Social Impact Tech: Dean Haynesworth of UnBiasIt On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact
An Interview With Jilea Hemmings
While most organizations today have racial bias response protocols and remediation strategies, our Racial Bias Alert is the first solution to provide an immediate deterrent to racial bias in an organization. Beyond the obvious legal damages, the potential for racial bias to damage an organization’s reputation is high. By identifying specific types of communications that represent a risk, our Racial Bias Alert tool provides an early warning for immediate corrective and preventative measures.
In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dean Haynesworth.
Dean Haynesworth is CEO of Black Progress Matters [BPM] and UnBiasIt, an organization committed to effectuating change in existing businesses and organizations.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
Since my childhood, I have seen the best of our shared experience. My father was black, and my mother, Italian-American. Growing up in a bi-racial family, we faced the same inherent conflicts that more than ever threaten and debilitate corporate America today. The inevitable racist confrontations and invaluable lessons learned from my childhood still provide the framework I use to guide my family, my children, and my business. And from all of that came a fervent belief that progress was the goal.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
In 2019, I self-funded and started my own medical device distributorship. I continue to run it today, under the auspices of a company called Zimmer Biomet. When I first started working with them, I believed they valued diversity, that instinct proved to be right.
The leadership team there had confidence in me, and gave me the opportunity to hire my own team. And in my new role, I made sure to hire a diverse and talented group of employees and provide them all with the same avenues for advancement, and the space to take ownership of their work.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I was significantly influenced by two men in my life. My father, who worked in the Boxing game, and later the man mentioned above as my mentor in medical device sales. My adaptive sales savvy came primarily from watching my Dad’s adroit interactions with fighters, promoters, managers, and casino owners. While my resolute tenacity in dealing with corporate America’s systemic bias came from watching my mentor repeatedly be passed over by less qualified candidates for well-earned c-suite promotions because he was “too pro-black” in his hirings. This was a very troubling thing to be a part of and witness to for 11 years. Similar experiences are core to the partnership that created BPM.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Win your day.”
Early in my career, I saw my mentor, a man of color, get passed over time and time again for promotion simply because he was black an advocate for the advancement of people of color working under him. The eventual impact on me, the once enthusiastic aspirant, was the humbling and stark recognition of the real limitations for me, also a man of color, within that organization — and so I left. Back then, as it is, for the most part, today, there was a very well-defined glass ceiling for people of color, and the executive suite’s homogenous makeup punctuated that at nearly every company I considered. Consequently, I went out and started my own distributorship [with an organization I believed valued diversity]. As a man of color, I exemplified and reinforced to everyone in my organization that regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, just how far they could go — and for all of them, the road could undeniably lead to the very top, right up to ownership.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Be both adaptive and resolute.
As a man of color, racism in America taught me to be both adaptive and resolute. Inherent racial bias in any organization is at the root of many systemic problems, not the least of which — the complete demoralization of minority engagement.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive social impact on our society. To begin, what problems are you aiming to solve?
I come from the most advanced technology sector of health care, and I recognized early on the importance of advanced technologies. When we were first discussing the minority-owned businesses we wanted to incubate at BPM, my first priority was a black-owned tech company with significant technologies that could speak to the BPM Mission.
At UnBiasIt, I have worked with my partners to develop a variety of data management and compliance tech solutions, and the most remarkable offering that has emerged from this initiative is our Racial Bias Alert. Recognizing the need for best-of-class resources and accessing them through foundational associations is key to any enterprise — and looking for this type of outsourcing is the best practice I can recommend to any startup.
While most organizations today have racial bias response protocols and remediation strategies, our Racial Bias Alert is the first solution to provide an immediate deterrent to racial bias in an organization. Beyond the obvious legal damages, the potential for racial bias to damage an organization’s reputation is high. By identifying specific types of communications that represent a risk, our Racial Bias Alert tool provides an early warning for immediate corrective and preventative measures.
How do you think your technology can address this?
Racial Bias Alert enables organizations to have an instant-impact in eliminating racial bias in the workplace by monitoring internal communications [e.g. email, text messages, audio to text, etc.] for any indication of racial bias. As is usually the case, people do what you inspect, not what you expect — and with its monitoring criteria [specifically developed by the organization itself], Racial Bias Alert instantly helps to define and promote racial equity in an organization.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
I experienced it first hand. Early in my career, I saw my mentor, a man of color, get passed over time and time again for promotion simply because he was black an advocate for the advancement of people of color working under him. The eventual impact on me, the once enthusiastic aspirant, was the humbling and stark recognition of the real limitations for me, also a man of color, within that organization — and so I left.
How do you think this might change the world?
Developing successful Black ownership is an essential component of BPM’s core mission to change the color of the executive suite and ownership of organizations worldwide. And UnBiasIt is paving the way for black success in IT. But it is also important to me that UnBiasIt demonstrates that it is not just a great minority-owned business, but that it is a true leader in data management solutions. When you take a look at our UnBiasIt Data Stack, you are seeing the most comprehensive and advanced data management solution available in the market-place today. We have assembled a data resource built on proven technologies that are being utilized by over 200 leading enterprise organizations around the world.
But what really sets us apart, is that our UnBiasIt component runs effectively throughout every aspect of our data stack. And when organizations address knowing their data better, nothing can give them better insight than UnBiasIt UnBiasIt Data Stack.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Even though there are substantial benefits to leveraging AI-driven decisions, there are intrinsic dangers in AI that organizations need to be aware of, especially as it pertains to compromising Diversity Equity & Inclusion [DEI] and Human Resource [HR] initiatives. And fortunately, we are all becoming more and more aware of these dangers and taking appropriate preventative action.
At UnBiasIt, we take advantage of our AI technologies in many of our solutions. However, with our Racial Bias Alert tool, we rely on building trusted criteria based on an organization’s DEI lexicon that can not be compromised by AI algorithms and Machine Learning.
UnBiasIt’s Racial Bias Alert Tool has removed any and all AI algorithms from our core Supervisor tool to avoid compromising the criteria. We specifically limit our Supervision technology to an organization’s stated DEI criteria to avoid being unknowingly compromised.
Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”?
Success for blacks has traditionally come in sports and entertainment, but success in business has always taken a back seat — until now. Today, we are fortunate to have some great black role models in business, and while most of them like Michael Jordan, Jay Z, Oprah, Shaq, Kanye, Serena, etc. have come from sports and entertainment, they are showing every person of color that success in business is even better than success in sports and entertainment. I believe we are on the threshold of an explosion of black talent in business, and Black Progress Matters is definitely leading the way.
Five things: The Need to adapt, Be resolute, Do something game-changing, Partner with like minded people, and Work tirelessly.
Be both adaptive and resolute.
As a man of color, racism in America taught me to be both adaptive and resolute. Inherent racial bias in any organization is at the root of many systemic problems, not the least of which — the complete demoralization of minority engagement.
How do I know? I experienced it first hand. Early in my career, I saw my mentor, a man of color, get passed over time and time again for promotion simply because he was black an advocate for the advancement of people of color working under him. The eventual impact on me, the once enthusiastic aspirant, was the humbling and stark recognition of the real limitations for me, also a man of color, within that organization — and so I left.
Back then, as it is, for the most part, today, there was a very well-defined glass ceiling for people of color, and the executive suite’s homogenous makeup punctuated that at nearly every company I considered. Consequently, I went out and started my own distributorship [with an organization I believed valued diversity]. As a man of color, I exemplified and reinforced to everyone in my organization that regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, just how far they could go — and for all of them, the road could undeniably lead to the very top, right up to ownership.
I was significantly influenced by two men in my life — my father, who worked in the Boxing game, and later the man mentioned above as my mentor in medical device sales. My adaptive sales savvy came primarily from watching my Dad’s adroit interactions with fighters, promoters, managers, and casino owners. While my resolute tenacity in dealing with corporate America’s systemic bias came from watching my mentor repeatedly be passed over by less qualified candidates for well-earned c-suite promotions because he was “too pro-black” in his hirings. This was a very troubling thing to be a part of and witness to for 11 years. Similar experiences are core to the partnership that created BPM.
We named our organization Black Progress Matters because progress is essential to resolving the racism embedded in corporate America. In the current social and political climate, this resolution of racism is essential.
Do something game-changing and partner with like-minded folks.
At UnBiasIt, I have worked with my partners to develop various data management and compliance tech solutions, and the most remarkable offering that has emerged from this initiative is our Racial Bias Alert. Recognizing the need for best-of-class resources and accessing them through foundational associations is key to any enterprise — and looking for this type of outsourcing is the best practice I can recommend to any startup. Access your network of potential business partners and ask them to point you down the shortest path to potential partners or like-minded individuals. Be vulnerable. Tell people what you are doing and what your goals are. Never assume people know what your mission is and control your narrative with every interaction you have.
Last piece of advice: Embrace the positive character. Progress requires this. Always be solutions-oriented. Believe in yourself and believe that you can effectuate change through your ideas — for these ideas can become solutions for both yourself and others.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Whether you are launching a tech startup or a gluten-free bakery, be resolute in your mission. If you don’t believe in your “story” — who else will? People will genuinely feel your sincerity and see your passion.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Jay Z. He is an inspiration to all young Black entrepreneurs and No Hook is my anthem.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Visit BlackProgressMatters.org and Follow @BlackProgressMatters on IG.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.
Social Impact Tech: Dean Haynesworth of UnBiasIt On How Their Technology Will Make An Important… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.