Courtesy Equitas Advisory Group

In the months after the death of George Floyd, Susan Harmeling (MBA 1991) and Charles Henderson (MBA 1991) came together to form Equitas Advisory Group, an evidence-based consultancy geared toward helping businesses and organizations reimagine and achieve their diversity, inclusion, and equity goals.

Harmeling, a business and ethics professor at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, brought her deep knowledge of the case method, which she employs in her classrooms, to dig deep into the complex issues like inclusion in business. Henderson brought more than 30 years of experience in executive-leadership diversity training at places like Nike and Citigroup, and across business and organizations in Asia, Africa, and post-apartheid South Africa. And they brought data.

Their take on the current diversity-consultancy models based on their research? “The approaches are largely: cover your rear end,” observes Harmeling. And, say the Equitas partners, other models are largely a few hours’ worth of training made up of PowerPoint presentations, computer quizzes, and surface-level Q&A, with little lasting impact. Instead, Equitas asks participants, especially executives, to get vulnerable.

After dozens of interviews with CEOs, DE&I trainers, employees, entrepreneurs, military leaders, and colleagues who have used storytelling to bridge difference in their organizations, and through their own work with clients, the Equitas founders have seen the model work again and again. Henderson recalls working with the management team at the largest bank in South Africa, post-apartheid, after he asked them to share their personal experiences. “I saw these guys—I mean big, rugby-playing, Afrikaner boys—break down in tears at times, sharing their stories. It was often pain that they had bottled up from past experiences, and it was amazing, when they were able to do that and allowed themselves to be vulnerable; the bonds that then were able to be created across the racial divide were incredible.”

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