Building Racial Equity through Partnerships

“Engagement in the Racial Equity Fellowship is a unique opportunity to contribute to transformative action to elevate our societal well-being.”
-Natasha Barnes, Protiviti Senior Manager & CEO Action Fellow

Building on our 3-year involvement in the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion initiative, which works to prevent bias and discrimination in the workplace, we are proud to have Protiviti Senior Manager, Natasha Barnes, joining the launch of the CEO Action for Racial Equity Fellowship. This role will give Natasha the opportunity to work together with other fellows representing 100+ organizations to identify, develop, and promote scalable and sustainable policies plus develop and share corporate best practices to address systemic racism and social injustice. The fellowship is organized into four pillars focused on advancing racial equity for the black community, in recognizing that other communities will also benefit from this initiative. The four pillars are Education, Economic Empowerment, Healthcare, and Public Safety.

Natasha is a member of the Public Safety pillar, where she is working on a variety of ideas including community violence reduction, police excessive force reform, reducing recidivism, and providing mental health workers to police departments. Within each pillar, fellows collaborate with their pods to identify and develop ideas and evaluate them for impact and feasibility. Over the next two years, the fellowship will be focused on implementing vetted ideas across the pillars. Fellows represent various backgrounds, skillsets, and industries to help achieve the mission. All participants are from organizations such as ours where their CEOs have signed the CEO Action pledge.

“For many members of the black and brown community, this has been a tumultuous year of events—full of emotional exhaustion and devastation, “ Natasha states. “It seems it has only compounded a long and present history of oppression and injustice. COVID-19 has further unearthed these issues of inequity to new heights of scrutiny. Hence, the fellowship is designed to leverage diverse capabilities with a management consulting approach to develop meaningful policies and amplify existing impactful programs. The hope is that our efforts, in partnership with organizations that have been dedicated to advancing racial equity for years, will result in meaningful progress. For me personally, this work is incredibly meaningful as it builds upon my firm roles as a Racial Equity Advisory Council Member and as our Global Multicultural Employee Networking Group Program Lead. In addition, I am a co-founder and co-leader of a community racial justice committee, where we design and deliver programming focused on awareness, advocacy, and relationship development.”

We have continued to voice as an organization that injustice, violence, and discrimination have no place in our society or in our company; they stand in direct opposition to our organizational values, and the fellowship is just one of the ways that we’re taking action as an organization. We are so proud to have Natasha as a representative, an innovator, and a leader for change — both within our organization and our world — and we can’t wait to hear more about the great work she and her fellows are doing!

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#MyProtivitiStory: We believe the best way to understand the core of our organization is through our people. These short videos are a reflection of our people’s stories and experiences.