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A guide to increasing the percentage of Black, Latina, and Native American women in the tech industry

A conversation with Dwana Franklin-Davis, CEO, Reboot Representation
By Ramona Schindelheim
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In this episode of Work in Progress, I am joined by Dwana Franklin-Davis, CEO of Reboot Representation whose mission is to double the number of Black, Latina, and Native American (BLNA) women in the tech industry by the year 2025.

I sat down with Franklin-Davis at the Aspen Latino Business Summit in Washington, D.C. in early September.

Reboot Representation Tech Coalition was launched in 2018 by Pivotal Ventures, Melinda French Gates’ incubation organization, which advocates for expanding opportunity and accelerating equity through high-impact investments and partnerships.

It was a direct response to the small percentage of women of color graduating with computer degrees and working in the tech industry.

“BLNA women in 2017 represented 4% of the graduating population, and that number was down by 33% from the previous decade and wasn’t projected to double to 8% until the year 2052 without interventions,” explains Franklin-Davis.

Pivotal and McKinsey surveyed 32 corporations representing $500 billion in revenue and $500 million in philanthropic giving to determine what they were spending on women and girls in tech.

“It turned out they were spending 5% of their philanthropic dollars on women and girls in tech, and less than 0.1% went intentionally to Black, Latina, and Native American women and girls in tech. So the magic number – I got my air quotes around magic – the magic number from that less than 0.1% way back in the day 2017 was $335,000. That’s it,” she says.

Eleven founding companies joined with Pivotal to form Reboot Representation to increase representation and investment in BLNA women in tech. Today there are 23. In a new report, Reboot says their partners have helped increase the number women in the field, but there is a long way to go.

“The number of computing degrees awarded to BLNA women nearly doubled between 2016 and 2021, but continued intentional investments will be required to sustain and propel these efforts,” according to that report.

Franklin-Davis tells me, “I am ecstatic to watch the numbers of BLNA women graduating with computing degrees. We’ve almost reached our doubling goal. We’re almost there. So, that is definitely something to celebrate. But also, I don’t want to give the pat on the back to say we’re done because although we’re watching the actual numbers increase – which is beautiful and amazing – the percentages are only slightly nudging up, which is not good enough.”

Even with that progress in the graduation rates, the industry representation is heading in the opposite direction.

“The numbers of BLNA women in the industry are going down at the very moment that graduation rates are going up. So, we have a graph that looks like a very visible X and that is alarming. That’s what keeps us up at night, which is why we produced this second report because we want to make sure that corporations have the tools they need in order to make the minor adjustments to work smarter and not harder and be able to effectively recruit, retain, and advance a diverse workforce.”

The new report offers up nine suggestions to guide companies seeking to encourage and retain that more diverse workforce, including adding more BLNA women.

Franklin-Davis and I discuss those suggestions.

Find out more in the podcast, which you can listen to here, or download and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 287:  Dwana Franklin-Davis, CEO, Reboot Representation
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

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