2021 GlobalMindED
The Future of Work is Diverse, Inclusive, Just and Equitable
GlobalMindED closes the equity gap by creating a capable, diverse talent pipeline through connections to role models, mentors, internships for low-income students, returning adults, First Gen to college and inclusive leaders who teach them, work with them and hire them.
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Readers of our newsletters meet remarkable people every day of the year from all walks of life and today is no exception. Ken Epps grew up in a home with no running water and went on to break every barrier in his path, including a testing system which failed to reveal his learning challenges in reading. Undeterred and with the help of teachers who worked with him to address this, his talents were unlimited as you read below.
You will meet other leaders like Ken in our STEM session today, including our own First Gen grad featured on the panel, Zania Bell, now completing her MBA with a specialty in cybersecurity. When diverse students don’t see themselves in their K-12 or college faculty, they can join us to see the most inclusive and diverse leaders who are role models like Ken for all of us.
Join us for these Black History Month Equity Topics. Details and sign up below:
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2/23 STEM: Breaking Black Barriers in STEM: Creating a Capable Diverse Talent Pipeline
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2/24 Foundations/Funders: Building Communities of Inclusive Strength - ROI for Investment, Equity and Outcomes
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2/25 Tech: Black Education Leaders Normalize BIPOCs in Tech: Creating a Diverse Pipeline
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3/1 Health: Mobilizing Successful, Timely Vaccines in Communities of Color
The GlobalMindED YouTube channel has over 90 DEI webinars primarily led by leaders of color with panelists from a variety of backgrounds. Share with your colleagues in your company, your university or learning institution and your children, friends and family.
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You are a very successful Black role model. What is your personal story and how did you get to this level of success?
Absolutely everything I have achieved in life has been the result of sacrifices others have made on my behalf and for people like me. I was born in rural South Carolina to sharecroppers and in a home without running water. Fortunately, my mother, who was the oldest girl in her family and did not have formal education, worked hard to help send her youngest sister to college. She carried that same commitment to her own children, and as long as I could remember being alive standing in the cotton fields with her, she always spoke about sending her sister to college and told me that I would be a teacher like her younger sister. Along the way, my teachers were the heroes in my life because they provided the encouragement, support and direction that kept me on a positive path. I attended all-black under resourced schools until the ninth grade. The teachers did not have the resources they needed but did the best they could with what they had. For example, they did not have tools to detect or deal with reading disabilities, which I later learned I have. Nevertheless, I graduated from Lake City High School in 1973.
As a result of the support of my parents, teachers, and hard work, I earned good letter grades through school. Even with good grades, I did very poorly on the college admission test — too poorly to gain admission to majority-white universities. I attended South Carolina State College, an HBCU, where I was academically rehabilitated from my K-12 shortcomings. Through a series of tests and evaluations, my reading disability was discovered, and remedial measures established. My analytical aptitude was also discovered — even though it had been poorly represented in previous college admission tests — and encouraged. Thanks to the rehabilitation from the administration and faculty at SC State, I went on to graduate first in my class from the school of engineering and was named a physics scholar. More importantly, with the confidence to compete in society, I went forward to start my corporate career as an engineer at Union Carbide in Oak Ridge, TN. While at Union Carbide, I attended the University of Tennessee and got a master’s degree in Engineering Administration because I wanted to be in management. I later decided that I no longer wanted to be an engineer and decided to attend to business school for an MBA because I thought it would give me the best opportunity for a career change. Because of the rehabilitation I received at SC State and my work accomplishments at Union Carbide, I was fortunate enough to be admitted to a number of the top-tier business schools and decided to attend Stanford University.
There is little doubt that Stanford shaped my career in significant ways in terms of the access opened to me. It started with a career at AT&T where I eventually became a Division Manager with billion-dollar P&L responsibilities. It moved on to The Williams Company where I was a Senior VP and launched a major Telecommunications company via an Initial Public Offering (IPO). And it cumulated in Silicon Valley, CA where I was CEO of a number of emerging technology companies. Along the way, I am always thankful to my mom, dad, teachers and others who saw what I could be and kept me on the trajectory to get there.
You were a barrier breaker at AT&T, the Williams Companies and others. What was your leadership ascendancy there and what can you share with other leaders of color who want to make the same impact in the homogenous technology world?
I don’t think I was a barrier breaker, but I always felt that there were too few people who looked like me in the corporate leadership world. I think mentorship and networking are the two most important elements. I personally did not like networking, but it is essential. As such, I did reach out to corporate leaders of all colors for guidance and found it beneficial.
You are currently in a Black Board Corporate Readiness Program. What are your goals through this work and what impact do you most want to have as you join Boards in the future?
I am excited to part of the BBCR cohort and am enjoying it. I want to sharpen my skills as a board director and be in a position to contribute to the success of the corporation or organization. I have garnered quite a bit of industry and business leadership skills during my career and would like to bring that experience to corporations through oversight and guidance afforded to a board director. Equally important, however, is to bring my lived experience as a person of color from both a consumer and a business leader to the oversight.
What advice do you have for young black leaders and all aspiring leaders who can benefit from your experiences and many contributions, personally and professionally?
Great question! First, never be intimated, regardless of your perceived shortcomings. Confidence is contagious if projected properly. Everyone has shortcoming and fears, but always show courage. I was always reminded of a quote by Dorothy Bernard that “courage is fear that has said its prayers”. Second, decide what makes you happy personally and professionally, and let that be your north star. Resist the pressure to run with the pack and focus on what’s important to you. Be authentic because people can sniff out when you are not. Third, determine what you are good at, and be good at it. For example, I love technology and the benefit I think it can bring to society and people’s lives. On the other hand, I am a ‘challenged reader’ and while I love philosophers, that would be a longer row for me to hoe. Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, don’t be afraid to ask for help or too selfish to help others.
Bio: Kenneth Epps is an accomplished Senior Executive, Entrepreneur, and Board Member with more than 20 years of success leading emerging and Fortune 100 organizations across the healthcare and communications industries. Throughout his executive career, Kenneth has held leadership positions at emerging and Fortune 100 organizations including AT&T, The Williams Companies, BayPackets (acquired byGENBAND), and AGNITY Healthcare, Inc., which he founded and for which he served as CEO. Kenneth epitomized passion for utilizing technology for competitive advantage and public good by building a cloud-based SaaS solution for the healthcare industry that revolutionized telemedicine and remote patient care, resulting in faster physician-to-patient response time. The power of the solution attracted leading healthcare organizations, including Columbia University Medical Center and LifePoint Health (NASDAQ: LPNT). Kenneth has a rich history of serving on corporate, college, and community boards and affiliations with nonprofit community-based organizations. Kenneth holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, an MS in Engineering Administration from the University of Tennessee, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from South Carolina State University. He is a member of the Executive Leadership Council. Kenneth enjoys sports and spending time with his family and friends. Kenneth Epps epps.ken@gmail.com • www.linkedin.com/in/ken-epps-07b32811
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Click below to watch the Inclusive Leader Award Ceremony featuring inspirational messages from the diverse Award Winners
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GlobalMindED and the SDG Impact Fund are delighted to announce GlobalMindED's Donor Advised Fund. 2020 is the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations and the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Women's Declaration and Action Platform. Many from around the world are thinking of 2020 as the gateway to our most vital decade for delivering equity, the Sustainable Development Goals, and a world where all can thrive. Our key time for these outcomes is 2020-2030.
GlobalMindED DAF and the SDG Impact Fund are a powerful combined force for good as the 2019 year comes to a close and we reflect on the gratitude and the commitments we make to the causes we care most about. The DAF offers immense power and flexibility for giving prior to the year's end as you plant seeds of generous intention for 2020 and the decade ahead.
When you contribute to GlobalMindED, you support First Gen students. We have served more than 400 students by connecting them to role models, mentors, internships and jobs. Your generous support will allow us to take our work 10x and reach these talented students at scale who lack the resources and support we provide. Your support also helps teachers who can't afford the conference fees, faculty at colleges which are under resourced and students who persist at those universities despite food insecurity and/or housing insecurity.
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Links to read about Inclusive Leaders, many of whom are African American and people of color:
Curated sessions from GlobalMindED 2020 YouTube channel:
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From the Center for Positive Organizations:
From the Economist:
From Forbes:
From Harvard Business Review:
From the World Academy of Art & Science and UN; Geneva Global Leadership in the 21st Century econference:
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Listen here for an interview with Pam Newkirk, GlobalMindED speaker and author of Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion- Dollar Business.
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Meet GlobalMindED Founder, Carol Carter as interviewed by Tim Moore on his podcast Success Made to Last: From Success to Significance
Listen to Part 1 of Carol's interview
Listen to Part 2 of Carol's interview
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Recent GlobalMindED Newsletter Profiles:
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Since 2006 when the flagship TGR Learning Lab opened its doors in Anaheim, CA, TGR Foundation has had a lot to celebrate, including its most recent milestone of one million students impacted by TGR EDU: Explore, alone.
Developed in partnership with Discovery Education, TGR EDU: Explore is a free digital resource library that offers interactive web experiences, lesson plans, training videos and tools for educators, students and families to explore new disciplines and gain skills for a modern and expanding workforce.
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As you start the New Year, are you looking for ways to re-engineer your classroom culture? Check out Designing the Future: How Engineering Builds Creative Critical Thinking in the Classroom. The associated website has lots of activities, projects, and resources you can implement immediately. Our fall workshops using the book as a roadmap for change have been highly successful. Start designing the future today - try using the customized Study Guide for a book study in your PLC. Or contact ProjectEngin or Solution Tree to learn how you can bring professional development based on Ann's book to your school, district, or conference.
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THE FLYOVER NATION
Energy's Role in a Troubled Heartland
By J.C. Whorton
A unique and timely discussion of the challenging issues facing the country’s troubled Heartland.
Since the beginning of westward expansion into the Heartland’s vast regions, natural resource development has played a historic role in shaping its communities. Today, domestic oil and gas development offers one of the strongest prospects for the Heartland’s present and future prosperity as well as the nation’s re-emergence as a dominant player in the global energy economy.
The U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, two circumstances that are universally disrupting international geopolitical order. The earth has a finite supply of natural resources and a rapidly growing and over consuming population.
As America positions itself for a very uncertain and constantly evolving global marketplace, will the Heartland become America’s “great connector” or “great divide”?
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J.C. Whorton is a senior level energy and financial professional with over forty years of essential experience. Having a ranching and Native American heritage, Mr. Whorton is a strong advocate for rural education and economic development initiatives.
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