hispanic Heritage Month, Diwali, Juneteenth, and more.
Insight Committee - Take surveys and polls to inform the council on future initiatives.
Outreach Committee – We created the branding and helped launch the non-profit organization, The Lantern Network. We also helped secure funding for them by supporting a Super Bowl party thrown by top agent Leigh Steinberg, whose proceeds went to support the foundation. Within the outreach committee, we also set out to increase diversity in candidate pools and our leadership.
Mentorship – We partnered with The Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) to support mostly first-generation youth in our community interested in the advertising industry.
Internal Initiatives - From 2020 - 2023, we directly contributed to the increase of INNOCEAN's Black employee count from 1% to 5%.