DEI for Innovation 1: Building innovative teams, with Sharon Delaney McCloud

A diverse team makes companies stronger and more productive. In this series, Kurt Merriweather, The Diversity Movement’s VP of Products and Innovation, talks with DEI leaders about how diversity, equity and inclusion can lead to incredible developments in your organization and beyond. In this episode, Kurt talks with Walk West’s Sharon Delaney McCloud about why he wanted to create this series.

 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kurt Merriweather: [00:00:00] Welcome to Winning with Diversity, a podcast to help you learn the strategies to transform your business through diversity, equity and inclusion.

This is episode one of our series on DEI and innovation, where we discuss techniques and approaches to build high-performing teams that operate more effectively and unlock new opportunities for business growth. I’m your host, Kurt Merriweather, VP of products and innovation at The Diversity Movement.

And today we’ll be exploring how we help companies transform themselves through technology. Data-driven insight and new approaches to DEI plan execution. I’m thrilled to be joined by Sharon Delaney McLeod, a multihyphenate uh, and professional development that walk west also an adjunct professor at North Carolina state university, a consultant at the diversity movement at Ted talk speaker, a former news anchor and professional speaker.

Extraordinary. Welcome to the show, Sharon. 

Sharon Delaney McCloud: [00:00:59] Thanks [00:01:00] so much Kurt, what a very nice introduction. And I’m thrilled to be on the very first episode. 

Kurt Merriweather: [00:01:05] Uh, well, I wouldn’t have it any other way than to kick things off, uh, with the two of you at the two, the two of us, hopefully we’ll cut that out, but happy that, uh, the two of us could kick this off.

And so you’ve been an integral part of what we’re doing. Uh, at the diversity movement. So I wanted you to talk about, um, how you got involved and why you think, uh, you know, clients that we’re talking to or other people you’re talking to, uh, think diversity equity inclusion is so important, uh, especially as it relates to innovation.

Sharon Delaney McCloud: [00:01:37] Absolutely. First Kurt I think it would be important to just give a little bit of background on my diversity journey and just so that people can understand from the lens in which I look at things I’m the child of immigrants. And that plays a very, very important role to me. I like to say that I’m a citizen of the world.

And I [00:02:00] mean that through and through. So my parents immigrated to the U S kind of searching and looking for the American dream.

Full Episode Transcript

Winning with Diversity is brought to you by The Diversity Movement, hosted by VP of Products and Innovation Kurt Merriweather, and is a production of Earfluence.

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