Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace with Eduardo Nieto

In this episode of See Yourself IN, host Casey Harrison talks with Eduardo Nieto, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director at One America Financial. Eduardo shares his inspiring journey from growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, to navigating a new life in Indiana. He discusses the importance of transferable skills, the significance of DEI in the workplace, and how embracing curiosity and authenticity can lead to a fulfilling career. 

Key Takeaways:

Embrace Your Authentic Self: Understanding and embracing your strengths and weaknesses are crucial for personal and professional growth.

Pursue Excellence, Not Perfection: Strive to improve every day and give yourself grace during the journey.

Stay Curious and Open-Minded: Being open to new experiences and challenges can lead to unexpected and rewarding opportunities.

Importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they belong can drive innovation and improve company culture.

Leveraging Transferable Skills: Exploring various fields and roles can help build a versatile skill set that enhances career prospects.

For more resources on the jobs, companies, and opportunities in Indiana, visit
https://www.cicpindiana.com/syi/  

Transcript

Casey Harrison: Welcome to today's episode of See Yourself IN, where you'll learn about cool jobs, people, and companies in Indiana. You'll also hear about skills that will help you find success, and most importantly, we hope they inspire you to dream big. I'm Casey Harrison, your host. On today's show, we're going to dive into Indiana's advanced industries and why they're important.

We'll talk about the skills that are transferable across jobs and industries, and determine some of the best ways to begin exploring these great opportunities. This episode of See Yourself IN features Eduardo Nieto. Eduardo grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, and he learned his work ethic by watching his parents make sacrifices for him and his brothers.

His passion for new experiences has offered him countless opportunities to learn and grow across countries, across fields of study, and in the workforce. On today's episode, he's sharing how you can build a career that's just as impactful as it is meaningful to you personally. Hello to our listeners. And hello to you, Eduardo.

I'm so glad you're here. 

Eduardo Nieto: Casey. It's so exciting to be here. Thank you so, so much. I'm a big fan of the podcast and super thrilled to be here with all of you this morning. 

Casey Harrison: Well, we're big fans of yours, and we're really excited that you could be here with us today. I knew Eduardo before the podcast, and I can tell you, you are in store for a lot of lessons today.

So really excited for this one. But you likely heard in the opener, Eduardo didn't grow up in Indiana. So by the time that you arrived in Indiana, you were almost in high school. So take us back to Guadalajara and share with us what got you here. 

Eduardo Nieto: Wow. Well, it really was a journey getting here and living in Guadalajara was very eye opening.

My parents, they, they split when I was about five. And so seeing my mom work not one, but two jobs, sometimes three jobs. That was very, very unique. You know, she would come home exhausted, and I'm the youngest of three, so my two brothers and I, , of course they would pick on me, but, you know, we would try to keep the house clean and do as much cooking as we knew back then, so a lot of tortillas and, , rice and beans and all that good stuff literally is what we would do.

And so my mom really, she wanted basically something better for us because in Mexico you really had to work hard just to survive. Yeah. And so she was a travel agent. And so she always knew that there's more out there too, especially in the U. S., Canada and so forth. So she was very intentional basically about getting her kids together, which my dad allowed them.

And then basically giving us a better opportunity. So she went on Match.com and basically set her filters to somebody in North America and landed meeting an individual here in Indiana. And so it was really, really cool when my mom said, Hey kids, I'm moving to the States. Who wants to go? And again, you know, we're thinking, okay, that's going to be like New York or San Diego or something.

Casey Harrison: Big cities. 

Eduardo Nieto: But then it's like, Indiana, we're like, but wait, is that where the Indy 500 takes place at? And she's like, I think so. We're like, we're in because we love, uh, motor speedway. We love racing things. We actually used to watch it when we were little. And so that I think really motivated us, right? To say, okay, cool.

We're actually coming to the States. Everything that you see in movies and everything is going to be a reality for us. And so then we just packed, packed, sold the house and basically just moved here. I always joke that we moved from the second largest city in Mexico, being Guadalajara, to the second smallest town in Indiana, Portland, Indiana.

There's about 10, 000 people, but a great cultural clash, right, of different countries and so forth. Eye opening, for sure. And being a minority, it really was something that we just had to learn, right, and kind of, you know, learn. In some cases, it did suppress a little bit of my identity being very Latin, very expressive, and so forth.

Very quickly learned that, hey, you gotta act a little bit different, too, and so forth. And so I gotta be vulnerable, right? It made me kind of figure out who am I, and so forth. So that journey was quite interesting, too. Yeah. But fast forward, right to where things are at right now that I'm really seeing the city, the state doing great things, really do some positive changes to being a lot more inclusive as well.

And just taking a step back and say, wow, I was part of the journey. And let's not stop. Let's continue to invite others come in here. It's just phenomenal. 

Casey Harrison: Oh, I love your story so much, but I want to go back and in high school, again, new to Indiana. A whole new culture, a whole new community.

Were you thinking about graduation and maybe life after graduation or were you so just in transition that that was not even a thought in your mind? 

Eduardo Nieto: At first, you don't know what you don't know, right? And so we had some of our beliefs from Mexico, but then coming here to the States, really I think education was very much instilled by our parents, especially my dad saying, Hey, after high school you really kind of move on to the next steps, which is college in here.

Right. And so we're like, okay, but I had no clue what to do, right? I'm like college. I mean, what do you do there? I thought you were just kind of like party, which I certainly did and then just have a good time. Right. And so I, I wanted to stay local, started looking at some of the prices from different states and everything.

So there's so much advantages to staying local, right? The state of Indiana offers great public and private schools too, but really taking advantage of that education here and what I can do for my job employment afterwards, that was really part of the research. And so landed at. back then it was known as IUPUI, now it's known for IU Indy.

And so that journey was really, really phenomenal. I was in school, actually like five years, I did not want to leave. It was like Van Wilder, if anybody has seen those movies or something, cause he was really staying in there, but really, really engaged. And part of it too, was because I just didn't know what to do.

There were so many interests of mine, and education really kind of gave you that opportunity to explore as many as you could. At a very reasonable price, too. And so, I was like, okay. So I started with engineering for one full year. I thought I was pleasing my dad. My dad's an engineer by trade.

And so I said, okay, I got to do the same thing. But quickly I learned that it was not as diverse as I wanted it to. Plus the math and the calculus. 

Casey Harrison: That'll do it. 

Eduardo Nieto: That ain't my jam. 

Casey Harrison: That'll do it. Yeah. 

Eduardo Nieto: So you got to really know your superpowers. 

Casey Harrison: That's right. 

Eduardo Nieto: What is it that you're good at, what you're not good at and so forth. 

Casey Harrison: And what you're interested in too. 

Eduardo Nieto: A hundred percent. Because if you're not interested in always just sitting behind the desk for me and doing some automated designs and everything else, then your life is not going to be as exciting as it can be. And so I continue basically just to pursue different, exploratory fields.

I wanted to be a doctor. I thought I wanted to be a doctor because the summer before joining college, I watch all the season of Scrubs and as hilarious as that show is. That's not real life, you know, uh, at least in the study piece. And so I said, okay, biology, I appreciate it, but again, it's not for me and so forth.

And then I really landed on, okay, where can I apply more of the skills in a very broad way in business really kind of presented this huge door opportunity, kind of like ahhh moment, right? And within business, I mean, there's so many disciplines that you can go in there. You can do marketing, you can do finance, you can do international business, you can do accounting, human resources, marketing and so forth.

So many, many things in there, right? And so I actually knowing that Indiana is known for the crossroads of America, I pursued a supply chain with a minor in marketing as well, too. So I said, cool, hopefully this will become skills that can be transferable to the future. And we'll go from there. 

Casey Harrison: Yeah. Well, and let's talk a little bit about how you apply those skills today, because you're currently the diversity equity and inclusion director for One America Financial, which is HQ or headquartered here in Indianapolis.

So for those unfamiliar, maybe, can you explain what One America is and what you do? 

Eduardo Nieto: One America Financial, some of you may know it for the funny sign that we have on the street. Gotta love the maintenance team, they're there rain, shine, or snow, really updating the quotes and so forth. And what's fascinating is that if you submit an entry for your joke or your dad joke typically to go in there, If you get selected, you actually get 8 added to your paycheck.

Casey Harrison: Oh, how fun. 

Eduardo Nieto: And that is to honor back in the day, we would pay on a daily basis, eight hours for the workers and the associates. And so the company has been around for close to 150 years. And with that expertise, we're really able to support our customers. We are a mutual organization that we focus on life insurance, employee benefits, retirement services and long term care, and we really champion lives. We're really there for our clients whenever they need us most. And in some cases it is at the hardest times of their life when somebody passes and we get to open up a claim and really just be there for them through that whole process.

But there's so much more than that. The culture at One America Financial is just truly phenomenal. And I've been there for four years now, Casey, and I have no sight and seeing basically went to stop. It is just one of those organizations that they truly value you as an individual. And I'm proud to say that I'm part of one of the teams within the company that really supports and drive that culture.

My role as a diversity and inclusion director out there is really ensuring that we create a place where individuals really feel a sense of belonging and that we're really. thoughtful about being inclusive with everybody, whether you're basically out of the home office in Indiana, working remotely at any of our other sites or working from home in any other states here within the U S as well, too, we're very much all about our associates and ensuring that there's a positive experience through that.

And we do so in a very thoughtful and conscious way. We also want to support the communities that we live in to really ensure that we create pipelines, right? And we get individuals exposed to what financial services is. Traditionally, financial services companies are not very diverse. Our CEO has said that traditionally they're male, stale, and pale.

And so it's how can we actually change that, right? And so we're really committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, really ensuring that everybody can see themselves within the company. And there's many, many different spaces in there on how to do it. 

Casey Harrison: I think that's incredible because if we rewind back just a few years, DEIA was not a priority for most companies. And if it was, it certainly wasn't as vocal of a priority as it is now. And so I want to maybe talk a little bit more about what does diversity, equity and inclusion look like at One America in the work that you lead? 

Eduardo Nieto: Every day within the description of it is very diverse. There's a lot of conversations that take place with different stakeholders, and that is across all levels.

You're talking to executive leaders all the way to frontline associates and so forth about what diversity truly means and really understanding that everybody's at different stages of diversity. So really, it's all about meeting everybody where they're at. Highlighting, too, that we all have bias. I certainly do.

I'm raising my hand right now. Because it's a human thing and really being vulnerable that really helps you connect with others to and to acknowledge that. Hey, I have those biases, but part of my role is to identify them. And how can we remove them so we can do better hiring decisions? Better decisions about how to move the business more forward and ultimately that thought in discussion, diversity and so forth will lead us to have more innovation, more separation basically from the different customers out there too.

And so that is really when you can really champion diversity as well. Diversity is not just the right thing, but you can also impact the bottom line. And bottom line is not always just a profit, it can also be cost avoidance. So when you really focus about engagement and retention, you're really doing a huge impact to the profit and the bottom line too, by ensuring that the associates feel connected and a sense of belonging and so forth.

Casey Harrison: I love that. It kind of sparked two thoughts for me. One is that the world has transitioned and the workforce has transitioned so much where companies are finally realizing that people really are their biggest asset to profitability. And so I love hearing you talk about your work. I'm also curious, I mean, as someone who had started in life science.

Well, actually started in supply chain, went to life sciences, is now in financial services, but is not, you're not doing finance and accounting. You're doing people work. I mean, would you have ever expected to be here? 

Eduardo Nieto: Not really. No, but I am so glad that I am. And I think the beauty too, is as you go through life, really just be curious, have that curiosity, because one thing will really lead you to another.

I have an open mind as well. Being open minded can really open up so many opportunities when you're young and your employer asks you, Hey, do you want to take on this new challenge or this new opportunity? Take it. Because really what they're saying is we want to invest in you because we see the potential and the talent and how can you basically continue further than that when you're later on your career?

When they say, Hey, we got a special project for you, that is going to look very different, right? And that special project is probably going to be exiting you out and so forth. So especially early on in your career, say yes, say yes to those opportunities. And while there may be some questions or reservations or challenges that may come through, just trust your gut.

Ultimately, you're going to be better off at the end by taking that step. 

Casey Harrison: That's absolutely right. What is it about doing equity work that you're so passionate about? 

Eduardo Nieto: Coming here from a different country, I didn't feel like I belong, I didn't feel like I fit in. And so, I know that there's probably others out there too that feel the same way, and they're not necessarily from different countries.

 they maybe have different backgrounds, different demographics, and so forth too. So, I feel like I've been called to life to ensure that others can really feel like they belong, and help them too. I certainly have been blessed with a lot of help too, and others that have seen the potential in myself. So now is how can I continue passing that on as well to others and so forth.

Casey Harrison: I love that. That's just so beautiful. Without a doubt, today's episode gives us so much to think about in terms of how we can start connecting to opportunities here in Indiana and really paving our own paths. So on See Yourself IN, we're all about knowledge sharing and we like to make it as tangible as possible.

So let's close today by just having you share what are three recommendations that you would encourage our listeners to take heed to that have helped you on your career journey? 

Eduardo Nieto: To sum it up in three, is how can we be practical and so forth. The first one I would really say is be yourself. The good, the bad, and the ugly, take it all in.

Because ultimately those are your superpowers. That is really what you bring to the table. Be very firm about what those are. Do the, do the work, right? Figure them out. Take assessments. There's some free tools out there. Employers will really offer that. School will certainly do that as well, too, but go through that journey to really know who you are, because ultimately that's going to position you to better articulate those strengths with others and so forth.

And once you're yourself and you're authentic, if you're not that, everybody else is already taken, right? So just be you. The other one too, again, I would say is give yourself grace. A lot of times as we go through that journey, we can be so hard on ourselves. We may strive for perfection in a way it's good, right? Cause you really want to set the bar high and really be accountable to yourself and so forth, but I would really say pursue excellence instead of perfection, meaning every day do better than you did the day before. And so really strive for excellence and not perfection. And the last one, really, I get, I would say is be curious and open minded too, because that curiosity is going to open up doors that you didn't know you wanted to go or that even existed and going through that journey, you'll be able to really leave your legacy behind, lift others to along the journey as well, too. So be curious for sure. 

Casey Harrison: Those are fantastic, fantastic recommendations. Eduardo, you are wonderful. I'm so glad you could join us today. Thank you. 

Eduardo Nieto: Casey, this was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much. And everybody that's out there listening, just take a chance, right? Ask others, too, how they got to where they're at and have an idea of where you want to go to and continue to listen to this podcast because there's so much knowledge in here and who knows, maybe you'll be here one day, too.

Casey Harrison: That's right. We're so glad that you were able to join us today to learn about Indiana's advanced industries and how you can start or enhance your career journey. Until next time, we hope that you'll be able to see yourself in the unlimited opportunities right here in Indiana.