A Dog Called Diversity
A Dog Called Diversity
Coming out of two closets….with Amin Kassam
A lawyer at Bloomberg for over 10 years Amin Kassam is the epitome of intersectionality. Being ethnically Indian, Muslim and gay. As Amin says being muslim and gay is two closets to come out of.
Amin speaks about the challenges growing up where he never felt he belonged anywhere, and how hard it was to reconcile all aspects of his identify without visible role models. He also thinks “closet” is a terrible metaphor for coming out. He likes the analogy of a curtain that is slowly unveiled (we like this too).
Amin talks about the obligation for companies to create a safe space for LGBTIQ+ people particularly in Asia. In the West people often come out to their family and friends first and may cover in the workplace to avoid discrimination. In the East, where Amin lives and works it can often be the opposite. People often feel more comfortable to be “out” in their workplaces, but not with their families who they often still live with.
Amin Kassam is a great example of how we can all make a difference and contribute to change in our organisations .
Our key takeaways are:
- How important it is to understand and develop cultural competencies to create inclusion in organisations. Having diverse people bring diversity of thought to build innovation.
- The importance of addressing intersectionality in our Diversity & Inclusion work, and
- The importance of believing in yourself and being confident. The more you are yourself, the more authentic you are and this leads to better outcomes for you and others.
During the episode we referred to:
Dr Kimberlé Crenshaw
Edelman trust barometer
At The Culture Ministry we know how challenging and lonely it can be working in Diversity and Inclusion and how progress is often slow. You might be just getting started in Diversity and Inclusion, or you might be on your way. The Culture Ministry is here to help you with your Diversity and Inclusion progress. Go to www.thecultureministry.com to learn more.
The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.
Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more
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Welcome to A Dog Called Diversity, a podcast from the Culture Ministry where we explore the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion through sharing stories of personal and powerful lived experiences, including how people have found their feet and developed their career in diversity and inclusion. We are so glad you're listening in and if you need some help or support with your diversity and inclusion work, you can email Lisa at lisamulligan at thecultureministrycom or go to wwwthecultureministrycom for more information. A lawyer at Bloomberg for over 10 years, amin Kassam is the epitome of intersectionality. Being ethnically Indian, his mother is from Uganda and his father from Tanzania. He is also Muslim and gay. Two closets to come out of.
Speaker 1:Amin speaks about the challenges growing up where he never felt he belonged anywhere and how hard it was to reconcile all aspects of his identity without visible role models. He also thinks closet is a terrible metaphor for coming out. He likes the analogy of a curtain that is slowly unveiled. Amin talks about the obligation for companies to create a safe space for LGBTIQ plus people, particularly in Asia. This is because people in the West often come out to their family and friends first and may cover in the workplace to avoid discrimination. In the East, where Amin lives and works, it can often be the opposite. People often feel more comfortable to be out in their workplaces, but not with their families, who they often still live with. Amin Kassam is a great example of how we can all make a difference and contribute to our organizations. Here's your host, lisa Mulligan.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome to the podcast, Eamon. It is such a delight to have you joining me. From New York, I'm very jealous. You work for Bloomberg, but you know, tell me a bit about what you do there at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3:Sure. So I'm a lawyer by training and I have been a lawyer for over 20 years. I've been at Bloomberg for 10. I was in New York for most of that time, but about two and a half years ago I was sent to Hong Kong to lead our legal department in Asia. So at Bloomberg we have employees in 17 different jurisdictions, we cover 26 markets and my job is to sort of deal with all the myriad legal issues that come up there across the region.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when we first connected you were in Hong Kong and I guess you're going back soon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, a few weeks. Yeah, I'm just here for a work trip. Yeah, so I managed to come back to New York for a little bit, first time since the pandemic.
Speaker 2:Oh, amazing, amazing. Well, it's great to have you here and I'm talking to you from Auckland, so almost the other end of the world, today but I'd love if you could start and tell us a little bit about your growing up, maybe where you grew up and how you grew up. I think that would be really interesting to learn about sure, and thanks for having me on the podcast.
Speaker 3:It's uh, it's wonderful to be here, so, uh, I grew up, so I was born and raised in Vancouver, canada, um, but my parents are actually from East Africa, so my mother is from Uganda, my father is from Tanzania. They met there, they married there, they had my sister there. My father actually only has a grade 10 education. My mother was a teacher, grew up quite poor and they immigrated to Canada in 1972, just a few years before I was born, and my grandparents are were from India, so I'm actually Indian ethnically. So my grandparents moved from India to East Africa where they had my parents. And I'm Muslim as well and I also identify as a member of the LGBT community.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot going on there.
Speaker 3:There's a lot going on there. There's a lot going on there.
Speaker 2:There's a lot going on there yes, I think it's the definition of intersectionality that you know. There's multiple identities and experiences that you have. Tell me what that meant to you growing up and, I guess, as you came into your adult years, how did some of these things play out, like how does being Muslim play out and being gay?
Speaker 3:Tell me a bit about that. Yeah, so it wasn't. You know, it was a real challenge growing up because I never felt and if you talk to others in words or intersectional in these different ways I never felt it belonged anywhere, right, I never quite felt quite comfortable in the different worlds where I interact and I could never find a way to reconcile all the different aspects of my identity and I couldn't. You know, it was a real, it was really a challenge and I think for me also, growing up and as I started my career, I didn't see a lot of role models of leaders who look like me, right, even if people were coming out of the closet, you know, as I was coming in law school, they weren't necessarily Muslim or Indian, for example, and so I just always sort of felt a little bit off balance, I think, for quite some time, and that poses its own set of challenges.
Speaker 3:I think what I've learned over the years and I was fortunate I learned about intersectionality in law school from Professor Kimberly Crenshaw, who actually coined the term and what I learned over time is that it wasn't that I didn't belong anywhere, but actually I belonged everywhere, and that I think now in this role and, you know, much older and wiser. I guess I'm able to draw on all the different experiences of who makes me who I am to be a better leader and lawyer, you know, advocate and friend and person. So I think that for me was sort of part of that journey, but it was a challenge for quite some time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even being, I guess, an expat in some ways, you don't know where you belong. So you said you were born in Canada and I guess you grew up there. You spent a lot of time in New York. You now live in Hong Kong. I think in some ways, expats have that same feeling. It's like I don't belong anywhere, I don't know what my home is anymore and I don't know who to connect with. I'd like to explore a little bit more about growing up Muslim and because as a religion, I mean many religions are problematic, and I'm not saying Muslim is, but there's a perception about the Muslim religion that is perhaps more difficult to be in the world as a Muslim than perhaps being a Christian at the current time, which is incredibly unfortunate. But how does being gay fit within the Muslim faith and what you know of it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's a good question. So for me, from a personal journey, you know my family we went to services on a regular basis. My community is relatively quite liberal, so I didn't grow up with people saying things at services that you know gay people are less than, or, you know, going to hell, or none of that was ever part of the of my, my faith or my practice or anything that I heard.
Speaker 3:So that was, that was a start. You know, there was a point I remember in my my 20s. In my 20s, I was listening to someone talk about Islam and a scholar and he talked about how Islam means. One of the ways it defined is submission to the will of God, and that is a very common theme. You'll hear about what Islam really means submitting to the will of God. And as I was sitting there thinking, okay, so you submit to the will of God. Well, I'm pretty sure I know I was born this way. This is not something I, you know, had control over. Right, I was.
Speaker 3:This was how God made me yeah so if I'm supposed to submit to the will of God as a Muslim, then I must submit to the fact that I'm gay and I have to accept it and acknowledge it and live it and be it. Now that was in my 20s and I think so. That's how I reconciled it in my head from a theological standpoint. But it took a long time for me to eventually come out. And you know, I would say the coming out process for me was it wasn't a closet Like. I think it's a terrible metaphor, right, you know, everyone says the door opens and everybody knows you're gay, right, it was a curtain.
Speaker 3:You know, I slowly opened the curtain, bit by bit, you know, and eventually, over time, the curtain was fully open, but it took some time to get there Right, and so you know the lap it was later on that I came out to members of my community and also to my parents, and of that was kind of the final piece of that, the the other thing I would just say, and we talked about intersectionality when it comes to faith.
Speaker 3:It is interesting I was given this example because intersectionality is about how you have all these different uh identities and how they create new forms of marginalization and alienation, right even discrimination, and and so the example that I often give is um, it was, I think, uh, I can't remember, I think it was 2000 and it was June, I think 2016, I believe, or 2018.
Speaker 3:Um, it was the year where, um, you may remember, there was a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando called Pulse and a number of our LGBT brothers and sisters were killed, and at the time I was leading our LGBT employee resource group called Be Proud at Bloomberg, and I came to the office and it was very, very upset. The community was very upset. I spent the entire day working with the company leaders to like come up with our response. And you know and we were, you know there was a outpouring of support, you know, uh, in many different ways, but you know the shooter was muslim, and so, after I spent the day working on how to support my lgbt community, I come home at night and I look online and there's all these people LGBT people saying things about the Muslim community and saying that the Muslim faith should be held responsible for the actions of one madman, and that, for me, was a good example of just how alone I felt at that moment. Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I was kind of caught between these two worlds and to see, you know, members of my own one community attacking another community on both sides was very, very challenging, and so I still remember that day particularly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can imagine that would really. That would really stick in your mind and that is such a personal attack. When you're in your organisation trying to do the best work you can do for your community and then to be attacked from a different side or from the same community you're trying to support is very, very challenging. I'd like to learn a little bit about your move to Asia and maybe how that changed your view of your identity and how you fit in, because you know, asia is much more diverse. There's a lot of countries that make up Asia. There's a lot of religions, there's lots of places that are very conservative, but also places that are starting to be more liberal. So tell me what it's like now being in Hong Kong as a gay, muslim, indian man.
Speaker 3:It is very interesting. I think the thing that I learned when I was there and it goes back to the thing about how my background, I feel like, is actually a significant help is this notion of cultural competency. You know it's becoming increasingly important as we become a more multicultural, multifaceted world. But this idea of how do you communicate and flex and adjust and engage with different culturals around the world in a way that is respectful but allows you to actually move forward and come to some sort of agreement In a place like where I work, where we have so many cultures and communities at Bloomberg, cultural companies, becomes even more important because, like in our office, for example, in Hong Kong, you know, only a third are actually people from Hong Kong. The rest are from pretty much every country you can imagine. It's an incredibly diverse group of 900 employees. I think to be successful in that space you have to have cultural competencies right. I sit on the diverse inclusion council and we've actually been rolling out trainings and trying to help our employees think about how do you be better at that?
Speaker 3:And I think for me, the number one thing I had to learn when I arrived was a heavy dose of humility, because I don't know a lot of the different ways of doing things and how do you interact. The way you solve a problem in Tokyo may be very different than the way you solve a problem in Sydney. That may be different in Mumbai. That may be very different in Beijing. I think that, for me, was something I had to really learn and I'm still learning, you know, and even how I approach things. I've really learned how to flex and, at the same time, being true to who. I am right, because you can't lose that as well, right? So for me, that's been one of the big things I think. The second thing I would say is I live in a part of the world where LGBT rights are not what they are right. I mean, yes, you have gay marriage and fun, but you don't have the same rights in a lot of parts of the world and in fact, things are going backwards in places like in mainland China, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But for me, it's even more important for me to stand up and be visible, right to be visible as a leader, because, you know, in a place like Singapore it's still illegal to be gay or it's illegal to engage in gay conduct for men.
Speaker 2:Yes, You're a lawyer, come on.
Speaker 3:That's yeah, and so you know, I think it's really important to stand up and say you know what I'm? I'm an openly gay Muslim and I am a leader and I support my teams and when I do that, I give others a space to also be themselves and to be vulnerable and to be open, and I think that, for me, is really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really love that, and I think that piece around cultural competency is so important and my experience moving to Asia and working in Asia is different to yours. For me it was. You know, I'm a white person, I'm a woman, I'm relatively privileged, I've, you know, got good education. I was paid well when I worked in Asia. So for me it was about an experience of being in the minority and what it's like to be in the minority and of course it's not the same as other minority groups. It's just not because I still have a lot of privilege. But to get an inkling of what it's like to be somewhere where you're different to everyone else was a great learning and really does connect into that cultural confidence and you know, and humility I think that you spoke about at the start.
Speaker 3:It's so funny you say that because I I ethnically Indian but because my family was from East Africa. I went to East Africa as a child because that's where my cousins and uncles and aunts were, so I never made it to India until I moved to Hong Kong, which is about. I moved to Hong Kong about two and a half almost three years now actually and I went to Mumbai for a work work trip before COVID and it was the I remember sort of being out there and it was the first time in my life that looked I was. It just hit me that I was in the majority, because I've never been in the majority.
Speaker 2:I've never seen everyone look like me.
Speaker 3:And it was such a. It was almost jarring and I didn't realize that it would feel different, but it actually felt it was. I had the taste of the opposite of what?
Speaker 3:yeah was it nice? Well, it was just amazing because, you know, growing up my I, you know, we very much culturally Indian, right? So, even though we go back two generations, my mother cooked Indian food and wore sari and my first language was Gujarati, I, you know, was not English. So when I was in Mumbai, it was almost like I would see all the things I ate as a child, right? So it was almost bringing me back to my childhood in many ways, and it was. It was a really lovely experience actually.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, yeah, really feel like you belong. Yeah, many ways.
Speaker 2:Right, like you belong. Yeah, in many ways right. So, yeah, I wanted to talk a bit about the role of corporates in diversity and inclusion work and, and I guess, um social work and community work, and some of the research I've been looking at recently is um looking at how know the trust that exists in organisations and corporations multinationals at the moment the most trusted places that people you know, employees look to employers to stand up against social issues that are happening in the world. They're expecting CEOs to have a view and a point, and we've seen that recently with the Ukraine crisis, where employees want companies to take a stand and to act, and that organizations are more trusted than governments and NGOs and the media. So I'd like to hear about you know, your view on that and some of the work you're doing at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you know, we're very fortunate. I work for a company founded by Mike Bloomberg, who has a very specific view on things and a set of values that I ascribe to makes these things a priority. So in some ways it's a little bit easier because we know exactly where he stands on these things. But I do think that there's been a real shift in the last 10, 15, 20, 15 years, I would say, where particularly I would say that millennials and younger workforce people wanting to work for a company that stands for something and stands for their values, and there was a time many years ago where companies wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 3:They would just say we're not going to take a stance yeah, but I think where we've now come to is saying nothing is actually saying something, and I think a lot of uh employees are holding companies rightfully so accountable, saying we expect you to stand up and say something, because that is saying you know to stand up for our um, for advocacy across a number of different areas.
Speaker 3:And so for I'm very fortunate, one of the things I get to do here is I work with a number of different individuals from our diverse inclusion team, our communications team, government relations, to sign on to briefs and statements on behalf of the company in support of LGBT rights and reproductive rights and immigrant rights and racial equality and things of that nature, because we think this is really important. It's important, and I think to the point that you raised, is that when corporations come together, there is power in that right. Yeah, and we've seen it time and time again, and I think, particularly in Asia, some of these major financial centers like Singapore and Hong Kong corporations have a pretty strong role to play in these places. That is the heart of what these places are built on, and so I think it's incumbent on corporations not to be scared uh to to stand up and and make a statement, uh for what they believe in and and I'm really grateful to be able to work at a company that does that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's certainly one of the tensions that I've seen in the diversity and inclusion work I do, where employees are saying why are we operating in countries where the human rights I guess agenda of the government is not in line with our values as a company? And I've seen it a couple of times, for example in Brunei, when Sharia law was implemented with very hideous punishments for for being gay, or where we're operating in in other countries that, like Singapore, where you can't get employment pass or dependent passes for same-sex partners. You know things like that and we're seeing employees go well, why are we in these countries and why aren't we standing up to the governments? But on the other hand, the company is saying well, we have to act within the laws of the countries we operate in. So how do you view those tensions?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, these are tricky issues, right? We as a company do have to operate in these countries and remember, we provide news and information and data to people around the world including on these issues. We report on the issues right.
Speaker 3:So if we're not there, how are we going to shine a light on these issues in the first place?
Speaker 3:Right's the first thing I would say.
Speaker 3:The second thing I would say is singapore is a really good example of this, because and I found this also a change in asia versus being, say, in new york or vancouver is a difference is that, because of, maybe, familial ties and some of the stigma around being lgbt, in some of these places and often people stay, are living at home with their families much longer than they may in the West they will come out at work before they come out to their friends and families, and studies have shown that that's the case often in Asia versus in the West.
Speaker 3:It's the reverse, where people will come out to their friends before they come out into the world. What does that mean for us? That means we have even more of an obligation to create a space where people feel comfortable, that they can be themselves right, and I think by doing that, you are having an impact on that society. We do a lot of work and, despite the law, we do a lot of work in our Singapore office. We have a thriving, thriving LGBT community there and everyone and a strong allyship that comes with that as well, right, and so I think we are able to make an impact in that way and we're able to support our employees in a way that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. Singapore is so fascinating. I've spent most of my time in Singapore so nearly eight years and you know, know, I feel like everything in Singapore is on one end of of a spectrum, um, and I think LGBT rights are the same. So we have some very strict laws that have been um challenged in court over the last few years to try and get the the legislation repealed, that um against men having sex, um, but on the other hand, the government doesn't enforce it and they are openly saying we don't enforce it but we're not going to change it, and it's a really fascinating society to operate in and I would say I would to that point, I would argue and I may be wrong, but I would argue that the government is is not enforcing that law because they know and they've heard from corporations that this is problematic because it means we can't bring in our top talent, and not just top LGBT talent.
Speaker 3:It means that people look at that as a signal across the board for diversity, inclusion. So if you're diverse in any way, the signal is you know you may not want to go to Singapore, right, and we've had people asked to be relocated to other places because of that. So I think the fact that the corporations have spoken out about this for many years may have led to the government saying we're not going to enforce this.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's so interesting. I think Singapore is probably one of the safest places in Asia for gay people. Despite all of that going on, what do you want to see change next, like what's your vision for the future? I know you're a great advocate for the LGBT community, so, like where do you see all this heading?
Speaker 3:Well, first, I would love to see us in a place where we have sort of equal rights for the LGBT community around the world and recognised right, I think we have a long ways to go. Um, we've seen some progress in places like India, for example. Right, they removed the anti-sodomy laws. That was great. We have gay marriage in Taiwan. The hope was that that might lead to more, because we could see how that you know society has not fallen apart in Taiwan. It's actually driving right. Maggie, so like sort of having examples in Asia.
Speaker 2:Tokyo had a recent change. Yes, exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:So you know, while we've seen some step backwards for excellent mainland, we've seen some steps forward as well. Even in Hong Kong, there have been a number of legal challenges to various laws that discriminate against LGBT community and those cases have turned out to be positive for the community in the sense of that slow, incremental changes to increase the rights, for example, of spouses getting visas. Right, if you're married, if you're an LGBT person married overseas, you can get a spousal visa. That was not the case before. So we are seeing a little bit of that and I think I would love to see. So that number one, just from a human rights perspective.
Speaker 3:Number two I would like us to think more about intersectionality and you know, so often we think about programs, you know, or initiatives in these siloed sort of categories, and we don't think about the intersectionality of that right, like I think about, like domestic workers in Hong Kong, right, they are particularly vulnerable.
Speaker 3:Why? Because it's the intersectionality of their race and their gender and their national origin. In some cases this might be even religion, right, so there's vulnerabilities that come from that and so when you're thinking about how do you address, you know, the challenges that a particular community faces you need to think about all of that and you need to get intersectional approach to things. And the last thing I love to see is just you know, my I've often said in the corporation space is that diverse inclusion isn't a set of policies and guidelines and initiatives and trainings. It's really a way of life. It's the way. It's the lens with which you look at everything, and that takes time to develop, but that's what I want people to see is that every decision you make has to be with that lens, and I think that's something that's going to take some time to develop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to touch on two of those things that you talked about. So, firstly, that we have to start taking an intersectional lens and of course we do and I think the way to do that is through inclusion. So how do we build inclusion for everyone? But that is sometimes at odds with what large businesses are trying to achieve. And you know, I have always argued when people say, oh well, I don't think we should have quotas, say, for women, or we shouldn't have targets for women or whatever we're trying to achieve. And I've always argued well, of course we should, because in business we measure everything, we have targets for everything. Why shouldn't we have for something as important as diversity? But when you're thinking about intersectionality, you can't have targets for, you know, gay, muslims or women who with a disability, like you know it. Just, it just doesn't work right. So I think you know that's been one of the challenges with this work in corporations that we want to have targets, we want to be able to measure it. But how do we get the intersectional lens? And my view is it's through inclusion and we have to work out how to build that.
Speaker 2:And I really liked what you said about you know, we need to look at this work through the lens of inclusion and culture, and all of my career I've worked in very industrial, male dominated businesses and very dangerous businesses. So 20 years ago I worked for a company where once a month someone was killed at one of our sites around the world and it was terrible. But over the last 20 years in that industry and other like industries so like mining, construction the focus has been on how do we look at everything we do through a safety lens. But that's taken 20 years or longer to get there and you know, I've started to realize when I'm talking with other people working in this space and there's frustration and exhaustion because we can't make things happen quickly. I think we need to look at other industries where they're changing cultures in different ways and look at how they've done it but also how long it took.
Speaker 3:I agree with that. I think it takes time. I also think what we need to to your point about that and the quotas is I don't think we've done a very good job, particularly in Asia, in explaining the business case for diversity. Right, we know the academic literature is very clear diverse teams come out with better outcomes. Now they may have more conflict as they get to that outcome, but they come out with better outcomes. Right, company, we need that diversity of experience and backgrounds and across the board, because that helps to drive innovation, right, and that helps to drive disruption and that ultimately leads to success in an increasingly multinational world right, we have customers in pretty much every country in the world.
Speaker 3:So this is not just about doing something because it's nice to do. This is about our business and our future and being competitive, and I think we need to really drive that, because when we start driving that message and people actually believe it, they're not going to. They don't I mean you don't need a quota. They're like no, I got to do this to get to get looking at, is my revenue target and it's not gonna. This is gonna impact my bottom line, right? Yeah, just haven't done a good enough job of really driving home that message yeah, it's such a good point.
Speaker 2:I love that. Is there anything you'd like to finish with?
Speaker 3:I mean it's a good question you know, I think I would just say from a personal standpoint, for so long, uh, and people ask me, why do I so passionate about these issues? Right, and it is the personal right because for so long I didn't believe in myself, I didn't have confidence in myself because I didn't see myself reflected, right and um, I actually hid. I hid. I think I talked about, uh, about once before with you about how I lived in these two closets. I hid the fact the closet of being Muslim and the closet of being gay. I didn't want people to know these things about. You know, I constantly kind of hid them and it took some time for me to start coming out of those closets and being open about who I am and what I stand for and what I believe in. And for me, what motivates me is that I do that in part because I want other young, indian, gay, muslim, whatever non-gender-minded whatever you are to see, that and say, okay, you can be all those things and you don't have to hide who you are.
Speaker 3:you see that and say, okay, you can be all those things and you don't have to hide who you are, and you can really make an impact in your workplace and outside. And so for me, that's the driver in all of this. I really want that for other young kids that may be looking for that. I think for me that's that's really what matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you find the more. The more that you are you, the braver you are, the more courageous you are. The more you speak out, the better it gets that people connect with you more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and you know we talk about leadership right, and you know one of the attributes we think about is authenticity, right, and to be authentic, right. People say we want leaders who are authentic. People really respond to authentic leaders, which I believe right. To be authentic means to be vulnerable, and so, for me, when you come out as whatever whether you're disabled, you come out as a or gay, or Muslim or whatever when you come out of whatever closet you are in, you are choosing to be vulnerable and you're choosing authenticity and by choosing authenticity, you are becoming a better leader and for me, the more I've leaned into that, the better I have found my career to be honest as well, and the ability to lead, so that, for me, is something I found and very grateful for.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It's been such a delight to speak with you.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2:I just know people will have learned so much about what you've spoken about. I. You know, I think, the two closets, I think that's a really great way to think of intersectionality. You know, I think the role of corporates and organisations in this space was so interesting too. So thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Great, so that was out of the question.
Speaker 1:We hope you learned a lot from Amin. Our key takeaways at the Culture Ministry how important it is to understand and develop cultural competencies to create inclusion in organisations. How we need diversity to bring diversity of thought to build innovation. The importance of addressing intersectionality in our diversity and inclusion work. The importance of believing in yourself. And how the more confident you are to be yourself, the more authentic you are and this leads to better outcomes. At the Culture Ministry, we know how challenging and lonely it can be working in diversity and inclusion and, as we have learnt from Amin, progress in organisations is often slow. You might be just getting started in diversity and inclusion or you might be on your way. The Culture Ministry is here to help you with your diversity and inclusion progress. Go to wwwthecultureministrycom to learn more. If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something, please share with your friends on social media. Give a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity.