Creating a Culture of Courage: Authors Eddie Pate and Jonathan Stutz On How Authenticity Benefits People and Profits in the Workplace
An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
Building a Culture of Belonging — It’s essential to state that empathy is necessary for Inclusive Leadership yet becoming an Inclusive Leader is not the end goal, building a culture of belonging is the end goal. The pathway from inclusion to belonging is an important one. Inclusion is the means; belonging is the end. Leaders build a culture of belonging by being inclusive, by dropping pebbles of inclusion daily that cause ripples of change throughout their organizations.
In today’s social media filled, fast-paced world, authenticity in the workplace and in our personal lives has become more difficult to come by. Business leaders must focus on the bottom line of profits and corporate success, but does that have to be at the expense of the authenticity of their employees? I believe it is quite the opposite. I know from my own experience that a culture of authenticity allows the hiring of a team that will bring their all to the workplace. That fosters innovation, creativity and a level of success that few companies dream of. Yet, fostering an environment where individuals feel secure enough to express their true selves remains a challenge. The importance of authenticity cannot be overstated — it is the foundation of trust, innovation, and strong relationships. However, creating such a culture requires intention, understanding, and actionable strategies. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Eddie Pate and Jonathan Stutz are co-authors of Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders: A Guide to Building a Culture of Belonging (Berrett-Koehler Publishers 5/28/24).
Eddie Pate spent 20 years leading ID&E efforts in some of the largest companies in the Pacific Northwest.. He was the Director of Inclusion and Diversity for the Worldwide Operations (WWOPs) organization at Amazon. He was responsible for the development and implementation of all Global ID&E efforts in the largest organization at Amazon.
Jonathan Stutz, MA is the founder and president of Global Diversity Partners Inc. He has over 25 years’ experience working in leading-edge companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Zulily. Jonathan Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (ID&E) for four international businesses within Amazon’s Worldwide Operations group.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Eddie:
It was a confluence of multiple paths that led me to a corporate career 100% focused on Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity (ID&E). One path–growing up biracial on Army bases having a mom who was German & White and a dad who was Black and from New Market, Tennessee, in the mid-60s through 1980 certainly led to moments of confusion, racism, and reflection on fairness. Another path–after a very successful college football career and injury shortened run at the NFL, an opportunity to return to Humboldt State University as the Assistant Director of Admissions and School Relations set me on the next path. This was my first formal introduction to discussions about both individual and institutional barriers for underestimated populations and an introduction to Leadership. This shoved me hard towards a masters degree in Sociology and a focus on comparative race and ethnic relations and social psychology. My growing dilemma around fairness was now entrench in my daily thoughts and concerns as well as strengthened by a challenging academic program. After 7 years of work I earned a Ph.D. in Sociology with a focus on Comparative Race & Ethnic Relations, Stratification, and Social Psychology. I was now sure I wanted to focus everything I did on “fixing” institutional and individual forms of all oppression and hatred.
Jonathan:
I was born in Toronto, Canada, yet grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, during the height of the US civil rights movement. In the Deep South, I was raised in the Jewish faith and my early education instilled the social action and social justice concept of Tikkun Olam deep in my being. Tikkun Olam refers to various forms of action intended to repair and improve the world. I first became aware of my Jewish identity through his religious education — and the teasing and bullying I experienced in elementary school in 1960s Atlanta. I later went on to study political science and history at the University of Washington, worked on political campaigns myself, and aspired to live a life dedicated to addressing inequity and social injustice wherever I saw it. Since then, I’ve worked to learn about and understand the lived experiences of underestimated, marginalized, and oppressed people. I’ve traveled globally in this quest, doing business in nearly twenty-five different countries.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
Eddie:
Interestingly, I go all the way back to my first few encounters in 2000 with Santiago Rodriquez, former Director of Diversity at Microsoft, to point to one of my most interesting stories. Even though I wasn’t on his HR team, I went to every presentation I could that he was speaking at. Watching him was truly life changing and illuminating for anyone, let alone a recent Sociology Ph.D. grad who suddenly found himself leading Diversity efforts for a critical global Microsoft organization but had tons to learn about how to do this work. Santiago planted a seed in my mind about the power of passion, authenticity, purposeful storytelling, using data, and genuinely connecting with your audience, those around you, and, importantly, key stakeholders.. What I remember most about that moment though was a gesture and three words. He held two fingers up and pointed first at his eyes and then at mine saying, locking in our connection, and said, “you and me.” He turned and left. I remember just reflecting for a moment and thinking how lucky I was to have Santiago as a mentor. Santiago died shortly after that on his way home from a business trip to Europe. Completely unexpected and sudden. I was devastated. It made that last moment we shared life altering. I resolved to do ID&E work with the same level of authenticity, empathy, and compassion as Santiago modeled every single day. I used his “template” to guide my career and I never altered from that path.
Jonathan:
The most interesting and unique story is that through all the people I’ve met and known, and through the positions held in companies large and small, I’ve maintained relationships with most of my managers going back 40+ years. I still have lunch once each year with the CEO for the first company I ever worked for. The first Director of Diversity at Microsoft, Randy Massengale, who hired me in 1995 appointed me two years ago to serve as a Supplier Diversity Fellow at Seattle University where he leads the RAMP-UP program, a university initiative supporting the sustainability of Black and Brown owned businesses facing gentrification in Seattle. Another of my Microsoft managers, John Nave, we have coffee every few months. I regularly am in touch with former Microsoft managers, Peter Cullen and Diane McDade, both were my managers at different times in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group. Even my coauthor, Eddie Pate, we worked together for 4 years at Amazon, ending in 2020, and we wrote this book together in 2023. As well, I continue to mentor and coach many employees that worked for me through the years. Relationships, loyalty, and connection are important to me.
After all the meetings, projects, and deadlines are behind us, all we have left are the people we worked alongside. The people are really all that matter.
You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Eddie:
- I’m empathetic and sincerely care about people. It is important to understand how I think about empathy. It isn’t putting yourself in other’s shoes or feeling their pain.
We can’t really do that, however, we can have respect, sincere interest, and desire to listen and understand the stories, realities, and hear the voice of people who are different from you. One funny but not funny example is I hung a “hit your head here bullseye sign” in my office and openly encouraged my team members to come in and bang their heads when they had frustrating days or interactions with leaders, or had some emotional interaction that frustrated them. I would listen, encourage venting and empathy, hear what they were saying and then work through what, if anything, they could do.
2. I’m passionate and because of this I’m seen as inspiring. I really hope that doesn’t come across as egotistical. It really is just a part of who I am and how I see my best way to impact others and situations. I recently spoke in my friend’s elementary school’s after school leadership class. I spoke to 4th and 5th graders on what it means to be a leader. I talked a lot about (and honestly to) the girls in the classroom and how important it was for them to see themselves as leaders and to resist the notion that only boys were leaders. My style of presenting is to move through the audience and engage with eye contact, energy, humor, etc. I’ll never forget what happened at the end of the presentation as the kids were filling out to go home. One of the most quiet girls during the presentation made a point of being last to leave and stopped right in front of me. She looked up at me and said, I will never forget you and thanked me for what I talked about. She honestly said it changed her life. I felt tears well up, I got goosebumps, and I told her, she has made this the best presentation of my life.
3. Speaking and presenting is a superpower. The thing I learned early on though is that inspiring, impactful, and successful presentations aren’t only to large groups, they are just as meaningful in a 1–1 or 1-few engagement. Influencing without power is a huge need for anyone doing ID&E work. Inspiration, story telling, bringing in data, thinking quickly on your feet, humor, and calling people in vs calling them out are critical parts of that superpower.
Jonathan:
1. Positivity and Optimism — I believe just about any problem can be solved. I believe that in the long run everything is going to work out well. I’m generally a happy and accepting person; I look for and see the good in people and am initially more trusting and believing in people. I’ve faced several situations in my life where it would have been easy to become negative and pessimistic yet it’s just not in my nature. Whether in sports, business, or in my personal relationships, I’ve always believed that even in the darkest times, there’s hope and reason to believe that things will get better, and most important, that I can affect things for the better, that I can make it better.
2. Tenacity and Determination — I’m incredibly determined, hard-working, and competitive. I don’t give up and it’s my persistence and determination that have been one of my superpowers.
3. Passion and Enthusiasm — When I’m doing something that I’m passionate about, my enthusiasm gives me nearly unlimited energy. I have found that my energy, passion, and enthusiasm is infectious and inspiring to others. It’s helped me to build successful relationships, successful teams, and successful organizations.
Here’s one story that demonstrates all three character-traits:
Late in my career at Microsoft, I held a position which was viewed as a nearly impossible project assignment — unifying the incident response systems across the company. At the time there were 15+ incident response systems across divisions such as Azure Cloud Services, Xbox, Office365, etc. The company was known to be highly siloed and divisional leaders resisted cross-team collaboration. My team was highly under-resourced, just myself, one incident response expert, and a program manager. Over the course of two years, we built Microsoft’s first global, enterprise-wide incident response platform for cloud services to effectively manage the most severe class of security, privacy, and cloud service incidents in a unified manner. Customers now benefit from a swift, consistent, and effective response process, saving critical time, reducing redundancies, and stopping a history of conflicting customer messaging. There were many days that it would have been easy to give up, yet we succeeded because I was able to build a high performing, highly effective team. Our team had the aggregate knowledge, experience, creativity, and interpersonal skills to succeed — yet none of those characteristics would have won the day if we had not maintained our positivity, optimism, tenacity, determination, and demonstrated passion and enthusiasm for our project’s end goal.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a pivotal moment in your career or personal life when being authentic made a significant impact on your success or well-being?
Eddie:
I’m not exactly sure when I made this conscious choice but it feels like I have always put my family first from day one of my career. This boundary I set became very explicit and expressed as a modeled behavior probably by the start of my Avanade days, however, it was definitely a practiced behavior prior to that. Interestingly, making this choice had significant positive impacts on my success, how I led, and most importantly on my well-being, both psychologically and physically. From a success at work point of view, I modeled this behavior and encouraged everyone who worked for me and challenged other leaders to do the same. This definitely gave me an authentic credibility and earned trust amongst my team and colleagues. When you do ID&E work, it is often done by influencing without power and takes significant trust for folks to walk alongside you. People walked alongside me willingly because I could be trusted, I walked the talk, and I enabled people to feel confident enough to do the same. I sincerely believe this has served me very well during my career and in how I was viewed as a leader.
Jonathan:
We share in our book that being an inclusive leader is the combination of having heart, wisdom, and courage, along with a vision for building a culture of belonging. The idea came from my master’s thesis, “The Yellow Brick Road of Leadership.” Through my career and in my day-to-day life I’ve always worked to develop and model these traits. Heart is having empathy and compassion for people. Wisdom (or brains) is the melding of knowledge and life experience. And courage is the willingness to act. For me, the pivotal moments in my career have come when I have had the courage to act in an authentic way, specifically when I see an opportunity to do something important and extraordinary. These can be small acts of courage, we call ‘dropping pebbles’ in the book, such as speaking up in a meeting when someone is interrupted, or someone taking credit for another person’s idea. Or they can be larger acts, bigger pebbles. For example, early in my career as an employment staffing sales rep on Seattle’s eastside, I heard from a customer that they needed my help to increase the diversity of their workforce, and in speaking to my other customers, they too had the same problem in recruiting people of color. The Eastside was historically white and Seattle, home to tens of multicultural communities. In that situation I had the courage to start a networking group bringing together Eastside employers with Seattle’s Community Based Organizations (CBOs). We called it the “Eastside Diversity Task Force.” The Task Force was a huge success. Eventually it led to an article on the program in Seattle’s Diversity Business News where I was photographed with the Rev. Jesse Jackson. A Microsoft recruiter read the article and I was recruited to lead Microsoft Diversity Outreach strategy. I spent 19 years at Microsoft, enjoying a successful career there.
What strategies have you found most effective in fostering an environment where employees or team members feel safe to express their true selves, including their ideas, concerns, and aspirations?
Eddie:
This is a big question with no single effort that works and is something that takes time, consistency, and commitment. It essentially is asking about how one builds a culture of belonging. Truly listening and hearing what people are saying or reading between the lines of what they are saying is critically important. Teaching others to really listen and holding people accountable for listening is also a big piece of creating a culture of belonging. Modeling and expecting empathy as a critical guiding principle for leadership is also important. I feel empathy is the pathway to inclusion and inclusion is the mechanism for the creation of cultures of belonging. It goes beyond empathy in some ways though. We need vulnerability, compassion, and caring to be a part of what we see from leaders and teammates. They are core skills and not soft skills as people say. We need to model behaviors that advocate for speak-up cultures so no matter what level, what role you are in, what geography you sit in, you feel empowered to voice concerns, contribute to the discussion, push back when you disagree, and so on. This happens when expectations are set that this is what is needed for team and organizational success. Everyone needs to play a part in creating cultures of belonging. I feel equity as an endgame or ultimate outcome is 100% mandatory for fostering this type of environment. Without an equity mindset, can we truly be authentic in what we expect our workplaces to be?
Jonathan:
A valuable tool available to leaders in building a culture of belonging is the one-to-one meeting. It is a widely underrated mechanism for building connections with employees or team members. For individuals who come into the workplace with less power, less status, and less privilege in society, the one-to-one meeting is a distinct opportunity for their managers to build psychological safety and a sense of belonging, to communicate worth, to demonstrate support, to encourage, to protect, and to motivate and inspire them. The pebbles leaders drop in one-to-one meetings can also spur employees to create stronger connections with their employees or team members.
How do you navigate the challenges that come with encouraging authenticity in a diverse workplace, where different backgrounds and perspectives may sometimes lead to conflict?
Eddie:
For me, falling back on the business case for ID&E is a good starting point. We need to remind folks that difference is the secret sauce for creativity and innovation. This has been empirically shown and proven! We need to remind people that everyone benefits from leveraging diversity and in fact people realize their greatest potential as teammates and humans (frankly) when differences are embraced and leveraged. We need to remind people that our clients and customers for the most part are more and more global, diverse, and need varied solutions and not fixed and stagnant ones. As corny as this sounds, Aristotle’s quote is appropriate here: “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” ID&E focused efforts don’t lead to a zero sum outcome. The ROI and the size of the pie gets bigger. I also think showing real life examples and illustrations of where diversity led to creativity, innovation, and success is critical. I also think showing people the kinds of blunders that can happen with tragic business outcomes when diversity of perspective and experience are not a part of the planning. Show both the successes and the failures. By being acutely aware of what it is to be an inclusive leader, we look to different backgrounds and perspectives not as things that are problematic but as leverageable strengths that lead to creativity and innovation.
Jonathan:
This question implies that all conflict is bad. I would argue that in business we need a form of conflict that I call, healthy conflict. We absolutely need vigorous, enthusiastic, and impassioned debate of different ideas, perspectives, and opinions. This type of conflict leads to the generation of new ways of thinking, challenges the status quo, and evolves the people and the organization to stay fresh, to innovate, and remain competitive in an ever-changing business environment.
Where conflict becomes problematic is when organizational values of empathy, teamwork, ingenuity, and relationships are not supported. One of my clients, Transpo Group, a transportation engineering firm in Kirkland, Washington, established these exact values during an off-site I facilitated a couple of years ago. These are values when practiced daily by the leaders and people managers, as part of the rhythm of the business, help to support the healthy conflict culture.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways to Create a Culture Where People Feel Safe to be Authentic?”
Eddie:
1 . Mandate comprehensive Inclusive Leadership Training. My inclusive leadership model creates social psychological insights for leaders to understand how who they are influences every interaction they are in and indeed signals to those around them whether they matter, are heard, or feel they belong. I know this model and training has been effective for folks to feel safe because there have been countless post training discussions and feedback where participants at all levels have said this was the best “diversity” training they’ve ever had.
2 . Create visibility for underestimated populations and making sure their voices count. There is a question I like to ask that gets at the importance of belonging. I ask whether it is enough now to simply give people a seat at the table. It used to be in my opinion. Leaders and companies felt like their mission was complete when they saw diversity sitting around their tables, in their offices, etc. The answer to my question is a resounding, ‘NO’. We need to make sure that “diverse” talent has a hand in budgets, leads teams, influences and creates strategy, has P&L responsibility, and so on. I like what Liz Andmollie said, “Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, belonging is being heard.” From a practical standpoint, it can be as easy as allowing someone who wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to meet with executives face to face to do so, or present to an organization during an all hands. Create visibility for them. I’ve encouraged leaders to do listening tours. I’ve set up roundtable lunches for “diverse” employees to meet with executives. I’ve made executive review sessions a major part of a program design so they can see diverse talent first hand show how they are contributing to the business. A program I created did this. I started a global contest where employees were encourage to submit programs they did in their regions that were ID&E focused. We had a selection committee made up of executives and leaders from around the company. The reward for the top 3 programs was an opportunity to present your program to the CEO of the company in person or on a virtual call. That was so huge for people who might never meet the CEO or be in a meeting with them.
3 . Foster a speak-up culture. We need to be intentional about ensuring all voices are heard and indeed we want them to be heard for the sake of the business and for creativity. Finding ways to encourage everyone to speak up can be as simple as making a point to pause and ask if everyone feels like they’ve had a chance to contribute. Also, giving people a chance to contribute in a way that doesn’t involve speaking up in front of a bunch of people or executives will go a long way toward creating a speak-up culture. Have people submit ideas or concerns in writing and then represent those ideas during meetings or in follow up. Model the behavior of welcoming feedback and comments from everyone at every level of an organization. Make it a stated policy that is designed to ensure all of the creativity and knowledge in an organization comes into play. Communicate very loudly examples of the value of speaking up and recognize individuals clearly for what their speaking up did. Make them feel heard!
4 . Acknowledge and Reward individuals, inclusive behaviors, programs, and actions. The power of rewarding someone for the great work they did is one thing but rewarding someone in a visible way is another. I think this is particularly pertinent for people who are struggling to be their authentic selves in the workplace. Leaders or people making these recognitions need to become better at integrating ID&E language into their rationale for the recognition. We can’t be afraid of being intentional with our comments and pointing out where diversity mattered.
5 . Make cultural add paramount over cultural fit as a philosophy, a guiding principle, and expectation. We often hear about making sure someone is a fit or a cultural fit before we hire them or bring them onto the team. However, what exactly is meant by ‘fit’ isn’t always clarified. Fit often means the same or thinks, acts, looks like. everyone else. What over reliance on Fit doesn’t do is make room for difference or make it okay to be different or authentic IF that authenticity does not match what is considered normative. What we should be pushing for is cultural add. We want to add to what is theoretically working to make it even better. We want to keep up with our changing global customer base. We want to make room for generational differences that most certainly will vary from the norm established by previous generations. We want to acknowledge the reality of similarity and prototype bias, for example, so we reflect on who we are surrounding ourselves with or who we are building teams with. In a cultural add environment where difference is celebrated, leveraged, and respected we will create cultures where people feel safe to be their authentic selves.
Jonathan:
1 . Having Heart — Demonstrating empathy and compassion to your people is how you build trust; it creates the psychological safety that makes people feel okay to show up as they are. Having heart as a leader means shedding the hard, unfeeling shell you might wear to protect yourself. It means showing up as you are, sharing who you are with others, and creating the space for others to also show up as their authentic, whole selves. For example, your willingness to share something personal communicates your humanity. Through this exchange, you create a human connection. Your employees will begin to trust that they can also be their vulnerable, authentic selves with you.
2 . Having the Courage to Act — The fact is that neither wisdom nor heart matter much if you don’t have the courage to continually challenge the status quo, to inspire others with a resolutely inclusive approach, and to actually do work to realize what we all want. As Maya Angelou so beautifully put it, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” By consistently demonstrating ally behaviors, dropping small allyship pebbles, you are showing what it means to be inclusive and making it okay for others to be inclusive as well. Further, you are making inequitable behavior less acceptable because offenders know that it will not go unnoticed. These are the ripples that lead to building a culture where everyone feels safe to stand up for victims of inequities.
3 . Developing Wisdom — Developing the wisdom to lead a diverse workforce is a challenge that exists today for many leaders. Wisdom is a muscle that requires daily exercise to grow and strengthen. It requires a lifelong commitment to doing the work of learning about and understanding people and cultures, customs, norms, and styles. In our book we share the Insights of Inclusive Leadership (2IL) model to help you do this work. Intelligence is understanding what the seven insights are — cultural competence, ethnocentrism, unconscious biases, stereotyping, micro advantages and microinequities, platinum rule, and tempered radical. Wisdom will come from learning how to apply them in your daily life as a leader to build a culture of belonging. It is far more difficult to be an inclusive leader than it is to understand the qualities of inclusive leaders. It’s one thing to think about Inclusive Leadership; it’s another thing to do it. And the only way to get good at it is to do it every day — hence the importance of inclusive daily practices.
4 . Building a Culture of Belonging — It’s essential to state that empathy is necessary for Inclusive Leadership yet becoming an Inclusive Leader is not the end goal, building a culture of belonging is the end goal. The pathway from inclusion to belonging is an important one. Inclusion is the means; belonging is the end. Leaders build a culture of belonging by being inclusive, by dropping pebbles of inclusion daily that cause ripples of change throughout their organizations.
5 . The Combination of all of the Above — Building a culture of belonging takes the wisdom to know what to do, the heart to want to do the right thing, and the courage to see it through. That is the Inclusive Leadership trifecta!
In your opinion, how does authenticity within an organization influence its relationship with customers, clients, or the broader community?
Eddie:
If our employees feel safe to be who they are and if they reflect our customers and the communities we are in, then employees will feel more comfortable speaking up and bringing who they are to their work. This can only benefit other employees internally, our customers & clients, and the communities we operate in because that is the most direct line to creativity and innovation. It is the business case for doing ID&E all over again.. None of this happens to the extent it should if people aren’t intentionally encouraged to be authentic and real.
Jonathan:
To be “authentic” means to be oneself, to be true to yourself and present the real you, to share your ideas, thoughts, opinions, experiences, and perspectives openly, and without fear of ridicule or criticism. When we can build a culture of belonging where every individual can be their authentic selves, we create an environment where people can take risks — to share, to feel, to think, to see what they need to share, feel, think, and see. This freedom that comes from the safety of being able to be authentic has the potential to unleash a kind of creativity in people, and then when multiplied, a culture where innovation can thrive.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Eddie:
Global Empathy! As I’ve said before, empathy is the pathway to inclusion and inclusion is the mechanism that fosters feelings of belonging. I so wish I could wave a magic wand and have people everywhere embrace empathy. We would have people who realize the importance of respect, showing interest and the curiosity to listen and understand the stories and realities of people who walk different paths than our own. This might chip away at the massive divisiveness that envelops humanity at the moment.
Jonathan:
I believe we already have in the very nature of our book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leadership. As our publisher describes our approach, “As the smallest pebble can create ripples across vast waters, so too can small actions foster a sea of systemic change. This approach to inclusive leadership, both inspiring and practical, empowers all to take part in crafting a culture of belonging, [our] guide shows what small yet powerful daily steps you can take toward real change…” In our book we provide daily practices everyone can take to drop pebbles that inspire and motivate others to drop pebbles, which inspire yet more people to drop pebbles, and so on.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Eddie:
LinkedIN (https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddiepate/)
Instagram (Eddie Pate (@eddiepate80))
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/80Pate)
Book website (www.inclusivepebbles.com)
Jonathan:
- Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jstutz/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonnylovestorun/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.stutz
- Book website: www.inclusivepebbles.com
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
Creating a Culture of Courage: Authors Eddie Pate and Jonathan Stutz On How Authenticity Benefits… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.