Corporations as a Driving Force for DEI
With Henry Robin, ('88), former chair and current member of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign; and Bernard Banks, Associate Dean for Leadership Development and Inclusion at Kellogg.
Tuesday, October 18th
Time: 6:00 pm ET
Virtual
Join Henry Robin ('88), former chair and current member of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign, the US's largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, and Bernie Banks, Associate Dean for Leadership Development and Inclusion, for a discussion on the evolving role of corporations as powerful activists in the movement towards intersectional equality. Companies have responded to the cultural reckoning of 2020 by operationalizing their commitment to equality through legislative efforts, internal policies, and better measurement. Disney's efforts to repeal Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill and the launch of Starbuck's $100 million Community Resilience Fund are high-profile examples of the trend. Henry will discuss what corporations are doing now, how their efforts are being measured, and what lies on the horizon.
Henry Robin is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign, serving on both the political and charitable foundation governing boards of the organization. He is also the President/mayor of Fire Island Pines. He was a General Partner and Managing Director of Invesco Private Capital, heading the private equity fund of funds business. Previously, he was a senior partner at North Sea Capital, a Copenhagen-based private equity fund-of-funds manager and was a founding partner and deputy head of (Carlyle’s) AlpInvest Partner's New York office.
Henry has also held senior positions at Credit Suisse First Boston and the MacArthur Foundation after beginning his investment career at Goldman Sachs in 1988. He graduated from Northwestern University and was named an F.C. Austin Scholar at the J.L. Kellogg School of Management.
Bernard (Bernie) Banks is a noted expert on the subjects of leadership and organizational change. Currently, he is the Associate Dean for Leadership Development and Inclusion and a Clinical Professor of Management at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. As an Associate Dean, Bernie is accountable for leader development integration across the school's global portfolio of programs. He is also accountable for the generation, integration and implementation of Diversity/Equity/Inclusion initiatives for the institution.
Bernie retired from the United States Army as a Brigadier General in 2016 after having successfully led West Point's Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership from 2012-2016. In addition to having studied leadership extensively, he has led multiple military units ranging in size from 10 to 3000+ people. In 1995, Bernie was selected from over 40,000 officers to receive the Army's top award for entry-level managers (General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award). In 2006, the Apache Helicopter unit he was leading in South Korea was designated as the top Apache Helicopter unit globally in the U.S. Army's annual best aviation unit competition.
A West Point graduate, Bernie is broadly educated. He holds graduates degrees from Northwestern, Columbia, and Harvard Universities. Additionally, he earned his Ph.D. in social-organizational psychology from Columbia University. Bernie's work has been published in a variety of outlets (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Military Psychology, New York Times). Furthermore, he has worked extensively with organizations across all sectors concerning their leader development efforts (e.g., Procter and Gamble, Mercedes Benz, General Electric, IBM, 7-Eleven, The US Forest Service, International Chiefs of Police).