Voices of Diversity

Episode 12 - Voice of a Feminist Black Man - Akbar Karenga

April 05, 2021 Host: Rocki Howard/Guest: Akbar Karenga Episode 12
Voices of Diversity
Episode 12 - Voice of a Feminist Black Man - Akbar Karenga
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

“Are we actually building genuine structural allyship that is I might lose? So me as a man if they say there was an extra tax on being a man or after November the 19th. When women work for free compared to men and the gender pay gap, I get double tax for that month. I need to be willing to look at people and say yes, please put that in place. Because that is what equity is. That's not what equality is.” Akbar Karenga

Voices of Diversity host Rocki Howard speaks to guest Akbar Karenga who is head of talent for Storyblock and the founder of people operations consulting firm Maarusi. 

Not only is he a tenured talent acquisition professional, but he is also a committed mentor.

Akbar talks about how and where business is done, brings to life the differences between equality and equity and shares his passion for gender parity as he talks to us today as the Voice of A Feminist Black Man.

 

Resources

Storyblok Website

Storyblok LinkedIn

Akbar Karenga LinkedIn

Maarusi LinkedIn

Akbar Karenga Twitter

 

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Rocki Howard

Rocki Howard:

Welcome to the Voices of Diversity podcast. I'm your host Rocki. Howard. And the purpose of this podcast? To humanize diversity, one story, one conversation at a time. I want our listeners to understand the significance and the impact that racism, bias and inequity have on real people. I want our guests to have the opportunity to share the challenges that, we the underrepresented, face in the corporate world, the media's eys, and the overall world that we live in. Through sharing, listening, understanding, and committing to take small actions towards change. Together, we can impact the diversity narrative, one story, one conversation at a time. And by changing the narrative, we can change the world.

Akbar Karenga:

What is it means to be anti racist or not racist? There are very clear divides. And are we actually building genuine structural allyship? So me as a man if they say there is an extra tax on being the man or after November the 19th women work for free compared to men in the gender pay gap. I get double tax for that month. I need to be willing to look at people and say yes, please put that in place. Because that is what equity is. That's not what equality is.

Rocki Howard:

Voices of Diversity guest Akbar Karenga is Head of Talent for Storyblok, and the founder of people operations consulting firm Maarusi. Not only is he a tenured talent acquisition professional, he is a committed mentor. Akbar talks about how and where business is really done, brings to life the differences between equality and equity, and shares his passion for gender parity, as he talks to us today as the voice of a feminist black man. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, wherever you are in the world. And welcome to the Voices of Diversity podcast. I'm your host Rocki Howard, and I identify as she/her/black/Christian/GenX/wife/mom, those are my dimensions of diversity. And I have got a heck of an episode for you today. I've got Akbar joining us. Akbar and I have been circling, maybe even stalking each other a little bit on LinkedIn, we run in the same circles. And so I'm really excited to have you here Akbar do me a favor, kick us off, man. Tell us, tell us introduce yourself. Tell us how you identify.

Akbar Karenga:

Oh, hi, my name is Akbar Karenga. I'm the Head of Talent for Storyblok and identify as he a man, a black man, an African man and a feminist man.

Rocki Howard:

I love that and a feminist man. I love that. I love that. I'm perfect. So I you know what I want to start off with your career. Let's dig into that. I've done a little bit of research. And it feels like you've gone back and forth from being a founder, which tells me you're very creative, to working for companies. So walk us through that tell us about your career. What do you do for a living and that road to getting there.

Unknown:

Okay, so there's probably three main focuses that I have right now. One is the Head of Talent for a startup, Storyblok. It's a very ambitious scale up, and it involves everything from the hiring and everything related to people. I am also a mentor for Black Valley, which is a group founded by a fantastic entrepreneur called Leke about giving the leg ups that black talent needs to have in tech in the UK. So trying to replicate those, those circles of trust and patronage to get people into the industry. And then I am a fan of my own consultancy Maarusi named after my mother, it means Swahili for coming together or wedding. And it's all about what I like to speak about, and talk about, this topic. Is it going into companies consulting, is it some of the day to day tactical stuff is basically about building better teams.

Rocki Howard:

Wow, you've really got your hands full, don't you? I would love so we're gonna we're gonna spend time on all parts of that. And I want to make sure that at you know, your consultancy and and the company that you're working for are in the short show notes so that we can support you but I want to start with the mentoring piece. What attracted you to be a mentor? Tell us what what that mentorship looks like and why you felt it was important to do that and invest your time there.

Unknown:

Um I if I have one superpower it's probably networking is one of the reasons actually why we met. Somebody who really was been a fantastic mentor for me and just networker, Stan, is one of your colleagues. So I love the power of having a circle of people who can give you that little intro can give you that piece of information. It's really accelerated my career. And then i'm the oldest of five and I hit a way of working just a way of moving in my career. And then when I realized my brothers and sisters coming before me, they didn't have that as a natural skill and that's worked really hard for it. So my sister her first job in marketing, I was her recruiter. And I was yeah I was on agency side. So I saw all of these examples and I was just living it in myself. Then I saw the founder Leke uh talking about this, in it was in a show similar to this and I was like that is a really amazing idea I think we should try and replicate those circles of trust those circles of patronage and I've tried to help when I can when time allows from my responsibilities.

Rocki Howard:

Wow so wow you were your sister's recruiter? I love that I absolutely love that. Talk about return on investment. So let's go back there because I think you just said something that I'd like for you to even explore a little bit further. You're talking about watching some of the skills that you had that potentially your siblings didn't have and you called out networking is one of those. I'd like to just expand that thought process out a little bit and especially with what you're doing with this mentoring piece. And tell me what you think about being a black man and in the black community are there things that you think traditionally or historically that there are things that we haven't had access to as a black community that makes it harder for us to grow our careers?

Akbar Karenga:

Um there is a big distinction between where business happens and where business happens additionally. So it's that that drinks section that happens and maybe you do or don't go to. It is the shared in joke or the shared experience growing up that maybe is different. Because most of our bosses are older white male and they were never this person, who is one of the underrepresented communities and leadership. It can sometimes be as simple as a syntax or an expression problem. I love very so I'm not originally english but I grew up there. And I there's a very whenever my boss used to say that's very interesting and he was a very proper English man that that meant that's bad. And I had to learn that code well maybe me and my circle of friends would say that in a very different, a more direct way.

Rocki Howard:

That's really interesting. So I've worked for a company that is is British and I do think being an American there is a significantly different style. Like were a lot kind of bolder and clearer about what we say where I think in Britain it's it's a little bit more subtle in terms of the messaging. I'm wondering how that translates to diversity from your point of view. What what is it, what do you think it's in you've done enough business globally right and so what do you think for our audience is kind of the key diversity issues that you're facing in great britain I mean we're all watching the Megan and Harry drama play out. You know we're looking at the queen saying she's contemplating a diversity person. Like what's it like to be a black man in the UK?

Akbar Karenga:

Um it's not Pharaoh's job to teach you who you, are and who you are. So when you see a culture that has a history that we only learn one side. And when the real even the uncomplicated history of the British empire. If we told a factual retelling of it, certain people that we as a community viewed as their hallowed people like Winston Churchill and then you just say Winston Churchill in 1915 talking about what his views about people of color. Or if you realize that the first and last concentration camps of the 20th century were british, in the mammals in Kenya, and the boers in South Africa, around 1905. So that's what we don't know we don't talk about. And we assume that although there was no masses of indentured servitude or slavery on the island of Britain, we assume that we are divorced from the more extreme chattel forms of discrimination that we have. So that's point one. So also, we hallows very unusual institutions like the royal family. It has a very different name it a couple of years ago, and the vestige of who those types of people were supporting their political views. And the institution of hereditary rule is by definition undiverse. So it doesn't really come as a surprise that a lot of our major institutions still deny, don't know, or are positively built against notions of diversity.

Rocki Howard:

Love that it is a really interesting perspective to take. Let's go back to you and your career in this great career that you've built. So you've told us the two things, the three things that you're focused on now, but you didn't tell us how you got there. So how did you get from, you know, little man to where you are today?

Akbar Karenga:

Oh, it started off worse, I did philosophy and politics, and is probably the most interesting degree you can do. But also at the same time, the most useless degree, it doesn't qualify, you doesn't qualify you for anything. And then I graduated was like, I like people. I've always liked people. And he was like, what is being marketed to me as a recent grad. And what matches well wants to do, and there were loads of recruitment agency adverts for somebody who just described me, and that was agency sales. It was business development, and also working with candidates and as like, what, so both sides of my job are talking fantastic. So that's how I started in recruitment, very large agency that had world class training, great mentors, but also had an interesting vibe and working culture that maybe it was, it won't exist now basically. Did that for a couple of years. And then I decided, after a fantastic holiday to Taiwan, that I actually just needed to see the world and love it more. So I land from Taiwan, and I told my girlfriend at the time, hey, I'm gonna go back. And I decided, Okay, what can get me there? And it was do quick ESL course, and go there and join a fantastic company. Again large business, loads of mentoring. And then I was there for a couple of months, and then they said, oh, I'm a bit of a recruiter, I've got promoted, got promoted. And then I started running a recruitment division internally where it was landing 80 - 90 people per year from all over the world to live and work in Shanghai. Wow. Then from that was like, yeah, absolutely amazing. That is from the marketing decisions, the assessment, everything like that. Super diverse people. That number one, they've never been to China, and also had never been to where they were from. So I had to build that relationship. All of this was done online as well. first time we met when I picked them up from the airport. Wow, there knows that. Okay, let's move now to b2b division in the same company. But now from London. All of my hiring managers are across 22 countries, from Russia to Sao Paolo, and those buildings, a SaaS business so operations, sales and again super fun, super, I'll say, I had to learn the other way where now, I was going to them more. So I know a little bit of Russian now, for example, I know the difference way somebody from Rio States was from Sao Paolo, how to kind of play that joke there already. So that was amazing five years, but also, it was a business that was International. That was also a really and diverse as well. At the same time. We kept on looking for the same people again and again. And I was lucky enough to go to like 10 -15 countries with that business. And every office I went to from Madrid to Barcelona to Bali. So that's that same guy. That's the same woman so that I learned a lot about that way you can give and finess certain numbers to make things look a certain way. And then decided to have my midlife crisis at around 30 which was

Rocki Howard:

Early you're you're ahead of the game, right?

Akbar Karenga:

Like, I just I'd never do anything by half. So that was where can I go? What can I do to have the gap year or the break that I never had? Because technically I've been working some sort of job since I was 15 - 16. So I decided to go to East Africa. started off in Egypt went Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanzania. And I basically just scuba dived for four or five months. And I realized, actually, I couldn't do a whole year. I've just got itchy feet, and I was really, really bored. And then I said, okay, let's go. But this time, I'm gonna join small businesses. Let me try and be the age, the room, and the lack of people around me to be an agent of change. So then that was startups, several scale ups, people just got their series A's. And then I joined Founders Factory, which was a great year. 40 different startups I helped advise. And then now one of the people that I met during that journey, was my CEO now, Dom. And we connected together and said, actually, should we do this full time? And it's been a great quarter with that.

Rocki Howard:

Wow, what an incredible story and talk about diverse experience. So now you've traveled all over the world, you've seen all these different offices, you've seen the similarity within their diversity, right? Because there's multiple dimensions of diversity, we all get stuck in a few dimensions, but there's multiple dimensions of diversity. Talk to me about in all of that you're traveling to these offices where people don't look like you they all look alike. Have you ever felt excluded at work? Or have you ever had a situation where you realize that you and this person just weren't, weren't getting along? And it was due to how you show up?

Akbar Karenga:

Um, there was an interesting one. So there, I was, it was a b2b department in China. And one of we were having discussions with some of the people that I had, and we're talking about favorite classes growing up, and what were you best in? I'm in an education company that is billions of dollars selling English courses in this country. And then we'll just go around the room. And then she just kept on saying, No, you must have been good at music come on, tell the truth. Are you musical? And I was like no, I'm not. I'm not good, actually. Okay. And then she just kept on insisting that I was, should have only been good at these two different things. And that was just like, a jarring but then there are bigger, more real examples of challenging discrimination. I'd say come in the form of I was charged with rolling out D and I training for 20 or so managers from second and third tier cities in China. So these are places that are developing, they're coming certain way. And I'm talking about the 200 biases, I just said, okay, let's just look at the protected characteristics like disability, age, gender, sex, and sexuality. And then it was, we did the whole thing. And then at the end of it, okay, let me show you four photos of all different people. Who is the best teacher? I was thinking, okay, I've just smashed this session, no, then they said, I'm going to choose that guy. And I said, okay, why please write it down. And then I just looked at responses all about how the person looks a guy looks Norwegian. And I feel like he's, he'll be a good teacher is very safe. And there's no other CV, no other information, I was like that frustration, where we've just gone through an hour and a half. And still, we revert back to those things. And I semi blame the company that we were in because we marketed what was meant to be foreign in a very specific way. So 40% of our inbound traffic was actually from the US. And more than half of that were black, African, Asian, African American, or Latinx. heritage people. So we on boarded the whole color that was that US, but we only ever marketed a very specific version of what it means to be American. Wow. And these marketing and sales races, of course, because we gave them that.

Rocki Howard:

That's a really good point. So let's, I'd love to dig into that for a minute. I do think that marketing, pop culture, what we see in the world does not help the stereotypes and biases that we face on a day to day basis. Do you have a point of view about that?

Akbar Karenga:

Um, I mentioned my passion for the outcomes of women. And I look at Mary Kerry had to win two Nobel prizes. The first one was falsely attributed as a shared one for her husband. She needed she literally had to kill herself to get the second one to prove who she was. And then there are so many examples of I'm sure a woman had a scientific idea in the 1700s in the 1600s and beyond. Where is that rich tapestry of role models? Where is that that story? Where is that you could be that Ada Lovelace times 10. So then when we see the STEM subjects where we have now, where women beat out men in test scores in every single topic, every single subject, apart from the STEMs, because that's another subject, because you guys shouldn't do that. So having positive affirmations of you, you wanting to be a technical woman, you can find them, but they're in there, you have to go to Grace Hopper in the 50s. Why do I know them? When you you may have read trash books from white men are written in like 1750. But you're never gonna read it again.

Rocki Howard:

Yeah, yeah, I think that's such a good perspective. I I'd like to know this, right? Especially because you're in the talent game. And anytime I talk to people who hire other people for a living, I'm always interested about their perspective on this particular topic. What do you feel about hiring targets?

Akbar Karenga:

Essentially, they need to happen. When we try and live on goodwill and oh, I've done bias training. That's a lie. We've tried this experiment before, when it is human judgment. And we need some sort of control. We can't listen to our better angels anymore. And anyone who says differently, show me one company that has 50% female/male. Show me a business that pay pays them the same. Show me one of those and then that is the one CEO that can see has got a Vionnet. For example in our business we are my company now we're doing fantastic on certain types of diversity, awful on others. And it could be the same thing. We are 24% women in our company, that is double the industry average of 12. But half what our potential customer base could be.

Rocki Howard:

It's, it is interesting, what do you say to the people who say hiring targets or reverse discrimination,

Akbar Karenga:

You can never have an ism, because it's ism, it is prejudice plus actionable power. You can't have a big, I find it very hard for a Asian woman to be able to leverage the power aspects of what a prejudice a ism, is. She will still be held back by the natural things that are that are not going her way. Also, I would love that pain. I want people to channel that fury. And go, that's unfair, because you are now a step closer to empathizing with that underrepresented group. I'm not saying that feeling is wrong. Bottle it, times X number of times, that is the lived experience of the other person that you feel is getting an advantage over you.

Rocki Howard:

Yeah, take that anger, take your power, take your privilege and let's use it for good. Let's stop this. But I'm a good person with good intentions. And let's move to some actual impact and moving forward. I couldn't have said that any any better. So if I

Akbar Karenga:

Ibram X Kennedy talks about the difference between what is it means to be an anti racist or not racist? There are very clear divides. And are we actually building genuine structural allyship that is I might lose. So me as a man if they say there is an extra tax on being a man or a after November the 19th, when women work for free compared to men and the gender pay gap, I get double tax for that month. I need to be willing to look at people and say yes, please put that in place. Because that is what equity is. That's not what equality is.

Rocki Howard:

It's a great point that you just bring up. It's the difference between equity and equality. And I don't think people always understand that. And I think people fundamentally want equality, but they're not willing to pay the price of equity to get to equality. So thank you for bringing that up. I want to ask you this. What sacrifices do you think you've had to make if you have had to make any sacrifices to assimilate, to code switch to do any of that type of work to progress within your career?

Akbar Karenga:

Yeah, so as so I'm gonna use a very like personal story. So I'm from a country called Burundi which is near Rwanda. Everything that you you hear and see what happened in Rwanda in the mid 90s, happened to our country. And that was when other people many, many years ago, defined two different peoples as being different. They lost the power to categorize who they were. And then that has led for 70 - 80 years, massive pogroms and blood on the streets. I left that situation because my dad was a journalist at the BBC, and he moved to London. And then I moved from that realness of what it means to be racist, I mean, black on black, quote, unquote, but it was like, we were decided we were different. And I come to the UK. And then because I went to a certain type of school, I sounded not black. I sounded like, and then because of the amazing opportunity my family saw when they landed here, I was pushed and driven to do certain things that were, quote, unquote, not black. And that was something that happened somebody weaponize good and then try and make me at the same time, too much of something and too little of something. I was found that weird. And then you talked about code switching. The best example is, so now I've grown up and I've lived in this British environment. And I was, you could quote and say, I'm an immigrant, or I'm a refugee. But when it was the same human body that flew to China, I became an expat. And that is amazing. That is rare that is exotic. And I was as I was referred to in magazines, and me and people like me, like, oh, we go to these types of bars, we do this type of thing. So really, how can this the human body be something that has to coach and are you who are you to say you this or that growing up as a kid, come to UK, you black? Are you white? Why do you sound like this? Why don't you do this or that? And then same body again goes to China. And as suddenly, this type of fancy whiskey is for you. And getting lett into to bars and clubs, because I am not Chinese. That is weird and wrong. In all three instances, the same body.

Rocki Howard:

Weird and wrong. Weird and wrong. Hmm. So look, I want to ask you this, if you had one piece of tangible, x actionable advice that either a company who has has who really believes in diversity, or an ally, who really truly wants to be an ally, if you have one piece of advice for either one of those people, something that they can do today, what would it be?

Akbar Karenga:

Facts, not feelings, is the number one. You are going to feel a certain type of way. Because this type of change is contrary to everything that you've been taught. It is taking away something that is part of your esteem, is reverse reversing compound interest that's been in your favor, for potentially generations. And it's not your fault, you feel that type of way. But if you come to me with your feelings against these systematic facts, then you're telling me how you're telling me your heart is more important than people's genuine outcomes. There's so that that element there, we're now at a precipice where the businesses that we're building now is going to be the next gold rush is going to be the next opportunity to equalize all the injustices. And if you're telling me your feelings, are getting in the way of many other people getting a seat at that table, that's mad. Also, take a step back and realize that you're missing out on a massive opportunity. You are somebody that's gonna be glorified immensely. If there are loads of smart people looking after the tough problems now. We are about to, can we breathe the air we breathe in 50 years time? My I'm about to have a son in a month. What air will he be breathing in my care home? In 50 to 60 years, I would want every scientist to be looking at that problem. Not only the guys with dicks, just think of it on that level when we talk about genuine diverse teams.

Rocki Howard:

Yeah. Yeah. What are what what what is your son? What does the world look like when your son grows up? You know, the platform you I cannot believe that we've been circling each other. And it has been just an incredible meeting you as I thought it would be. And you know why I've built the platform. Our platform is to give a voice to those people who identify with being underrepresented. And so this is your time. I want you to close this out today. And I want you to say whatever it is you want to say to people about what it feels like to work, walk through the world of world of work through corporate america through small startup, as a black man.

Akbar Karenga:

I would actually spin it a little bit and go, I can't have the justice and the actualization of what I dream of, if the majority are still being, not having their rights protected. My life as a black man pales in comparison to me being most women in this world. And that's the one challenge I'm going to say I'm really aware that because my voice has a certain decibel, I know walk a certain way that is opening doors for me. So I taste privilege. As a black person, I also realize that people are going to come to me with a certain expectation that I did not define. And that's how it feels. Sometimes in certain work context. I would I chose recruitment, and talent and everything before. This became a hot topic on how businesses need to change. But I want to see more black people, people of color, underrepresented groups, speaking about things that are not in our space that me and you work in. Can we please have people on boards who are talking about their CFOs I want the CMO to be Asian American woman. I want that to be the touch point where that's just a good idea. Not that's a great idea about diversity inclusion, because Akbar is a black man and might know that.

Rocki Howard:

Yeah, I love that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We can't wait to hear when that baby boy comes. And he is...it might be now. Yeah, I'll get let me let you go for sure. And he's really lucky to have you as a dad, thank you so much for being a voice of diversity today. We appreciate you. Thank you for joining. Thank you for listening to today's episode. The mission of this podcast is to give a voice to diversity. I believe that the interactions between all voices, minority and majority can change the narrative of how the world communicates. And by changing that narrative, we can change the world. Join our mission to humanize diversity, one story one conversation at a time by sharing our episodes, especially with those who are privileged and in positions of power. Help the Voices of Diversity podcast, be a catalyst for courageous conversations, and most importantly, for change. I'm your host Rocki Howard.

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