DIVERSITY: IT JUST MAKES SENSE.

A wide range of employees with different backgrounds and experiences, lead to improved recruiting and retention along with stronger relationships with clients. Diversity leaders at organizations across North Carolina share their experiences.

WELCOME TO THE BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION ROUND TABLE. OUR ROUND TABLE MEMBERS WILL INTRODUCE THEMSELVES AND TALK BRIEFLY ABOUT DIVERSITY IN THEIR ORGANIZATION.

ROBINSON: My name is Kristen Robinson, and I'm the head of our asset management board program at Fidelity Investments. But I am also one of the site leaders in North Carolina for Fidelity. We have about 8,000 associates in this amazing state of ours. I'm proud to say that we are the most diverse region that we have across Fidelity, which has about 75,000 associates worldwide. When I think about diversity, I think about how I need to represent all of our associates on our campus. That means we need to make sure that there's a very inclusive environment so that they can show up being themselves. Also, as we think about supporting our customers, they expect to see diversity, and they expect to see themselves at our company.

DEWBERRY: I am Taylor Dewberry. I am the chief diversity officer at Smith Anderson. I'm also an employment attorney, so that goes hand in hand together. We have over 200 employees. We're based in Raleigh and we are the largest business and litigation law firm in the Triangle and one of the largest in North Carolina. We do everything except for family and criminal law. I'm over our diversity mentorship programs and our programs to recruit, retain, and advance our diverse employees at our firm. The firm recently got Mansfield certification, which means we considered at least 30% diverse candidates for recruitment and advancement opportunities at the firm, which was a huge milestone for us. We also are heavily looking into how we build our pipeline of diversity coming in so we are working with high schoolers, college students and law students to bring in the next generation of diverse attorneys.

HAYES: I'm Emma Hayes with North Carolina State Employees' Credit Union. State Employees' was early in its official DEI journey, so I've been in my role as what initially was the chief culture officer. Now I'm the chief learning and experience officer. In that role I am responsible for learning, leadership development, sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion. We lead with equity, looking at providing equitable opportunities across our organization. We have about 8,200 employees. We're the second largest credit union in the nation. We are champions for the Eight Cooperative Principles, which include diversity and inclusion, considering all ways to provide equitable opportunities in all things, including learning and development. We are just now creating baselines for a lot of the work that we're doing as we continue to build out frameworks for some of our programs, which include retaining and recruiting diverse talent into our organization at all levels.

SMITH: My name is Dr. Johnny Smith. I serve as the vice president of instruction and student support services at Robeson Community College. We're excited to be able to work with people from the high school level all the way to our adult learners. And when we think about diversity, we are open, we are accessible. One of the things that we're also excited about is the fact that we have a minority male mentoring program. So we're endeavoring to work with our minority males, and show them enrichment opportunities and experiences. We're reaching out to our Hispanic population and making sure that they have an opportunity to join in their educational pursuits. We're just as excited about working with all people to make sure that everybody has an opportunity at education...