From Pugs to Policy: Nancy Levine Stearns on Purpose and Impact

What does it really mean when corporations talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion? Are companies backing away from these commitments—or doubling down? 

In this episode of Riveo Impact Lab, host Elin Barton sits down with journalist and author Nancy Levine Stearns to uncover the truth behind corporate DEI in 2025. From Costco’s bold stand against anti-DEI proposals to shareholder votes at Apple, Merck, and Target, Nancy shares her front-row insights into why boards and investors are overwhelmingly backing inclusion. 

Together, they explore: 

• The myths and misinformation fueling the “DEI is dead” narrative
• Why shareholder votes show the opposite story
• How diversity strengthens business outcomes for companies of all sizes
• What small businesses can learn from multinational corporations
• The role of journalism in holding companies accountable—and offering hope

Nancy also reflects on her own journey—from corporate HR to authoring The Dao of Pug to documenting today’s high-stakes debates in business. Her message is clear: courage is contagious, and impact happens when values meet action.
 
👉 Tune in to discover how corporations, consumers, and communities are shaping the future of belonging—and why every voice matters.

The Riveo Impact Lab is produced for you by Riveo Creative. For more Riveo Impact Lab content, including the video versions of all our episodes, please visit https://riveocreative.com/riveo-impact-lab/.

Transcript

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[electronic music][Emily] Welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab, the podcast in which we explore what it means for small businesses to have real impact in an evolving world. On this podcast, we engage our curiosity around topics like sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and the ethical outcomes of our decisions, all from a small business perspective.[Elin] You can find our podcast on audio platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or if you prefer to watch the video version, we’re on YouTube, and you can also get to it from our website. I'm Elin.[Emily] And I'm Emily. And this week, we're sharing our interview with Nancy Levine Stearns. Nancy is a journalist and the founder of the nonprofit project Impactivize. Her reporting has been cited by The New York Times, NBC News, and Forbes, among other publications. And she was the No. 1 ESG Influencer on Twitter in 2020, according to a Commetric study. Nancy was a career executive recruiter, starting at American Express headquarters in New York City and later recruiting for companies and nonprofits including Clorox, Wells Fargo, and Autodesk, among many others. And she is also the author of The Tao of Pug book. It's a four book series from Penguin and Skyhorse, and she attended New York University's Stern School of Business. Nancy is originally from Scarsdale, New York and now resides with her husband, Michael in Eugene, Oregon.[Elin] So I had the pleasure of talking with Nancy for this podcast. And I loved our conversation. I especially really enjoyed hearing about her experience reporting as a journalist on these large corporations and what goes on in the boardroom. What she was talking about was very encouraging because she was talking about these big corporations standing up to people who want to eliminate like DEI programs or ESG programs. And the people that are standing up for these programs are right at the helm, right at the top of the leadership of some of the largest corporations in our country. I found that very encouraging.[Emily] Yeah. I think that is the kind of encouragement that we could all use right now, especially from a small business perspective. Hearing that it's happening at the corporate level is, is going to be really powerful. So please enjoy our conversation with Nancy Levine Stearns.[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Elin] Okay. Nancy, I am really excited to talk to you today. And I want to start out just by asking you a little bit about your background. So you've worn a lot of hats. Journalist, executive recruiter, author. What are the threads of purpose or passion that connect all those roles for you?[Nancy Levine Stearns] Hmm, that's a great question. So I started out, in corporate America, I started a long time ago in human resources. The idea of the human side of business is sometimes referred to as human capital, which, you know, can be a little dehumanizing. But how do, you know, where—it's so important. I was in large corporations, so it's always important, I think, in any size business. What role does the talent play? And it’s because businesses are made up of people. So that's where I, I cut my teeth at American Express Company, in their human resources department, at their headquarters in New York City, in the early 80s, actually, and, grew into a recruiting role and then, moved to California. I was mostly in the financial services sector. And then I start, and then I joined a boutique executive search firm. And then I was working in California with, still in the financial services sector, but also with some tech companies because they're so prevalent there. So that's, that was very foundational, I'd say, for me. As far as purpose-driven, I'd say that that was more in the foundation of, you know, how, what role do people play? And somewhere in there, you mentioned authors. So I did author a series of, it was actually in the downturn. It was the, during the mortgage, the mortgage meltdown of 2008, I think it was. Anyhow, there was a meltdown. And I was a little before that, but I wrote some books about—I heard you had a dog barking in the background. And so I wrote some books about an enlightened pug dog. I had a pug dog, and, I wrote a book called The Dao of Pug. And, even in that, some of the purpose—the Dao, it refers to the Daodejing. It's an ancient Chinese philosophical document. It was the dog’s—it was a playful book—it was the dog's interpretation of Chinese philosophy. But, even that was purpose filled, because the, the, that document, the Daodejing and Daoism was about living in harmony with nature and conscience and instinct. What are our best instincts? About ten years ago, I segued into journalism. I was writing about—my career in corporate America had segued into recruiting for boards and C-level executives, and that intersects with corporate governance in large organizations. What are the, the rules of corporate governance or best practices of corporate governance? And so I was writing about that. And, it was a rather natural or organic kind of segue into pressing that bridge between best practices in corporations. It was a lot of reputation, was looking at what is, what is the company's reputation and how does it define itself, what are its values? And so that's what I was writing about. And and then to, to be honest, I was, I had planned to retire, this year at the start of this year. And what happened and this is how I think we came into this conversation, is, you might have heard about Costco’s decision to stick with its diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And that has been very well publicized. And so I, I wrote, a story. Right at the beginning of January, Costco's board encouraged its shareholders to vote. It sounds like a double negative, but to they encourage them to vote to reject an anti-DEI proposal. So there are shareholder activists who come to the board and say, “We think you shouldn't have whatever Dei policies you have.” And the board said, “We want to reject your proposal.” And so I wrote about that. And one thing kind of led to another. And, I wrote for a platform called The Queen Zone, which elevates women's voices, which is important and certainly a part of the diversity landscape. And what I found in doing that research was that Costco is not the only company, not by a long shot, that sticks with its diversity and inclusion policies. And what I have found is that there are any number of boards that encouraged their shareholders, as Costco did, to vote to reject whatever the anti-DEI policy, proposals were and stick with whatever policies they had in place and they justified keeping their policies. So that's a very long winded response to how, how we got to this point, how I got to this point.[Elin] Yeah, it's, it's a fascinating story. And I think we should do a part two podcast just on the whole like Dao of the Pug thing, because I often think that dogs really are that, you know, godliness that, or at least part of that in our lives.[Nancy] And that would be refreshing for me. And that's you know, that was my mindset at the time was like, there is a certain purity of thought that, that gels nicely with that philosophy of just how do we live in concert with nature.[Elin] Living in the moment.[Nancy] Living in the moment. Right.[Elin] Always loving. All the things, yeah.[Nancy] I think dogs really embody that so.[Elin] Very joyful.[Nancy] Yeah.[Elin] But, yeah, but getting for this podcast is about something different. So. But, the Costco example is a great one. And interesting that that kind of launched you on to this journey. The DEI initiative, well, the DEI, the fact that they stuck with DEI has been good for their business and I think some other companies are finding the same thing or the opposite, if they've chosen not to do that, as we've seen with somebody like Target.[Nancy] Right. And apparently so. I think it's, there's a correlation or at least a, a coincidence that’s happened at the same time. Now, I don't think we could, I don't, I haven't seen any studies that say there's something causative that, or causal, that because Costco stuck with their DEI, their sales increased. But the data is what it is. And, so the foot traffic at Costco, where they stuck with their DEI—and there was quite a lot of pressure. So, there was pressure from the shareholder group and then, reported, you know, not quite as much after the vote took place and shareholders voted 98 to 2%, effectively to uphold the company's existing DEI policy. So there was this overwhelming shareholder vote. And within, I don't know, within a short time, I think it was 19 state attorneys general wrote a letter to Costco, saying, you know, demanding really, that Costco repeal, they use the word repeal, its DEI initiatives. And nothing much came of that. And then the state attorney general, who was one of the initiators of that, was from Iowa. And she subsequent, in April, she said, “I had a productive meeting with Costco,” but in fact, there's no announcement that anything has changed. And I think they just felt like they had standing and they were going to stick with their policies.[Elin] Well it's a, it's something that a lot of people are paying attention to. So it's interesting that they're taking that stance. And and I wonder like, are there trends you're seeing in how shareholders are voting on DEI and ESG issues in 2025?[Nancy] Yeah, I haven't tracked as closely the more broad ESG issues because there are climate initiatives and just the DEI initiatives keep me fully in business, you know, fully writing and reporting. But what I can say, asnswer to your question about trends is absolutely. And it's an overwhelming and unmistakable trend. There are, I counted up the companies, I think 27 of America's largest corporations have voted essentially uniformly— shareholders have voted essentially uniformly, urged unanimously by their boards of directors to reject anti-DEI proposals starting in January, I guess this was, so in, in 2025. So it's an overwhelming trend. It's an unequivocal trend. There's, there are no examples of even close votes. These are all, all the votes are—in some cases we count the shareholder voting, we round to whole numbers. So it's been, 99 to 1%, 98 to 2%, right in the, somewhere between, the support has been typically between 97 to, to 100% really, rounding to whole numbers. It's funny you mentioned Target. Target was a little bit of an outlier. Even then it was 90, I just looked at this number. I think it was 92% of target shareholders, same thing, voted to reject. So it's really a uniform kind of vote. Now to be sort of fair, it's very common for boards of directors to typically advise their shareholders to vote to reject outside proposals. That is common. But what I noticed when. So I've attended most of these meetings, shareholder meetings. And what I noticed is that even if the shareholders, even if they are voting to reject other proposals about, you know, bottling or whatever the other proposals are, these proportions are noticeably huge. So sometimes, like I've seen other proposals get maybe 20% or 30%. So it's a little more balanced, so. I'm in the midst of writing a new piece. I'm speaking to several experts, and I'm going to try to get a bead on why the hugeness of the tally. I mean, I have, you know, I'm not an opinion writer, so I'm not going to venture an opinion. I’m more reporting facts. But the trend is unmistakable. It's huge. It's unequivocal. And a few CEOs at some of the corporations where shareholders have voted, have voiced support. I think they, now this is speculation, but it's possible they have been emboldened by each other. And so, most noticeably to me at the, at the Merck annual meeting—Merck is a giant pharmaceutical company.[Elin] Merck is a strong, has a strong belief, I think, in their own DEI and ESG policies.[Nancy] Yeah. And, what was most noticeable of all these meetings, I'm going to say, all, it's like Costco, Apple, the largest corporations in America, American Express, you know, the list goes on and on. But what was most notable was in the, they have, some corporation have Q&A sessions in the shareholder meetings. And they fielded, the CEO of Merck fielded a question from a shareholder asking about their DEI policies. And he gave a very bold, unequivocal, fairly lengthy statement. But the message was diversity and inclusion is a strategic imperative. And that was his language. It's a strategic imperative. And I can't speak really for the other companies. But there is similar language in some of the, you know, the proxy statements, where the boards advise how the shareholder should vote. And in some of the corporations there's very similar language, saying that, it's a strategic comparative or, you know, we're making a decision, and so the, the language varies. Merck was noticeable in its, just its directness. It was a very noticeably direct and bold.[Elin] That's really interesting. And I have to say that, this is my opinion, my experience as a small business owner, many of the conversations I've been having with other small business owners, taking politics out of it, is really just diversity is generally good for business. It's good for you to have a diverse staff and team, and it's good for you to have a diverse customer base.[Nancy] Right. Right. You know, take, take emotion out of it. And it's just good for business.[Nancy] And that's I think that's what we're seeing. And that's essentially that's the nature of the, certainly of the, the voting. I mean, if the voting is any indication and if the board recommendations are any indication, that's what we're seeing. It's just, it's—and we see different languaging in each corporation's proxy statement. But essentially they're all saying the same thing. And especially the companies that I'm looking at, they're not small businesses. These are large, multinational corporations with, you know, multinational employee base, multinational customers, a global, global marketplace. And, you know, it's, it's not really that, that big of a leap that it’s, that it's good for business. And it's not illegal. It is just, it's not, you know, some of the opposing forces in the proxy statement, they like to say, you know, they like to say “illegal DEI.” That, that is just, that is just not true. That is just—and, and companies have, you know, they have legal staffs and they have made adjustments to ensure that their programs are legal. And there's plenty of documentation to that effect. In fact, the, state attorney general from Illinois, Kwame Raoul, I think is his name. He wrote a fantastic piece for Proxy Preview, which I think is published by, by a group called As You Sow, which is a, a friend of ours. And, he, he wrote a long piece and it, he was speaking on behalf of, I think it was 15 state attorneys general saying DEI is not illegal. Stick by your gun, you know, make sure you're running a legal program. And, every, every large corporation is if you really comb through it, so. There's nothing illegal about it. It's really, I think it's a, I mean, I'm not an attorney, so I can, you know, I'm not going to say what's legal or not legal, but there's quite a lot of documentation showing that a program that is well run is not illegal. That is a bit of a mischaracterization and misdirect from everything that I've read.[Elin] Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that from what I've experienced and observed, it is, you know, maybe it might get you in the room, but if you're not qualified, it's not going to get you the job. If you don't have good pricing, it's not going to get you the job. You still have to compete on those other issues.[Nancy] And, and all it does is it expands the talent pool, you know? So I came from a corporate recruiting and corporate human resources and the, the imperative, the part about the strategic and business imperative is that these environments are enormously competitive. And in order to compete successfully, we have to have access to the widest possible pool of talent so that nobody is excluded due to, you know, implicit or explicit biases. And, and that's all we're talking about is evening the playing field really, so that, so that we can make the best hires so that we can consider the best talent and the best hires. And, you know, I don't think there's, I don't think there's really much argument against that, so.[Elin] Yeah, I totally agree. I moved to a small town where I didn't grow up. And, when I was focusing on doing business here, (and I'm a small business, I'm not a large corporation), but it was really hard to get into the room because I wasn't in the old boys club. And I think that's just like large scale what corporations are trying to do with DEI, like that, people just, there's been a lot of misinformation, like you said, about it, and people don't understand what it is, but.[Nancy] Yeah, there has been some misinformation, I'd say, back to, you know, discrimination, you know.[Elin] Yeah.[Nancy] I mean, unfortunately, Stephen Miller's group, Stephen Miller is the White House adviser, and he, prior to being in his current role, he founded a nonprofit. It's called America First Legal. And he came up with a list of what he called “woke corporations.” And it was some of these same corporations that we're looking at. At the top of their list now he has Apple. And he, or, I shouldn’t say “he.” The group he founded sent a letter to Apple in advance of its shareholder meeting. I think it was in February, suggesting that their DEI initiatives were illegal. They’re, you know, Apple, I'm sure, has access to the finest lawyers, probably on the planet. And same thing, Apple board suggests, suggested, or recommended that Apple shareholders vote to reject anti-DEI proposal. They did so. I don't have the percentage right in front of me, but it was either, you know, 98 to 2 or 98 to, 98 to 2 or 99 to 1%. And, interestingly, I just noticed this today, actually, after that point, after, you know, this, on this woke corporations list, that was the last of the, you know, they wrote a letter to Apple saying, “You better not, you know, you better not do this.” And then Apple was like,“This is our business. We're running it.” And then that was the last, that was the last corporation was. But it's called “woke corporations.” So there's this, you know, they're, they're

vectors, I'd say, of forces: 19:27

government, conservative shareholder activists. There's social media influencers. We might, you might have heard of, I don't know if you've heard of this guy, Robby Starbuck. So he is a, he's a social media influencer. He approached, I think it was starting last summer, he approached some several large corporations, and using his language, he threatened to expose them for their so-called woke policies. And some companies did—you know, I think they got nervous probably. It was just, you know, a year ago and they did some rolling back, either tweaking of or rolling back of their DEI programs. They did not scrap them. They did not ditch them. They did not abandon them. There's a perception, I think, propagated probably by some of these conservative sources and some, you know, maybe mainstream media. How, however this happened, there is a, I think a narrative, you know, that “companies have scrapped DEI” and that's kind of how I got involved, because when I scratched the surface, I thought, “Well, that is not exactly accurate.” That is not, that is not entirely—there are a few. There's really a handful of companies that maybe have scrapped. I think, and I think Meta probably comes to mind and even that, I haven't, you know, I haven’t looked really closely, but it's, you know, they're, they're probably closer to certainly scrapping, I'd say. But really, most of the companies have some commitment to diversity and inclusion. Companies of this size have commitments to diversity and inclusion because it's good for business. It's good for the bottom line. Look, nobody's more devoted to the bottom line than large corporations and their investors. And so it's just a business decision. You know, honestly, you know, I spent a lot of time in and around corporations. And if this were, I could tell you what I, you know, here, here's where I will express my opinion. If this were not good for the bottom line, they would not do it. They, these, large companies are profit driven. Their invest, their largest investors are the largest asset managers in the world. They are profit driven. That's how it goes. And so that all these companies, you know, really—and that was what the Merck CEO said as well. He talked, he mentioned profits. And you know, some other companies have—Robert Reich, the economist from, from UC Berkeley, he just wrote a piece about the same, just corroborating that, that the large asset managers that own the most shares of these corporations just see it as enhancing their profitability. So, you know, it's it's pretty straightforward. They're not discriminating. That is, you know, that's the accusation. You know, there's, there's plenty of evidence showing that they are not discriminating. But that is going to, I think that will probably continue to be the argument around discrimination. I don't think, you know, I don't think it's the case, but I think they will try to argue that. And they have the best lawyers in the world. And I think.[Elin] Yeah, I don't know. But I wonder. So you spend a lot of time observing these large corporations and reporting on the shareholder meetings and such. From what you've learned and observed, are there any lessons or, you know, anything, principles, lessons, anything that you could share that might be applicable to small business? You know, that small business can learn from these large corporations.[Nancy] I mean, I think, you know, I'm, I'm not on the inside of either the corporations at this point. And certainly not the small businesses, but I think the principles and you might know better than I are kind of the same. You know, they, there's a lot written. The companies themselves write about, they want to certainly have, access to the best talent, for instance, choose from the best talent. That's going to be true, you know. To not have conscious or unconscious biases in making choices. So as a hiring strategy, obviously, that makes sense. And then as a business strategy, we live in a diverse world. We just live in a multicultural, diverse world. And so I think from both an employee standpoint and also a customer facing standpoint, whether that is the consumer or whether that is other businesses, we are in it. We're in a multicultural world. And so I think for a business of any size, I think the same principles hold true, that you just want to have the access to the widest pool of talent in order to hire the best talent. Everybody, who doesn't want to hire the best talent? Of course, that makes sense. That's how, that's how our business thrives. Right? So it makes sense from hiring and then it makes sense, I think, in terms of appealing to whoever the the customer or client is. I think that is, I think the principles apply across. I think it's, I think it might be size agnostic.[Elin] Yeah. I agree with you. Diverse world and one that is much more interesting than if we were totally monochromatic world. Like that would be boring.[Nancy] Yeah, that is true. And that's the argument. So Stephen Miller's group says that part out loud. It's about, in his, some of those complaints, he says, discriminating against, I think he says against white men. I think that is, that is sometimes the argument.[Elin] Oh, my violin, you know. Poor white men.[Nancy] It's not holding up that well. The argument so far is, you know, not holding up very well, let's say at the board and shareholder level, you know.[Elin] It's kind of, you know, it's kind of encouraging to me. Let me, let me change gears a little tiny bit, because I am curious about this. So as someone reporting on publicly traded companies, you know, which you do, how do you view the role of journalism in influencing corporate behavior, especially around issues like equity and accountability? Do you think there's a correlation?[Nancy] It's a good question because I worked more on the accountability side prior to doing this project. You know, like we started a project that's called Impactivize. That's who I'm writing for. And we are focused specifically on DEI in the private sector. So, we have a list of 400 corporations that are committed and the shareholder voting results. But prior to this. So starting last year until last year or the end of last year, I was writing with a lens on corporate accountability. So it was still, I was still looking at reputational risk. So I'll just give you an example. I was focused somewhat on, after Elon Musk bought Twitter, there was a proliferation. I, you know, I didn't make it up. There was a lot of reporting about hate speech, the growth of hate speech on Twitter, and what I would find—now Elon didn't like this too much. So what I found was, there were some advertisers who—and Twitter did try to fix this, and I think maybe they did. But at first, initially, before they had thoroughly fixed it, there were some ads that were appearing adjacent to hate speech. And so the accountability piece for me was I would reach out to corporations and say, just and just take a screenshot. It would just be, “Are you aware? What do you make of this?” And so in one instance, now this was, it was either 22 or 23. I think was 23, 2023. The large car company Hyundai. I just, you know, I didn't have to really search at that point. Hyundai’s ad appeared next to some, really distasteful, hateful content. I don't even need to say what it was. And all I did was I took a screenshot. I said, “Have you seen this?” And they said, they're going to pause their, their advertising program. So I think that is an example of the accountability piece. I mean, I it's really refreshing for me to actually be like not on a boycott side. You know, I was a little bit on, you know, was more writing, more on that sort of boycotts side of, of the house. Right now, I’m—our work is more aligned with, the work I really like the best is, from the NAACP, which issued in February something called the Black Consumer Advisory. And it was more, it wasn't so much, at least my interpretation, it wasn't so much about boycotting, but it was here we have $1.7 trillion a year of of spending power. Let's spend in the right places. And that's really the intent more of our,

of Impactivize: 27:41

who's doing, you know, where do we want to spend our dollars? For people who do supports diversity, equity and inclusion and think that's a good thing, you know, consumers do say, you know, people ask me, they go, “Do you have a list?” And that's really how we're, how this was born. People, I said, “Here's Costco, here's, you know, Apple.” And they go, “Do you have a list?” So then we just started putting together a list. So it's sort of the, the plus side of accountability, which is very refreshing for me as a journalist, you asked how it is as a journalist, it is way more refreshing than sort of this, “gotcha.” You know, there could be a real darkness. It can be. I mean, accountability is fantastic. And I did it for a long time. So it is important and good work. But as a journalist, it's also very refreshing. Also, I get a lot of messaging. You, I think you said it's hopeful. You know, I get a lot, a lot of messages where people say, “Wow, this gives me some hope.” And I don't think it's a false hope. You know, I think people are looking for glimmers of hope because how do we vote? Well we vote in elections. We vote with our pocketbooks. And so people could say, “Well, here's how I can vote with my dollars.” And that's why I also really like the NAACP Black Consumer Advisory as well, so.[Elin] So I was going to ask you about hope. I was going to ask you, like, what is giving you hope as you watch corporate social responsibility and DEI landscape and watch it evolving in 2025, do you feel that there is a broader awareness or more momentum, or is there some kind of movement in a, you know, positive direction here?[Nancy] Yeah, I think because of the gravity and unanimity of this, especially the shareholder voting and the board recommendations of shareholder voting, I think that creates a gravity, a sort of, you know, a strength in numbers. You might see behind me. I have my favorite basketball team is the Golden State Warriors. And they had, for many years, their motto was“strength in numbers.” And I think, I think consumers feel that. I think that engenders hope in the consumer population. And then whether corporations are emboldened. Now, we, we've seen kind of a run of the table of these shareholder meetings and of boards. Are they emboldened? I'm not, you know, I'm not the, I'm not in the boards. It appears that way. It appears that there certainly could be a strength in numbers. I think certainly among, you know, feedback that I get from consumers, it's like,“This is where I'm going to shop.” And we do see it in the, you know, it's a very small, a small sample group. But we do see that result in the Costco, Target, different results on foot traffic.[Elin] A lot of people were talking about that and are still talking about that.[Nancy] Yep, yeah. And so even though it's a small sample group, it's also, they're huge corporations and people are paying attention to that. And I see it. I see feedback, you know. So just in the last few weeks, some other big retailers where shareholders have voted to uphold the company's DEI or reject anti-DEI proposals would be Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, a large retailer. I think they're back east also.[Elin] They were founded in my town here where I live.[Nancy] Oh, I did not know.[Elin] Binghamton, New York.[Nancy] Really? Oh, I didn't, I'm from New York. I did not know that. That's interesting. Okay. So.[Elin] Not many things came out of Binghamton, but that was one of them.[Nancy] That's a great, that's a great thing for me to learn. I did not know that. So and so I just see, you know, anecdotally, I see feedback of people saying that's where we're going to shop. And certainly, you know, it's very much in alignment with the NAACP’s Black Consumer advisory and the $1.7 trillion spend and beyond, because it's not, you know, I think targeting the, the Black consumers spend, but there's a vast universe of allyship, where there's a lot of dollars to be spent. So I think we're, I think we're going to see that. I think it gives people hope. And I think there may be some gravity and strength in numbers, from the collective group. And it's, you know, it's in the trillion. The market cap of the worth of these companies is in the probably the tens of trillions of dollars. That's a lot of gravity. That is a lot of gravity. It remains to be seen. I think, how this will all play out. But, you know, they're not, companies are not there. There might be some renaming. You've maybe have heard or read about companies are renaming and. Harvard Law School, I think it was the Harvard Law School. They have a corporate governance institute. And they just came out with a, a study on renaming. And they came up with all the different names. There's like belonging, and culture and inclusion, and there's a lot of naming. What we say at Impactivize, we say “DEI or by any other name,” because the, what matters to the practitioners who I talked to, what matters is the, the the intention and the, the weave of, the practices into the business. And you can call that, I think, by. And some companies do still call it DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion. Some don’t. But my understanding is that what matters is the practice itself. And that does not appear to be going away because it's good for business.[Elin] Yeah. I mean, that's really encouraging. And it's interesting to think about the collective power of people like, so voting with our pocketbooks, you know, and deciding which companies to back that, that I think that right now it feels like things are very serious and we have to pay attention. And I think a lot of people are feeling like that, so.[Nancy] Right.[Elin] I would hope that this does, you know, begin to build momentum and continue to go in the right direction.[Nancy] I think it will. Probably one thing I should add is that we look at DEI or by any other name in a, through a very narrow lens. So I get some feedback about companies other practices. So if, if I say, if I report on, we'll just take Merck, since it's a good example. There's criticisms of every large company, and I don't even know what the criticisms of that company are. We're not looking at a company's goodness. We're not looking at their political donations, and we're not looking at their affiliations. We're looking at their diversity, equity and inclusion practices. And the reason why we're looking through a narrow lens is because the targeting is looking also at, is attacking them really through that same narrow lens. And so it's a way to, to report, I think most accurately, on what is actually happening through that lens.[Elin] Yeah. That makes that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Thank you. So fun question. Looking ahead, what are you most excited to explore in your journalism or professional work?[Nancy] Okay. Well, it's very immediate. So I'm working on a story that is essentially a summary. I've attended most of all of, I think it's been—a few of, few of these meetings I was locked out. It wasn’t open to journalists. But I've attended probably, in the neighborhood of 20 shareholder meetings. And I'm writing up a summary essentially, of the findings of my observations from these meetings, with the backdrop of other reporting and other studies. And that will also be published by, I mentioned the publication that I like to write for is called The Queen Zone, and that will be published probably within the next week. And so I'm excited about that. Mostly because I started it, you know, I was making notes, but I actually started writing it today. So as any probably a lot of writers maybe can relate to, like sometimes starting it is, you know, really gets you going. But I have a great body.[Elin] Good for you. Good for you. A lot of times I'm like composing something in my mind for a long time before I ever actually write it down.[Nancy] Which is good, which is good. So yeah. So I finally.[Elin] Good or procrastination? I'm not sure.[Nancy] It's, you know, I think that's part of the writing craft. I think I mentioned to a journalist friend of mine that I was like, “You know, I have all the notes. I'm ready to start. I just need to start.” And she said, “You sound like every journalist.” And she wrote for a daily newspaper, back east. And, and she said, “You sound like every journalist” that she knows. It's not uncommon, but I am very excited about that. That should, drop. The kids say drop. That should drop probably within the next week.[Elin] Oh wonderful. I can't wait to see it.[Nancy] Yeah. Thank you.[Elin] Great. Are you going to be sharing that on social media or where will we find that?[Nancy] Yes, I will be sharing it on social media. The Queen Zone will be sharing it on social media, will spread it as far and wide ’cause we think, it tells a story. We think. I mean, what I think is that the story of corporations that are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and there are many of them tells a different story then the narrative that I walked into in January, which is like, I mean, I still see it. There's still a misperception. It’s a general public misperception. You know, people write to me and they go,“Oh, wait, I thought companies abandoned DEI.” It's like, “Well, not exactly.” You know, that's, that's how this started. I was like, because I found that out myself because I was like, “Oh, I thought companies abandoned DEI.” And then I just, you know, it's like pulling socks out of a drawer where they're all connected. It's like, well, not exactly. And so, you know, that's, that's the story I think the data tells, it’s like, DEI is not dead in the private sector, so.[Elin] Yeah, I think there's intentional misinformation around a lot of this stuff personally, but that's just speculation. But maybe not.[Nancy] Yeah, that could well be. I can't say what's intentional or not, but I think there is, I think, I think there's been some mischaracterization, just, just attempting to be more, a little more granular and a little more robust in our reporting to tell a more complete, fuller, truer story.[Elin] Yeah. And truly, we need you. We need journalists that are paying attention to the facts and reporting the facts because, you know, without truth, we are lost. So thank you. We really need that. So let's, so I know you work with big corporations, or you, you write about big corporations, as we've discussed. If you could distill down a message for small business owners who want to align values and action, what would that be based on what you've seen at the corporate level?[Nancy] I would say to the extent possible, be courageous in your. I've heard that from a few different places. Courage is contagious. There's a lot of fear mongering, I think. And I mean, it's natural and easy to be cowed by fear and the messaging, that I kind of keep hearing over and over is, you know, be strong, be courageous. Now I get that that's hard. I mean we're, you know, we're a nonprofit. So we're like a small business. So it's easy for me to say. I'm not being targeted yet, but as a small business, you, it's a balance, right? You have to stay in business and thrive. But to the extent possible, be strong, be courageous. There's a lot of us, us and them, you know, of people out there, people out there, who are staying strong. And there's, I do believe there is strength in numbers. And so I think that's the message I hear is stay strong, be courageous. There's, you know, there's nothing illegal about, considering wide talent pools. And it's, it's probably best for hiring the best talent. And, and also, you know, there's a, mistaken message that, diversity is opposed to merit. And there was just the study. There was just a new study from MIT Sloan Management Review, writing about how DEI enhances merit. I don't think, and I'm not sure if the word was enhanced, but that's the message in it. We hear that again and again. The co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, said, he thinks, he identified as the biggest sham out there is this notion that merit and diversity are opposed. And he said, those of us who have been out here building—and he started building small companies, right. He said those of us who have been now turned into, Reddit probably turned into a multibillion dollar company, he said, have been hiring for merit all along. That hasn't changed.[Elin] Yeah, I have never heard of any. You know, I, I'm only one person. I have a limited experience and, you know, network. I have a pretty good network, but I have never heard of what they say is happening. I've never heard of that happening. Because you always have to prove your value, and you always have to prove your competence and you know all of that so. I don't know. It's fascinating.[Nancy] It is. One of our advisory board members, her name is Shari Dunn. She wrote a book called Qualified, and it's about how people in the workplace constantly have to prove and reprove their competencies. And there's this competency checking that applies. You know, it's a terrible double standard. So in fact, the talent level is probably, you know, because of this checking and overachieving, is probably, way, way, way higher. So, there are a lot of really kind of false, false tropes, shall we say.[Elin] Yeah, very much so.[Nancy] Forming I'd say this what appears to be a war, I think of it, kind of it, there's a war on diversity, equity, inclusion. It's really fueled by a lot of really false tropes that really don't support, that are, that are not in alignment with business, what people in business know and experience.[Elin] So much to unpack. But what about, so this is my last question, and then I'll ask how we can get in touch with you and find you. We're very interested in impact here and impact can be defined in many different ways. And I'm just curious what impact means you.[Nancy] Yeah. It can mean so many things. I mean, I'm so steeped. For the last six months, I've been very steeped in this particular arena. So, you know, the first thing that's going to come to my mind is impact, insofar as it, relates to diversity and equity and inclusion, hiring and workplace practices. But more broadly, you know, how do we make—I almost go back to the pug book, you know, how do we make a difference? Live in concert with nature, with conscience, with science. I, I will say, I don't usually opine, but I do believe in science. And, you know, how, how do we. And empathy, you know, how do we. So this, this does go back to my pug book roots, you know, how do we live with empathy? How do we believe in, in science? So there's some really basic kinds of impacts that we can make. More broadly, I'd say use our voices. I'd say every voice matters. How do we speak out for, for what is right for, for tolerance, for inclusiveness, for empathy? So, so, you know, impact is very broad. I've been on a very narrow, narrow track with it, but impact is, is certainly very broad. And really, we could have impact every day. We could have an impact on somebody’s life, you know, who we pass on the street and we don't know what ripple we create. So to live, a, you know, as best as we can in balance and peace and kindness and empathy, that's the, that's the really broad view.[Elin] I love that answer. And, and it all matters. You know, like sometimes people think that their actions are too small to matter, but it all matters. So thank you for sharing that.[Nancy] Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Elin. I really appreciate your having me.[Elin] It was a pleasure speaking with you. Before I let you go, you, please share with us how people can get in touch with you, follow you, get that list of the companies that they might want to spend their money with.[Nancy] Yeah. So the best place to go is our website. It's called Impactivize. It's like “impact” and then letter I, VIZE. IVIZE. Impactivize.org, Impactivize.org. And that has a list of 400 companies and brands that state their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. And it has a list of the, the shareholder voting from about, 20, 25 or more, companies where they have supported DEI initiatives. And that is probably the best. There's a contact button on there. You can follow me on social media, follow Impactivize, so. That's the best way to find us. Yeah.[Elin] Okay. Well, we'll do that. So, Nancy, thank you so much for your time. This was a really enlightening conversation. And, you just bring such a rich perspective to the whole question of DEI and how, how and why and what and what, you know, just like to help us figure out what is going on. So thank you.[Nancy] Thank you for having me.[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Emily] Our Make an Impact tip of the week is support journalism. Subscribe to your local newspaper or donate to nonprofit news sources like NPR or PBS.[electronic music starts] Thanks for listening and make sure to do good in the world this week. If you have questions you'd like us to address on the podcast, you can reach us at info@riveocreative.com. Subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on any of our incredible upcoming guests, and we'll see you soon at the Riveo Impact Lab.[electronic music][electronic music concludes]