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welcome to Opportunity Matters this is Ken Shropshire it's a an exciting Series
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where we've been looking at these ways that we can bring about greater access
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to those who don't traditionally have access and I'm excited today in this
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episode to talk about the area this near and dear to me Sports and I mean Sports is kind of this
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this mystical space to think about this whole topic because it is the Jackie Robinson Trope that most people think
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about is leading America into the state that it's in that almost a decade before
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schools were legally desegregated in the United States baseball integrates so people often think that Sports is the
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space where this can happen most readily and so we'll talk about that we'll talk
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about the problems that still exist in sport and some of the solutions that some to of the uh representatives of two
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of the great leagues in the United States uh have have asserted so let me introduce the guest formally as I've
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done U throughout this podcast series our our first is Javier Gutierrez a friend of mine from the
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Arizona uh location also a California guy he's the first Latino president and
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CEO in the history of the National Hockey League leading the Arizona Coyotes Hockey Club and currently the
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only Latino leading a major league sports team in this Ro Javier overse all business operations strategic planning
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significant organizational decision- making and government relations for the club previously and could have been on
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some other episodes as well he served as managing director at Clear Lake Capital
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group a leading private investment firm that oversees 25 billion of institutional Capital Javier graduated
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from Harvard College somebody has to go there and Stanford law school and for two decades built a sterling reputation
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in business investment and finance h here thank you for for joining me and thanks so much for having me Jonathan
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Bean he is the senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer began that role with the NFL in 2020 he
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spearheads the League's overarching de strategy and implementation and works
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closely with senior leadership to drive actionable change throughout the league and all 32 clubs over the course of his
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career Jonathan has led companies to Foster more inclusive cultures and has established himself as a successful
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diversity strategist prior to joining the NFL being served as the senior vice president of global diversity and
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inclusion for 21st Century Fox Jonathan thanks for joining in thank you Ken did you ever work for any boring companies
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that you know you no comment okay well let let's get underway I mean I said you know I want to kind of lay
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the ground work of what's going on uh in sports and kind of how we've gotten to
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the place that that we're in um and and Javier why don't we start with you and
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and in your unique role as as the first Latino in the space and also you didn't
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mention in the intro um is is he currently the the well certainly one of the first Latino owner
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in the National Hockey League uh is the guy that bought the team that convinced you to leave
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a more traditional space to to come in how's how's this journey been what kinds
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of things uh in terms of equity and opportunity did you want to accomplish as you came in um and yeah just just
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how's it been just just kind of kind of lay lay the groundwork of this this journey you've had for where are we now
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year three and a half almost four season four if you can believe it okay no okay
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I appreciate this yeah no I appreciate it and and um you you know I I I applaud everything that you're doing to continue
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to uh be a leader in talking about the importance of opportunity and opening doors um yeah you know you you you
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mentioned Alex Morel the first Latino owner in the history of the National Hockey League and and one of the few
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owner majority owners of any professional sports team in in the history of the professional the the
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major professional teams in in America um is a longtime friend uh business partner we actually own the largest
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Latino owned bank uh together in in California um and and he approached me uh shortly after buying the team and and
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he said listen the reason why you should do this you need to do this is because of the incredible power of sports to
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make a difference and and to make an impact and what he said was I want us to be a beloved Sports organization I want
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to win but I want us to be beloved and really the way you do that is by making an impact and making a difference on the
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ice in terms of rebuilding a franchise from the ground up uh via the draft you know we have a a historic number of
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draft picks in the NHL uh on the business side you know we've been at the Forefront of putting our games over the
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air for free we've been at the Forefront of really bringing that bridge to growth
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cohorts of young female diverse techsavvy and Purpose Driven and using content and actually fashion and
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merchandise you know we have one of the first fashion design working with us that created a jersey
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that their players actually wear during games I I definitely want to come back and and you you struck an issue that I
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think is very important the power that you have with the franchise to provide opportunities in the community but I
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want but I want to get get Jonathan in for a moment be before we do that the the NFL has has been uh Stellar in
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addressing you know one of the issues the way we used to think about diversity in sports was I this idea of of playing
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the game who's not playing and the issue was the closer you were to the ball the less likely you were to be
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a person of color so there were no black quarterbacks now that issue that issue is is addressed what what are the big
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issues with with with the National Football League now and and and the big successes too yeah Ken thanks for that
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and and and also Javier congratulations on on the success that you explained and
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and we hope to see that in in all the industry and and hopefully we will uh sooner rather than later for us uh as it
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pertains you know it always goes to the top and we we certainly want to increase
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our diverse ownership uh in the organization right now we really have one primary uh owner who happens to be
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diverse and that's shod KH um you know we also um Kim Pula certainly uh is is a
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critical piece as well but shodon is the solo primary owner who happens to be diverse and and he's been an owner for
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quite a while um that has been something that has been one of the biggest priorities of the league obviously when
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you look at at numbers and you look at um how expensive it is to own a club uh that certainly does uh uh lower the
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numbers uh a little bit but I certainly think that there's a lot of people like
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Jose Feliciano who who I have met and who think I think he's awesome uh that
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there are people out there one thing that we have done is we've been very intentional on our efforts to really um
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attract more diverse ownership and and I think what's important is we want the
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primary ownership but we also want those limited partners as well and we've had
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two clubs that have been for sale over the last couple years uh the first one being the Denver Broncos and the second
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one being the most recent one is the Washington commanders and in both cases you see significant diverse ownership
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with Melody Hobson condo rice and Sir Lewis Hamilton uh with the Broncos and I think the biggest diverse owner um with
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Magic Johnson and others at the Washington commanders and and before that process even started for both of
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those clubs we made a statement and and um where we said as people are putting together organizations are putting
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together together their offers for a club uh we will see it very favorably for there to be diverse ownership as a
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part of that overall package and proposal um just making it very clear that that is something that we are
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looking for and hoping for uh going forward and and we've been able to see that I mean one thing too that is of
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course important and I think can you mention that is ownership of course at the very top is is very critical but
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also these other roles the head coach role roles the G general manager roles the president roles and we have seen
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some good progress in some of those areas in particular for with President uh in August of 2020 Jason Wright was
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the first uh African-American president in the history of the National Football League today we have five
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African-American presidents uh at the league and we feel very proud about that um we also have uh one of them being uh
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Sandra Douglas Morgan who uh who really it's it's it's it's amazing as a black
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woman the first person in that role too um so we are seeing some nice Improvement there we look at general
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manager we have more diverse uh general managers that we've had in the history
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of the league with nine eight of which who happen to be African-American and that doesn't include the two Who
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currently are interims right now and Jojo and champ at the at the um uh at the Las Vegas Raiders and and and
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also the Los Angeles Chargers uh and and I think you know obviously we're still
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working on that head coach issue and we're going to continue to do so but we
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feel very confident that we'll see change there let me ask and jav I do want to come back to the the business
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impact question in the community but but but Jonathan reminds me of uh an important issue that that that you you
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two can discuss in a way that that kind of none of the other areas have had uh as much opportunity to do and that and
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that is uh women's access in in leadership uh in your respective leagues where it there aren't women playing the
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game in in your leagues and how that balances with this this one always um you know the puzzle when I talk about
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this in class is we've got men who have played the game that have difficulty
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getting in some of these positions sometimes how do we balance that against the idea that that we need to have women
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in these positions too and one person that we were talking to uh in the entertainment industry said you know my
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focus is on on black people and getting black black people in I guess part of the the question is I throw all these
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issues in at once you how do how do we get the the Focus right this whole idea of diversity is there a proper mix are
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we sometime somehow negatively impacting one group if we focus you know women's
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month as AO or Latino history month or Black History Month how do how do we do the balance in this this this whole
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space that is one thing that I have realized especially in the role that I've been in for almost three and a half
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years now at the National Football League is you cannot make the kind of transformational change in a particular
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area without also making the change in another area which will support each other and and I'll be direct about that
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if we're talking about us doing a better job of having more diversity in particular with uh African-Americans and
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Latinos and and Asians and in areas of leadership um you're not going to get
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that leadership without also driving more inclusivity and diversity and diverse representation with women and
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it's interesting because there is um there there are there is someone who I do a lot of work with and is um and and
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is a player and it was interesting there was a comment that was said to me that was there was a clear
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change in the culture and the environment of the clubs that he worked with when women were on
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staff and that was with so with other aspects of diversity like people of color that got better and more inclusive
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with women on staff and vice versa so one thing drives the other interesting um there is no need to say
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I'm going to lock in on one thing and then leave the others behind it is the
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commitment to all of it holistically which drives the Improvement in those areas um so I so just to be direct I
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don't think that we are going to get the progress that we need in particular with
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particular groups whether they be black groups Latino groups and others without also having that progress and in
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particular with women women will drive that increased Pro progress for us Javier I think that's a really good
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point Jonathan that one thing will actually exponentially impact something else I I'll I'll add a kind of a
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slightly uh different point to this which is we ask ourselves constantly what what's what is the goal right what
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is the end goal so number one one of the goals is we want to be a best-in-class business operation and business
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organization and if you don't have have diverse voices especially if you don't
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have female voices you're not going to make the best decisions they're just
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they're they're going to be impacted you're going to not have the full
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perspective the full Viewpoint um you know full insight as an organization so so it starts with if we want to be the
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best business let's bring the best people and that includes bringing the best amount of and the highest amount of
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perspective to make the best decisions number two as an organization and as a business what do we want to do we we are
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consumer business very high-profile consumer business so what do those consumers look like in in particular
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what is the growth a look like in the consumer Market in America it's young female diverse techsavvy and purpos
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griven I constantly talk about those growth cohort so we want to a bridge to those growth cohorts which by the way is
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one of the key value propositions that we offer to our partners right our Media Partners our business partners uh from a
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business perspective if we want to be a bridge to those growth cohorts you really need those folks in the seat
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giving you that type of perspective of attracting that because a monolithic Viewpoint will not get you the
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understanding or at least the openness of understanding how to capture those growth cohorts and I don't ascribe to
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this theory that you know only an African-American can sit in that seat in order you help you attract other
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African-Americans or the African-American Market that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is having
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them in the seat as Jonathan alluded to creates a culture in an environment in which you're asking and you're open to
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saying are we capturing all the distinct perspectives that we need as an organization and are we capturing the
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distinct and unique approaches in order to capture those growth cohorts so so I want to say you you guys have have been
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the ideal as I as I've been thinking about the series that in terms of this broad issue that's
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that's been on my mind uh and it's been on my mind a lot because of the issues
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that have been raised recently with anti-Semitism and islamophobia my response to a lot of
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people has been the best Professionals in this space are always trying to think about everybody and always are trying to
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figure out how do you include everyone and how do you make sure there's not bias going against anyone and the best
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professionals are always saying too there's not a universal approach for each group I I need to do whatever it is
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I need to do to address these issues and I need to constantly stay stay on top of
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these issues so I'm I'm not I'm not dragging you guys in with my my view
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viewpoint but I it it's it's one that that uh I I think people that are being
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critical of the work in the space need to have a better understanding of what what the true professionals do so the
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the one the one last area I want to cover we've got uh about uh three minutes left is this area of of business
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opportunities that that a league that that a franchise can provide to people that don't normally have access to do
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business wi with with a league or or team uh Jonathan why you why don't you take a a minute and then Javier I'll ask
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you to kind of close out with with a a last minute on on the kinds of things that are available the kinds of things a
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can you are doing and El can do yeah Ken absolutely this piece is really critical um you look at the NHL
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you look at the NFL huge organizations multi-billion dollar organizations um very profitable organizations very
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connected to the fan base organizations and more and more becoming Global uh with that said uh we need to just as we
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need to have diversity and representation um uh in terms of our employees we need to have diversity in
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terms of the organizations and businesses that we're working with and share the pie um we wouldn't be who we
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are today without all of these communities that we're talking about and so for us we're really really focused
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and and made it a huge priority around increasing the number of diverse vendors that we work with and when we say that
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it's not just just in one particular space uh events is critical marketing's
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critical um B uh banking's critical Finance um we've actually had a lot of
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success in that area uh n working with the national black Bank Foundation uh with a Ashley uh and and Ashley Bell and
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others um but we believe that and and this is not only at the league office but also at the clubs is you have to in
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order for us to get better have better Solutions uh have the best Partners working with us we have to have a
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diverse lens and be very focused on bringing in a variety of different people from different backgrounds and
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organizations that can service in a variety of different ways so that's critical for us we've been working on
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that uh very hard for two plus years uh specifically and and there's still a lot
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more work to to get done but we're doing some good work there Javier in in the
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last minute what's what's the what kinds of things have you guys been doing yeah
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no I'll Echo everything that Jonathan said I don't want to repeat it because
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it's it's absolutely true right like these are drivers of economic activity
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especially in local communities and it it goes beyond just game day it's you
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know content and and Merchandising and and our licensing and so it's it goes
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beyond that equality health is a local Health Organization here that really targets the lower income primarily
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Latino African-American community uh in in greater Phoenix area they came to us to actually sign up and sponsor the
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largest street hockey program in the NHL in Arizona by the way and why because they knew that that was their Target and
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they were trying to make Health Care accessible and and really break down walls and barriers around the issues of
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Health Care why not do it with an organization that can help them do that in a very unique way because that
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organization is focused on that just like we're trying to make hockey accessible through street hockey how
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that's how we're trying to Target these growth in diverse uh segments they
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wanted to align with that so it's it's not just seeing it as bringing them into
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the supply chain and procurement it's also being that resource for those Enterprises to then also make that
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difference in the community and so for me that's that's the power that we have
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to combine our platforms our voices our impact with the business opportunities that
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make sense for the league for the team for our partners for the community um as much as these are the right things that
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we are doing Ken they're the right business decisions and that's what bothers me whenever there's critique I
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go great give me a critique as to why this is not a good business decision as as a as a business guy as a private
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Equity guy tell me why this is not a good business decision because I can tell you why it is Javier that that
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that's a great uh point to to end on the idea of this whole Space the idea of
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looking for opportunities and the idea that it can be positively business impactful if you do it the right way so
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thank you both thank you Jonathan thank you Javier for joining us on Opportunity
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[Music] Matters I'm farita Griffith managing director for the Wharton Coalition for
00:22:27
equity and opportun in partnership with Wharton Works led by Professor Damon Phillips Business
00:22:32
Roundtable and second chance business Coalition we're bringing together Business Leaders academics State leaders
00:22:39
and Justice impacted communities for discussions on creating Pathways to sustainable employment for individuals
00:22:45
who are formally incarcerated to learn more and register go to ceo. Warton do.edu