Author: DeForest Soaries

A young friend of mine was very excited to be admitted into a labor union recently. Someone I know had taken him under his wing and successfully helped him complete one of the union’s training programs.  The excitement he exuded when he visited my home was warranted. The union he had joined was the International […]

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I have the good fortune of serving on corporate boards with white directors who understand the value of having diversity, equity and inclusion embedded in our board culture and operations. When we discuss new board members, all of my boards have members whose genuine interest is obvious and who realize that our organizations benefit from […]

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A very talented attorney stopped me at an event a few days ago and asked if I thought someone “on his level” could really have a chance to sit on a corporate board. I did not have to answer him with a theoretical hypothesis, nor would I stoop to the level of giving him a […]

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I am finding great pleasure in teaching and coaching executives that aspire to become corporate directors.  I never imagined that the corporate community, motivated by investors and regulators, would make diversity in corporate governance a legitimate corporate goal. Never before have we seen companies’ annual reports and proxy statements contain as much information about diversity, […]

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Recently, I was conducting a live presentation on Zoom when I ran into an embarrassing technical challenge. While sharing a PowerPoint presentation on my screen, I attempted to play a video and quickly plunged into a technology abyss. Fortunately, the team member supporting me on this project was a 23-year-old recent college graduate who was […]

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