Mellody Hobson Wants The Civil Rights Agenda In All Corporate Boardrooms - Forbes

Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of Ariel investments and No. 94 on the Forbes Power Women list, wants to "slingshot" out of the pandemic, not stumble.

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For all the many challenges that 2020 has thrown at leaders, investors, women—well, everyone—Mellody Hobson, who the co-CEO of Ariel Investments, does not want to stumble out of this time.

“Can this period be a time that makes us smarter and better at what we do?” Hobson asked during the 2020 Forbes Power Women’s Summit on Wednesday. “And that's what I keep saying at my company: I want to slingshot out of this time.”

The pandemic and our work-from-home realities aren’t over yet, but Hobson is arguably on that slingshot. The 94th most powerful woman in the world according to the 2020 Forbes Power Women list, Hobson will become the chair of Starbucks’ board of directors in March, and the only Black woman to chair an S&P 500 company unless one of the other 499 makes a move soon.

The news, which was first reported Wednesday, caps a year in which Hobson has used her voice and her philanthropy dollars to advocate for racial justice and push for real, meaningful change. Among her achievements: In October, she made a named donation to Princeton University that it will use to build a new residential college called Hobson College. It will be the first college house to be named for a Black woman, and built on the ground that used to be home to Wilson College.

“America was born with a birth defect—as my friend Bryan Stevenson from the Equal Justice Initiative says—and the thing about a birth defect, which for us was slavery, is that a birth defect is not fatal,” Hobson told Moira Forbes, executive vice president of Forbes Media, during Wednesday’s summit. “But you never get rid of it, and pretending it’s not there doesn’t make it go away.”

Hobson believes we need to deal with the issues that lead to inequalities in business and in society “head on.” Here are three pieces of advice she has for doing just that:

Start counting. Hobson wants companies to tabulate and analyze the diversity and representation that exists at all levels of a company’s workforce. “You can't pat yourself on the back and 90% of your diversity comes from assistants who happen to be Black women. That doesn't work,” she said. But the counting doesn’t end there. Supply chain managers and directors of procurement need to ensure they’re working with a diverse set of suppliers and vendors, too, because the economic opportunities this creates can spread to whole communities.

This isn’t solely an issue for the executive team to worry about, either. “For us to be true fiduciaries, we need to make sure the civil rights agenda is also considered in the boardroom, because it's in the best interest of the company,” Hobson said.

Embrace being the first or only. In the beginning of Hobson’s career, she would attend conferences where it seemed like everyone already knew her name. This took her aback until she realized it was because she was the only Black woman in the room.

“Well, I'm just going to use this to my advantage,” Hobson recalled deciding. “If Mellody is going to be something that really does stand out and I’m the only one, then I’m going to be like Cher or Beyonce where I don't even need a last name because you're going to know that I'm there. And if I'm there, I'm going to have original ideas. And I'm going to have a point of view and I'm going to be willing to take risks.”

Own your power. Hobson says she’ll hear from people who think they don’t have the power to advocate for change. And to that she says, “No. Rosa Parks decided not to stand up. Let's just start with that. She changed an outcome in a major, major way for our society; she broke down barriers by just refusing to stand up on that bus.”

This post was updated at 9:51pm December 9 to reflect that Hobson’s appointment as Starbucks board chair was reported Wednesday, not announced.

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