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welcome to the next episode of Opportunity Matters today we're going to focus on entertainment and the issues in
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entertainment deal with both representation and inclusion and as we've been doing in this series what
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we're going to try to do is look at both the problems that exist in this industry
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as well as some of the solutions or prospective solutions that are out there we've got two great guests who will join
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me in the conversation today first is inzinga zing Shaw I'll be calling her throughout the the interview she's the
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president and CEO of attack the glass she's an experienced SE Suite executive
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with extensive hands-on experience and knowledge spanning diversity equity and inclusion change and crisis management
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human Capital Management employee relations Talent acquisition organizational and strategic planning
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branding and Community engagement previously Zing was the recording Academy's Chief Dei officer at a pivotal
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point in the industry and she was the first Chief inclusion and diversity officer at four blue chip organizations
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including Edelman Starbucks Marsh Clinton and the NBA um and I I've met her uh along the
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way mainly in the sports context and have enjoyed getting to know her further she's she's moved around and and now
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doing this great independent work Zing thanks for joining us thank you so much for having me Ken and also joining us is
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J Thomas she's a sports and entertainment attorney those who knew me knew I was going to get an attorney on
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here sooner or later with over 15 years of experience she's a founder of diverse
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representation a company aimed at increasing in in the hiring and exposure of black attorneys agents managers and
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publicists in the sports and entertainment Industries in addition to creating the first ever directory of
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black attorneys agents managers and publicist in sports and entainment diverse representation also curates
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various diversity programs and initiatives throughout the country ja thank you for joining us thank you so
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much for having me I'm happy to be here so so let let's let's start off um just
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kind of set the stage um Zing what what why you want you take us through and we were in in kind of
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this uh award season I guess in terms of the entertainment industry and this this has been a flas
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point in some ways to illustrate to those who aren't aware of the absence of
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diversity in the entertainment industry but why don't you give us some thoughts
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on some of the biggest issues that exist in entertainment in terms of um diversity Equity inclusion and the
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opportunities that exist to to address those it's such a great question Ken and
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it's really what a lot of people are talking about right now what are the challenges what are the uh things that
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are stopping diversity equity and inclusion from moving forward particularly in the entertainment
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industry and there are a couple of things at play um first and foremost there are a lot of conversations around
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pay Equity whether it's pay Equity regarding gender and women not receiving the same compensation as their male
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counterparts we hear about pay Equity across race um hearing that white uh individuals are earning more money than
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ethnic minorities uh there are also a lot of discussions around representation of the lgbtq community and how that
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shows up on the acting side if you're talking about roles or in the sports side um prominent athletes that are able
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to come to the Forefront there are also issues around uh ableism and people who have disabilities not being able to
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break through the glass and and have representation of their demographic set so there are a lot of big Equity issues
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in entertainment um I I want to underscore the under representation of minorities it's
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something that we've been hearing about a lot um this includes onscreen payals
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behind the scene roles whether we're talking about actors writers directors producers key decision makers and the
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list goes on so um we have a lot of things to Grapple with in this field right now and we've got to be very open
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and honest about the things that are not Equitable in this industry if we're ever
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going to get to a point where we're able to move the needle forward before I ask
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you the the same question this this is a very interesting T time where some of us are stuttering
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at using the the phrase Dei and where there's some even absence of people listening to what the issues
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actually are if you if you use that phrase so so I really appreciate the the way that you've broken down the kinds of
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concerns that that exist and that it's not just race it's not just gender um it
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it can be someone who's from a a poor setting that can't find their way into
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Hollywood to get get the opportunity that someone that's been raised in Hollywood is is is able to do and and
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that's that's a lot of what we've been trying to get people to think about
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across these industries and the topics that we we're talking about in in this
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series is that the big concern the people that do this kind of work is opportunity and making sure I mean is
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it's the oldest it's the oldest piece of uh of the Constitution of the United
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States although there were some problems in the initial document the the idea of
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opportunity for all the idea of of equal opportunity and and access so so G your
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um your your thoughts on the issues that are there and if you could you know tell
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us tell us some about diverse representation sure so I started diverse representation
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about four years ago um as a black woman attorney one of the issues I was seeing
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in the industry was that a lot of my clients were black and oftentimes I was the only black person on their team so
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whether that was an athlete a black athlete or a black entertainer you know I would be their attorney but their
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agent would be white their publicist white their financial advisor white their manager white their entire team
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would be white and I felt like this was an issue we weren't talking about um I
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felt like when we talked about diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry I felt like the focus was
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always on the toal making sure that the faces we saw on screen were diverse but paying very little attention to the
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folks who were representing those people on screen because if you really started
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to peel back layers those spaces were not diverse at all um and so that's why
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I started diverse representation when I started it I didn't really have a plan
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for it I didn't know what it was going to turn into I really started because I
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wanted to get the information out there I heard a lot of black actors and a lot of black athletes say I don't know any
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black agents I don't know any black attorneys so I started as just a database of here are all the black
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attorneys here are all the black agents here are all the black publist so that that can no longer be an excuse of I
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can't find them well now you can and it's free um so now we're GNA have to
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think of a different excuse and I just wanted people to be more cognizant about the people they were hiring you know
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that's the other thing a lot of Black Talent you know they would get on these
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platforms and preach about diversity and preach about you know black this and black that but when you look at their
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teams there are no black people in sight so you know I just wanted everybody in these spaces to be more cognizant about
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the people they are hiring um and the people that were on their teams so that was the impetus behind starting the
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company and don't interrupt but but I'm I'm flashing on one of our first
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conversations our first interactions I I think I I I told you at the time that I'd written a book about sports agents
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in in 1989 or 1990 or so and one of the things that we did in the book was to talk about the number of black agents
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this in the sports business and how easy it was to count them I mean how easy how
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easy you know it was it wasn't problematic and and if you if you went through for example one of the big big
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deals in in sports is uh who's representing the the first 10 top 10 draft picks and so often then the there
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were no African-Americans representing any of the draft piics even though the top draft piics were largely
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African-American and so so there's been this and we'll talk about this there
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there has been this um dramatic change in some ways um and I I was asking you about how to how to keep track it was it
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was very easy to keep track of back then but it's it's the good thing I guess to
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say and part of what we want to raise too is some of the positives there it's
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it's not that easy to keep that track of now there there are numbers there but
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and and Zing you you'll probably have some reaction to this too the the age- old question from
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people that are hiring is is I can't find anybody I can't find anybody historically there was a little bit to
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that now that doesn't exist so we're at this point where diverse representation
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has a directory saying you can go into the places that you going to and you say well here's here's a list of people but
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we still can't get people to move to make make the hire and it and it works it can work in a lot of different ways
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too I mean it can be women won't hire women it it can be a black person won't
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hire a black person that that's a different kind of issue but the idea the Hollywood studio
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won't hire these diverse people and they can no longer say we can't find them what what kinds what
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kinds of steps are we taking that are are trying to get over that that barrier the barrier well here they are and
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you're still not hiring them well first you know we have to have a recognition
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that diversity does not equal deficiency I think a lot of times when corporate organizations or individuals are
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thinking about representation and who they're going to bring on board they believe that if you say the word
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diversity you're almost asking them to water down the the pipeline or the talent pool in terms of the quality that
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they're bringing to the table and that is just not a fact it's not true at all
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um diversity does not equal deficiency diversity just means that we are widening the aperture so that we can tap
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into a variety of talent pools and look at new and unexpected Talent you know I think one of the core issues around
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Innovation is ensuring that there are so many different points of view that you can really go outside of yourself and
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outside of the status quo and identify something that is new and unexpected and different and that's really what
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diversity aims to achieve and so I think Ken to answer your question when it relates to people and or organizations
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that say okay well you know thank you for for being able to materialize these diverse candidates however we just can't
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find a natural fit um what they're saying is that they're not ready to let
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go of the status quo they're not ready to look at a different type of leader or
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learn from someone who is um not a person that they're usually used to um working alongside or working under and
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so we've got to really peel back the layers of this onion and figure out what
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is the real core issue you know I've been hearing a lot of rhetoric on social
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media and traditional media that is very anti- Dei and you know it's it's it's
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interesting because you think about what Dei stands for diversity means difference um Equity is about making
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sure that we are providing opportunity for everyone to reach their maximum potential by giving them tools that are
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applicable to their needs and inclusion is making sure that we are curating spaces and environments where people
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feel like they can belong in their authentic way and so when we hear uh phrases like anti- Dei I like to really
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challenge the people who are are challenging our our our status and I say well what are are you anti the D are you
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anti the E are you anti the eye because when they really have to sit back and think about what they're against it's
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not necessarily the the things that Dei truly stand for and and it's a often a self-determined definition of
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what Dei means it's I'm I'm I'm actually anti- acronyms partly for what we just
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heard from you the idea that if you if you say it that's a lot different from
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this thing this Dei thing that that people have uh put a bull's eye upon J what I know one of the ways that diverse
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representation has has addressed some of these issues and and one of the paths to
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solution is that you have worked with with companies to to to help them to figure out ways to to meet these
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candidates to to get get to get to know them better part of the earliest of solutions that that we began to point to
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in the academic space thinking about this was the idea of of networking in the idea of getting to know someone and
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breaking down barriers in that kind of way what why don't you uh tell us some
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about some of the uh corporate relationships and and programming that that you've done sure so yeah we have a
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lot of corporate Partnerships with companies like ca WME um lioncap Warner Brothers Discovery and a lot of these
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companies say the same thing you know we can't find black candidates and also
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just as a little Aster for diverse representation I know that's our title but we're very specifically focused on
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black people in sports and entertainment we're not as you know maybe all-encompassing as other organizations
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but that was that's something we've heard from a lot of our partners we just
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can't black candidates um for these spaces so we've tried a couple different
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things to help Rectify that problem um we have a couple years ago we started an executive pipeline program because that
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was a big complaint we were hearing from a lot of companies you know we're able
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to find black candidates at the entry level but when it comes to like Executives SE Suite we just can't find
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them so we've created um black executive pipeline programs for various facets of
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the entertainment industry industry to help equip black candidates to become Executives um and work in conjunction
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with these Studios with these networks we've built out resume databases that
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housed thousands of black candidates um you know that our partners can access when they're looking to hire um we have
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created a Black Entertainment career Summit um where it's a three-day program
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and Studios production companies networks come in and talk to candidates about job opportunities how to get your
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foot in the door and have on-site interviews so honestly it's been a hodg podge of a lot of different things some
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things have worked some things haven't um but we worked with our partners to
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try try a lot of different things to see what's really going to move the ball
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forward what which of of those that you named what what kinds of programs have have seemed to work best or have had
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noted success for you um and what kinds of things would you or or are you tweaking is it's it's an ongoing process
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I know part of part of what I do a lot of work with the NFL part of part of what we found is you've got to
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constantly tweak these programs what whatever it is you think you had right it's not going to be right tomorrow
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unless unless you move forward what what what are some of the learnings that that
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you you've had along the way and things that you would uh would do to to try to
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move the needle further sure great question so I would say probably one of our takeaway ways is I think sometimes
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the short-term programs actually work better than the long-term programs so some of our short-term programs where
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it's only for like a week or even a weekend sometimes are are stronger than the ones that are
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six months to a year long some of our pipeline programs that we created that were three months long six months long
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those were a little harder to sustain um just because the interest level waned with participants kind of hard to keep
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up with people over the course of six months um people change jobs they move it's just a little more difficult to
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keep people focused for a longer period of time as opposed to kind of a short stint so we have found a lot more
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success with like shorter programs or events that are only for a couple days or a week as opposed to three months six
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months or a year um and probably our most successful program in terms of really getting black folks in the door
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has probably been our Black Entertainment career Summit there had never been a program specifically aimed
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at educating black folks on various careers in the entertainment industry and so that has been a really great
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program a ton of people have been hired as a result of it because we do onsite interviews all the networks production
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companies who participate do on-site interviews with people attending um and we've seen a lot of great success come
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out of that Zing if I can wi in yeah please do please really quickly because I think uh what ja is talking about is
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absolutely right and I just wanted to build on it when I was the global head of diversity at Starbucks we used to do
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a lot of work that was intersectional in nature so what I mean is that we would um cross collaborate across demographic
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sets and really use our employee resource groups as a a means of getting representation across the board but we
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would create projects for different ergs to collaborate on together so I remember
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one project in particular where there were three demographic sets that came to the table um it was the the black
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partner Network which were um employees comprised in the black um and you know African diaspora communities um the
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lgbtq community and also the Pan Asian community and those three groups came together around an innovation challenge
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that Starbucks was spearheading um as it relate to new products that they were looking to put on the shelves for
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customers and what I can tell you is that when the work was intersectional and people really had to um spend a lot
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of time with one another in communities that they were not used to collaborating
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in there were a lot of insights and aha moments that came out of that and and so
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we realize that a lot of the way that Dei is perceived um unfortunately is is perceived in U let's call it a a
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stereotypical fashion surrounding segreg ation because when you think about ergs
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the nature of ergs can feel very much like segregation you know the the blacks are going to have their group and the
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lgbtq will have their group and the disabled will have their group and so if we're not figuring out ways to leverage
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each of these demographic sets and and help them come together in ways that they can be supportive of one another
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while also standing proud in the skin that they were born in then we're really
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missing the Mar so I think a lot of times what organizations are are doing is keeping the status quo surrounding
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the the mindset of Dei being segregationist versus a collaborative community so have you
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found and the employee research group ERG topics is is certainly one that sounds like it's it crosses over but
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have you found anything that's really distinct about entertainment versus the
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other Industries you've been in yeah absolutely I mean listen I think that the entertainment industry is very
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unique for a variety of of reasons it's Unique because it's the one industry
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that we look at to glean some sense of joy and hope for a variety of communities I mean if you think about
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the pure nature of what entertainment sets out to do it it sets out to um keep people engage during times that are
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troubling it it sets out to make people laugh even when the world can um certainly throw things at us that are
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hard to digest um it it is it makes you know when you think about athletes and what they represent it makes us hopeful
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that you can you know work hard put your best foot forward collaborate with teammates and and um reach the sky sky
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is the limit so I think the entertainment industry is very different than a lot of Industries anytime I go to
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a sporting event I look across the arena and I'm always floored at how many different types of people are convening
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in one space excited to cheer for one entity one the home team um and so you look around and and there are black
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people and white people and Asian and Latino and then you have disabled and lgbtq and old and young and it really is
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just a beautiful array of of what Humanity looks like when you think about who is coming together to be entertained
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so when you think uh about your industry uh and in entertainment Collective and and who it can bring together it's
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very important for the industry to recognize that representation matters and having an array of people that um we
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can look at as an on the- field product or onscreen product is just as important
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as who you're attracting to your Venue you know we've got a couple minutes left and z i want to make sure I
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I ask you this question because I know you think about these things on on the big level from um the sea Suite kind of
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kind of space you know we are in this moment and and not everyone understands that this is part
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of the Dei space too but but what is it that that companies what kinds of conversations are taking place about uh
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islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the the top levels of these companies and and I guess more
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specifically what kinds of conversations should be taking place and what kinds of
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action should should they take I'm so glad you brought this topic up because
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it certainly is front um of mind for all of us uh that are witnessing what's
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happening in the world and I would just say that companies um have been addressing anti-Semitism and
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islamophobia particularly in the entertainment industry um by a combination of things which all involve
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awareness education representation also policy changes so there is progress that
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is being made I think there's a lot of work that can still be done but some of
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the things that I've seen in entertainment are um with industry stakeholders including Studios and
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production companies they're implementing dni initiatives to promote representation of diverse communities
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including Jewish and Muslim individuals and these uh some of these these efforts
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include targeted hiring practices mentorship programs the inclusion of diverse voices in decision-making
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processes so that's huge also educational programs there are a lot of efforts to educate industry
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professionals on the nuances and impacts of anti semitism and islamophobia and they have been implemented so training
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programs and workshops are addressing stereotypes cultural sensitivity the importance of accurate representation
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and storytelling and then last I'll just say that there have been a lot of responses to controversies that we've
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seen play out on social media and in traditional media and so there are instances of anti-Semitism or
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islamophobia in the entertainment industry um often met with a public outcry so in response industry
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professionals Studios networks are issuing public statements condemning this Behavior they're taking corrective
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action they're re-evaluating content and severing ties with individuals involved
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so I think this is these are topics that are going to be front um and Center for
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a long time well Zing J we we have run out of time as I told you told you what happened um you know the important thing
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I want want to close with J made a great point about every organization can't do
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everything and if it's it's it's the little things that can make the change
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come about if we have Enterprises like diverse representation working on on blacks getting access we have other
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organizations working on on other folks and if we have those who can take on the
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mega mega space that's important too so thank you to you both uh look forward to
00:25:19
everybody joining us on our next episode of Opportunity [Music] Matters I'm farita Griffith managing
00:25:28
director for the Wharton Coalition for equity and opportunity in partnership with Wharton Works led by Professor
00:25:34
Damon Phillips business round table and second chance business Coalition we're
00:25:39
bringing together Business Leaders academics State leaders and Justice impacted communities for discussions on
00:25:46
creating Pathways to sustainable employment for individuals who are formally incarcerated to learn more and
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register go to ceo. won. up.edu