Perkins & Will on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion | Gabrielle Bullock & Meg Brown, Principals

All right, thanks folks. Start trickling in. We're going to get started here in a minute, but in the interim, I'm going to go ahead and throw a question in the chat. And the question is, what has been the most useful book, website, conference, podcast, etc., in helping you and your firm to understand and advance, advance equity, diversity, and inclusion? So, you know, if you've got something to share that you think would be useful for others, please put it in the chat. We're going to collect all of them and include them in the collaborative notes that we send out afterwards. I will give folks one more minute. Alright, let's get started. So hello and welcome to this deep dive on equity, diversity, and inclusion at Perkins+Will featuring Gabrielle Bullock, Principal and Director of Global Diversity at Perkins+Will, and Meg Brown, Chief Talent Officer at Perkins+Will. I'm Christopher Parsons, founder and CEO of Knowledge Architecture, and I'd like you to welcome you to K Connect online. Um, today's structure. So this is a 90-minute session, and we're going to start with about 60 to 65 minutes of discussion followed by Q&A. Um, and so that Q&A time will be at the end, but I'd encourage you to start adding questions into the questions panel. So down at the bottom of Zoom, if you haven't been on a Zoom webinar before, there's a Q&A section. So add your questions there so you don't have to remember them at the end. And as you see others add questions, please vote for the question or questions you'd like to see Gabrielle and Meg answer at the end by clicking the like button next to that question. So we're going to take the questions in the end in the order of the number of votes that they receive. Um, today's program is being recorded and we'll send out the recording in the next few days. And in addition, we are taking collaborative notes. So if you've been on a K-Connect webinar before, You know that Susan Strom, our Director of Client Success, will be taking notes during the session in a Google Doc. So please feel free to jump in. I'm going to share the link here in a second. You can jump in and take notes alongside her and other folks in the community. And what we're looking for is capturing quotes or links or resources, books, etc., and we'll share that final document along with the video in a few days. So I'm going to go ahead and paste that in now. Okay, so that's all the logistics. I want to introduce you to our featured guests. Um, as the second Black female to graduate from the architecture department of the Rhode Island School of Design, Gabrielle Bullock has been a key player in Perkins Will's success for over 3 decades, working in both the New York and Los Angeles studios, where she became the first African American and first woman to rise to the position of managing director. Her unique role as the firm's Director of Global Diversity and an award-winning principal enables her to combine the passion for architecture and social justice to affect positive change. As Chief Talent Officer, Meg Brown plays an integral role in enhancing Perkins Will's workplace culture, building teams, and ensuring a rewarding experience for staff at all levels. She's responsible for recruitment, learning and development, benefits, compensation, performance management, talent brand communication, acquisition-related human resources, and coaching. Meg's commitment to nurturing the human side of Perkins Will's design practice has led to a thriving culture of engagement, innovation, and collaboration. And I can say that I have had the pleasure of spending time with Gabrielle and Meg preparing for this discussion over the last few months, and I'm just delighted and grateful to be here today with both of you. So Gabrielle and Meg, will you please turn your cameras on and unmute yourself and join the conversation? Hello.

Hi, Chris.

Hi.

Where's my partner in crime?

We got, we got one of two.

There she is.

Hey, Meg. Well, let's get started by time traveling and going all the way back to 2013, which was when Perkins Will started your formal EDI program. By creating Gabrielle's job of Director of Global Diversity. And maybe Meg, you can start by talking about Perkins Will's efforts leading up to the creation of Gabrielle's role, and then maybe Gabrielle, maybe you can take us forward and what led you to proposing the position and what did you propose the impact would be, and then how you spent almost a year of listening to the firm and designing the program.

Sure, happy to do that, Chris. I guess it was at our 75th anniversary where we formally our principals and our associate principals get together for a 3-day powwow, and it was an outcome of that that we wanted to elevate diversity. And I think at the point— at that point in time, it was just called diversity and inclusion. It has since evolved to justice, equity, design, and inclusion, which we'll talk about later. But up until that point, We were doing the normal type of thing, compliance type of activities that firms do relative to equal, um, equal opportunity employment. Um, but we are a firm that is very big about social responsibility, and this really was an extension of social responsibility. And so it was very easy for us, um, without any hesitation to say we need somebody that is a champion, an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion. And Gabrielle's appointment was interesting because she's had a long and great career with Perkins and Will. She had been the Managing Director of our LA office. Gabrielle always had a passion for this, and so it was very natural for Gabrielle to step into that role. And since that point, The journey continues, and you'll hear our story today, which I think will be helpful to firms that didn't start with world hunger. You know, we started with world hunger, but the team went through a process that continues to, to evolve so that what started as a sole source initiative is now something that has become part of the Perkins Will culture and DNA.

Right. And thanks, Chris. Thanks, Meg. I'll say from a personal standpoint, you know, being one of less than 500 Black women licensed architects in this country, being the only one in the room in most of my career was really a personal impetus to do this. Also being an architect and working on projects all over the world, I recognized that we could do a better job about being culturally competent, and rather than apply just a Western design philosophy and approach across the board. So that was a personal mission of mine. The other one was I realized, and how I proposed this to the board and to the firm, was that we had to— I wanted to raise the consciousness and the awareness of diversity and how there's a business imperative Right? Because if there wasn't a business imperative, I don't care if it's a good thing to do or not, it would be— I thought it would be a hard sell. So there was clear research on the business imperative that the more diverse you are, the more inclusive you are, the more financially successful you are, as well as the more innovative and creative. So I went with that. There was also a demographic imperative, and not just by race, gender, but all of the different generations that were in the workforce. So I felt like we were, we were not keeping up and that it was beginning to show up in ways that were not necessarily going to be successful. And finally, I thought we should mirror the society and the clients that we serve. So I bundled all that together into a, into a white paper, basically, and established all the reasons why. And that formulated this formal program. And then I decided— I suggested that I'd be the leader of it.

That was the conclusion of all the research.

And there weren't many people standing in line, "No, no, no, I want to do it." They were like, "Go ahead, do it." Yeah.

One of the things you shared with me in the prep is that you took almost a year before you really formalized. And I'm kind of curious, how did you spend that year? What did that look like?

Yeah, I spent the year because although I had this intuition that what the problems are, I didn't really know. So I took a year to do a deep dive into the firm, basically a firm assessment, and I went to each office and had an informal, safe discussion with a representative group of that studio. What are the issues? What are the opportunities across the entire spectrum of, spectrum of diversity and inclusion? And from that came about 6 big topics that were things that we could form our strategy around. And that became the basis of our strategic action plan around diversity.

Did you do this alone or do you have a consultant? How did you, as an architect, how did you know how to do this, right?

Well, I did a lot of research. I called some firms, not architectural firms. There were some real estate firms that had a program in place. So I picked their brain about how they started. I met with the head of diversity at the AIA, talked about, you know, what they did and how we should go about this, and then I did it by myself. So I just gathered all the information because I didn't really see it as, you know, this big audacious goal that couldn't be achieved. It's going to talk to people. And I think because I would call it naïveté or whatever, because I didn't see it as such a big deal, it was actually the way to find out the information that it was actually very easy. To have these conversations and to have people open up. That it wasn't, you know, we're going to do this, this, and this, so I need to talk to you. It's like, I need to talk to you to figure out what's going on.

In other words, run it like a design project.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Meg, you said something to me in our kind of pre-interview discussions about having— and you do have your CEO on board, right, Phil Harrison— but having a CEO on board isn't enough. You need the whole board. And I'm curious if you could speak a little bit more about that. Need for a broader buy-in and why you think that's true.

Sure. I do think it does start with the CEO. It's natural as the head of an organization that he is the one that's going to have the advocacy and the influence on all the leadership at large. But it became very, very important to us very early on that leadership took responsibility for understanding that this was going to become part of not just the Perkins and Will culture, but each studio culture. And that they were going to be evaluated on that. And although this is not the type of thing that we want it to be the carrot and the stick, you do have to instill some type of measurement so that you can track your progress. But our culture, and again, I think a lot of this is because social responsibility is such a big piece of who we are, people naturally got on board. I have talked to people at other firms who have commented, look, we don't know where to start. We're not as sophisticated as Perkins Will. We don't have— we're not sure if our CEO is going to support this. I think this goes back to something that Gabrielle said. You at least have to have— start having those conversations. And some of those conversations have to be courageous because people may have resistance because they're uncomfortable. People may have resistance because they just don't believe in it. But if you start to have these conversations with your leadership, amongst your leadership, and you're talking about it's not just because it's a good thing to do and the value proposition in it, and it's imperative to the business because diversity, especially in the creative process, makes us such a much richer creative innovative firm. And clients are asking for this. So, it is fairly easy, I think, to get momentum when you approach it with, "Let's just sit and talk." And also, "Let's make it a safe space." We know we're gonna make some mistakes along the way. Some people may say some things they did not intend to say. But that's okay. We have to start these conversations so that people can get comfortable. With the prospect of moving or creating a diversity and inclusion initiative within their firms.

Yeah, that's great, Meg. I think that you both spoke to conversation, and I know from speaking with you that an outcome of this conversation, right, was a vision and a strategic plan for diversity, which you all put together. And I'm curious if you can kind of take us through moving from conversation to a vision and a plan, and we'll get through kind of implementation.

Okay. Um, so overall we wanted to, one, impact the culture of the firm, impact and advance the profession at large, and to help build the pipeline, right? So those are three overarching pillars. And so our strategic plans were based on about six areas. Recruitment and retention, which speaks to the pipeline issue and how to keep folks in the firm. Learning and development— how do we foster more education around diversity and inclusion along the way, not just formal training, but conversations on a local level, activities on the local level, all of that. And inclusion engagement advancement, right? What, what observations do our studios have? What activities, what are they seeing both from internal and external that can help foster inclusion? And then, how is there a culture of diversity and inclusion from an office leadership standpoint and from, you know, all staff, staff level? Are the offices proactively advocating and doing things to, to advance that. And then the last one, which you may not think has to do with diversity and inclusion, but one of the common issues that came up from the listening tour across every single studio was work-life balance. I call it work-life integration. And so we included that as one of our areas to measure and focused on because it became clear that not everybody's lifestyle was equally accepted as valid in some cases, right? I would just— a bunch of situations around, I need to leave early for a date, from perhaps a gay guy, and wasn't necessarily seen as valid as the mother who had to go pick up her kid from school. So there clearly had to be some more conversations and reinforcement around flexibility and work-life integration. So those are the 6 or 7 areas that we can go into more detail as you like about how it impacts them. So, Meg, if you want to take the recruitment side, because that was really— is really one of the bigger pieces, one to impact the demographics and then how you retain them.

Sure. The easiest thing to do is to— is your own firm assessment. And you're looking at it, your overall makeup, but then you're looking at it by groupings. So you want to especially focus on leadership, because leadership traditionally tends to be white male men. But with that information, once you have the demographics information, you want to tie it to your recruitment process. So it means that your outreach changes. It means that you're looking at more proactive relationships with the HBCUs. It means that with the private white institutions, you're also communicating to them that we want to increase representation of people of color or females. It means that you're doing the things like establishing scholarships. It means that you're going on campus. It means that you're doing design crits. That you're inviting people into your space so that you can expose people to architecture. But it is really expanding the way that you recruit versus the traditional way of recruiting, which would be, I'm putting an ad out on LinkedIn, and whoever applies, I'm just gonna select that person.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so where we have evolved, where we are today, um, is that the pipeline does have to be built. There is not a bevy of people of color, especially Black architects, out in the world today. So what that means is that you also have to look at this as a long-term investment. So you have to get, you know, at one point we were looking at the high schools, but we're even saying, you know, we need to get in before high school. We need to get into the elementary schools. So forming those relationships all feeds into recruitment. And how you're going about cultivating your brand, your outreach, being in the community to attract people. But you also, with that assessment, and this is where the measurement comes in, you need to kind of look at, well, how are we doing? And you also want to look at your current workforce. Is it the usual suspects who are being brought to the forefront, which Traditionally, I think people have gravitated towards the extrovert, the people that have the big ver— the big voice, which also is another layer of diversity. That you can be an introvert, um, but just because you don't have a big voice, maybe you're, you're just not going noticed. Where a firm has to be very conscientious about reaching out to everybody to have that equal platform so that people feel that they can have the ability And there's some things that you go about differently to get people to join the conversation. But that's how you look at kind of the overarching approach to recruitment.

Right. And so, on the strategic action plan, and then the progress tracker, where you report how you've done, in each of these areas, the studios must identify and explain what they've done to advance it. What schools, what new schools have they gone to so that we're not still recruiting the same? One of the other categories is, so the outreach Meg mentioned to build the pipeline, volunteering at a K-12 school to help introduce and provide awareness on what the profession is for youth of color. The learning and development, and by the way, the outreach to K-12 and organizations like NOMA's Summer Camp Pipeline have been overwhelmingly one of the biggest things that the firm as a whole has participated in. It is an easy— everybody likes to let others know what they do and how they do it to encourage them. So, that's been very easy for the firm and offices to do. I think part of the retention, Meg, I would add is that we now have to look at how are we evaluating our staff. Are we taking into account not just credentials, not just the usual performance metrics, but value of lived experiences? And that goes to recruitment as well, right? We're not just checking the box on the typical skill set, but there's a whole, um, whole set of values around the culture that you bring, the perspectives that you bring, particularly if it has to do with, you know, particular community that we're working in or particular clients or countries or whatever. So I think that's something new for us. The learning and development, again, beyond the formal training that me and Meg, um, provide for the entire firm through consultants. We expect studios to have ongoing, um, conversation, educational events, discussions, bring in experts, um, have people in the office share their experiences so that it's not just from the top down but that it's from the bottom up. Um, I think that the ones that are harder to measure are the inclusion and engagement advancement and the culture of diversity. And so how we measure that is depending on how the studios describe their activities and their focus. Some tie it to our social responsibility work, doing work in a community of color or low-income community, or a youth program. So it's about an attitude and a philosophy. So if you describe what you're looking for and then let folks do what they think is best in their locale. I can't emphasize enough that it's not one size fits all, even for a firm like Perkins Will.

And Gabrielle, sorry to interrupt. Can you give us a sense of scale, and for folks that don't know, scale and size of Perkins Will and where you—

So we are 27 offices, I think, now, and 2,500 to 2,700 employees. Most of our offices are in North America. So the majority of our staff are US and Canadian based.

And one thing— a reason I wanted you to say that, Gabrielle, and Meg, this is something you and I and Gabrielle talked about, is I'm saying this early in our conversation so that people don't check out and say, That's great, Perkins Will, you have all these resources. That's how you're able to move the needle. We don't have a firm-wide director of global diversity, et cetera. So I'm curious to talk about scaling. And because I know that you've both spoken with many firms of different sizes, how do you respond if someone says Perkins Will can do this because you're Perkins Will?

Well, it's all scalable. I mean, first of all, there's a bevy of resources. Pleased to see in the chat room a lot of the resources that people are, are posting. But I think that maybe some people are hesitant to go into something like this because they think they're overwhelmed by just the thought of it. Yeah. And, and, you know, if I go back and, and I like to approach things like a design problem. If a client came to you and said, hey, um, I need to design a facility I don't know where to begin or how I'm going to do it. You're going to take a research-based approach. You're going to ask the appreciative questions. You're going to go through this process. And I think if you kind of put it in that scenario that people are familiar with, then there will be some individual— you'll be able to talk about, all right, where do we want to start? Because you're just going through this process of asking these questions. And then I think out of that, you can start to formulate where the next steps are. And not every firm, especially small firms and even big firms, have a Director of Diversity and Inclusion. Um, there's many ways you can go about it, but I think if you find somebody within your organization that has the passion for it, um, and then you are doing some investment in some areas that maybe they need to learn more about, that, that's really an easy starting point for you.

And I would add that the AIA has the Equitable Practice Guides that are available to everybody. So it talks about the concepts and some how-tos. I think that, that's a start. Um, if— and I, I would imagine that a smaller firm would have an easier job of figuring out what their challenges are than a 2,700-person firm. Right? So while Perkins Wells' efforts are big, it's because our firm is big. It's a lot of people to gather around a mission and a vision. Right? So I wish I were in a small firm. Boy, we'd be all for it. So I don't want anybody to get discouraged. Yes, it's a big issue, but it's not— It's not impassable. I think if it's, if it's, if you, if you consider it a commitment to the greater good, then you'll, you'll be able to figure out, and there's plenty of free resources. The other thing I would suggest is that if you can't, if you don't have the ability to create this role, then hire a consultant to help you develop the plan.

Actually, it's interesting. You're not a full-time in this role.

No.

Gabrielle, right. Well, as you well know. But I don't know that everyone who's listening knows this, that you're also a practicing architect still. And so do you think it's important for you to keep one foot in practice and one foot in your kind of more corporate responsibilities, and why?

Yes, I am supposedly 50/50. 50% EDI and 50% work. But you know we all work 150%. So, you do the math. I think it's important for me to remain a practicing architect because it provides some credibility. I never want to get too far away from how JEDI impacts our work and our clients and our teams. And so, that's the difference between an EDI director within architecture than perhaps another profession. Right? And so for me personally, I would not feel terribly confident in talking about the impact on our work and communities if I weren't in it. That make sense?

It does. And Meg, maybe we can talk about structure because you and the HR organization, as well as other people in Perkins Will, are part of the EDI program. So maybe you can break down kind of the sponsor, what your role is with the HR team, Meg, and then I know there's some other folks like studio diversity champions and a diversity council. Maybe we can kind of talk through how that's all structured.

Sure. Each of our studios has an HR leader, and I think when people think about diversity and inclusion, they think it, you know, naturally folds into human resources. But again, not every small firm, so I'm trying to make this scalable, will have an HR person in their office. You have to have somebody that is the advocate who has some ownership. And I think it also helps if it's somebody that is a leader that's within that group. We, though, because of scale, we did form a diversity council, and people rotate in and out. But the diversity council has been a group of people who are committed to this and have a passion for it, because there are actions that come out of it that, you know, Gabrielle and I just can't do by ourselves. Each office has a diversity champ. Each studio has a diversity champion. And think of it as a project team. You know, everybody has their different projects, but we all collectively communicate with each other so that we can employ best practices, find out what's going on in other offices, and that type of thing. What I am very pleased to see that is really, really exciting is that Gabrielle and I definitely work hard at this, but so many people have just risen up within the organization that have a passion for this that it has become some grassroots things have been going on where people are doing things on their own. A good example is NOMA. NOMA is having their first virtual conference this year because of COVID Gabrielle and I were around the edges, but we did not have to put the program together. We did not have to— people to go. In fact, it was very exciting because a lot of our younger talent ran with this. What that illustrates though, and this is what you want the end game to be, that it's becoming part of our DNA. Gabrielle and I often talk about when sustainability came, you know, on the forefront, you know, it was— everybody was saturated with, you know, the community groupie and all the things that go with it. And this same type of evolution has occurred. There are some complexities to it, but when people start to think about this as part of their everyday work life, that's what they want. I was telling Gabrielle the other day, with everybody working from home, we embraced Teams. I can't even tell you how many teams we have at Perkins and Will. Stop Teams! But we didn't have to tell the offices to have a JEDI team. They formed their own JEDI teams. And then we have the overarching umbrella where we can post resources and things like that, but it's, it's It's very exciting and it makes it easier because the more people who contribute to this process, the more, the better opportunities you're going to have to keep building and building and building and building and building.

Right. And our focus and our team structure is intentionally not meant to be an overlay, right? Because an overlay, an initiative will likely fall by the wayside. With the next priority, which is likely about design or finances. So, over the last 7 years, I think we've been successful in creating a firm that values diversity, justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, as much as we do design and sustainability. And so, that's been great in that our teams, you know, the diversity champions get together as a team on a regular basis. The council gets together, and so the network, you know, we're able to respond to immediate issues very quickly, and at least to acknowledge them, right? We don't always have the answers real quick, but I think that's been the benefit of our structure and our team team makeup around JEDI.

You've actually, you've said JEDI a few times, and I don't, I don't know that everyone on the call knows what JEDI is, and I'm kind of curious, and this is maybe combined with a different question that I think is, is going to end at the same place, is how has the program evolved since that kind of 2013, 2014, both over that time, but then even since the events of the summer with George Floyd and, and kind of social justice movement getting you know, kind of taken to the next level, right? What's new and what has changed?

Right. So, um, coincidentally, at the end of last year, when we established our next focus area for the coming year, the Council decided that race really needs to be an area that we explored more openly. Both within the firm and the profession. So fast forward to May, well, starting with COVID and then with George Floyd's murder, the writing was really on the wall that we had to focus on what justice, how justice and equity influenced our program. And so if you're not familiar with Bryan C. Lee, he's an architect whose firm designed justice. And so listening to him and how he talks about how justice and equity are really, if you focus on that, then you will achieve diversity and inclusion. But to start with D&I, then you're really just checking a box. And so thinking about that and thinking about everything that's come out of the social protest, the racial protest this spring and summer, We took the opportunity to refocus our effort and call it JEDI. And it started with exploring issues of race, racism, how it shows up in urban planning, how it shows up in architecture, how it shows up in the firm and the profession. So through a series of educational programs that we've put on, outside speakers and all, it's, it's been a great way to spawn the conversation, a real conversation around race. And so that, along with the difficult conversations on a local level and then a firm-wide level, webcasts addressing what we were going to do to respond. Like most firms, put out a public statement, and so we identified our action items. So I think that's the evolution from when it was diversity, inclusion, and engagement to now Jedi. And it really is getting to the meat of the issue around inclusion and equity.

Megan, Gabrielle, I'm curi— that evolution, do you think that that was a logical sequence, or could a firm start by focusing on justice? And could you start focusing externally and work back internally, or do you need to really look internally first before you look outside?

My personal opinion is that you should start internally, because if you focus on external— let's take the response to George Floyd's murder and Black Lives Matter movement. The firms and individuals that jumped on a statement but had nothing to back it up looked like a marketing move, a PR move, right? Those that took some time to figure out what they can realistically do and realistically commit to is probably going to be more sustained. I mean, I think that everybody should have said something, but saying something and not doing anything is not, not doing any good. So I think internal first. Mm-hmm. Meg?

Yeah, I agree with that, but I think what we have seen because of these events. In addition, the design profession really has stepped up. In fact, the design publications, Architectural Record, Architecte, Dezeen, a whole bunch of publications, and even the stories that you're seeing on social media, their reaction has been huge. But to Gabrielle's point, You know, this is not a moment in time. There's going to be other moments, and what you decide to do as a firm will continue to evolve and change because events do shape that. But if you don't have the premise, and if you're not starting internally, and you're just being reactive and trying to check off the box because of something horrible that happened, you're not going to get the momentum and you're not— it's not going to become part of your culture.

Earlier, Gabrielle, you mentioned kind of 3 areas around building firm culture, advancing the profession, and the pipeline. And you talked a little bit about the pipeline. I wonder if the 2 of you could take us through the other 2, kind of what it means around building firm culture and what advancing the profession sounds and looks like.

I'll start with the profession because that's probably easier to describe. So it was important to us to, if we could, lead the charge within the profession, be an example of how we can move this forward. And, you know, 1968, Whitney Young Jr. admonished the AIA for not being diverse and for their thunderous silence, right? So, I'm the Whitney Young recipient this year. And so, for me, it's like, okay, the thunderous silence, right? So, even before that, I thought it is important not just to bring Perkins Woolley along, because it's not enough to have one firm or two firms focused on this, that it was a sense of urgency for the entire profession. So, through my work, I've been— I volunteer on task force for the AIA, Equity by Design, the— equitable practice guides that started out of a task force. So all of that contribution and advocacy is part of what I do, and that has worked. Webinars and conferences like this are abundant now that I don't have to get on a plane and nobody has to pay me. So, and I'm glad to do it. So I think that's what, I think that's been successful. And so while we are, we, by our peers, have been identified as a leader in this, I think there are more firms coming along with loud voices and also becoming leaders in this. So that's what I meant by the profession.

May I give you an example?

Yeah.

Will, and it did not come from Gabrielle and I. Following the event, the George Floyd event, and our position and our statement and our webcast, an employee said we should give Juneteenth off, which was, you know, Emancipation Day. And we did not hesitate. We gave that day off. It wasn't in the budget to start with. That's a big number for, you know, 2,400, 2,500 people, but we did it.. And this week I was pleased to believe that our peer firms, other large firms, they're planning for it as well as in 2021. So that's the type of thing that as a professional you want to see because you don't have to be healthy by yourself. There's so many resources that we're able to do, but when you start to see these outcomes and other firms are doing this type of thing, or paid parental leave, or the work-life integration, especially with, I think, all of us working at home now, has shown that, you know, that's something that's easy to do. All that is part of your culture and is something that has gained momentum. It's just kind of the rolling stone getting the moss, where everybody's getting on board, which is what we want.

Right? So it really has— I wouldn't say it's completely in our DNA, but it's a lot further along, and it really is one of those values that staff and clients alike talk about. And we don't, as Meg said earlier, we don't have to dictate what studios need to do. They know the mission, and they are finding ways to make change and to make noise, right? Our pay equity analysis that we did several years ago was because of a request, repeated requests by staff members, right? Particularly during the Me Too. And so fast forward to the Juneteenth request, you know, it's same thing. It happened. Somebody asked for it and, and we did it. And so I think it says a lot about a firm's culture if you don't have to go through 8 committees and 10 signatures to get that approved within a matter of days.

But this has been the result of a long journey, right? Yes, yes. And so one of the most common write-in questions we got for registering for the webinar was, what's your, you know, my kind of version of it, what's your advice to an AE firm who's just getting started on their EDI journey?

I think— go ahead. No, you go first.

I was gonna say, you know, Gabrielle mentioned earlier the AIA guide for equitable practices. I think doing some self-education, and again, I'm glad to see all these resources that people are putting in the chat, that, that's really important. I also, you know, think back to when Perkins and Mills started and we showed a video in every studio with Melody Hobson on Colorblind or Color Brave, a TED Talk. And that also was something that kind of spurred some conversation and was very emotional, but it helped to garner some interest. And that started at a studio basis. I mean, it wasn't like we said, okay, 2,400 people are going to get in front of a firm. And it was done over lunchtime, and we facilitated conversation. So I think that there's a bunch of things that you can do. What you need to avoid is going in with this, "Oh my God, world hunger." This is a journey. It's not going to be things that happen overnight, and we have said that from day one. So, you know, you can— there are some things you definitely want to react to and be responding to immediately. But, you know, it's okay as long as you are sharing your plan, you're communicating, it's part of your strategy, you're measuring, you're gonna get there, and you can start small.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want it to sound like it's so simple, 'cause it's not, but it's not so impossible either. So, have that conversation amongst your leadership group about this topic, and if you need help doing it, there's plenty of free resources and talks and books on how to have the conversation. But I think if you don't understand what works for your own organization and the options that you may have, which areas to focus on, then you'll be— you'll try and do too much too quick and probably not do so well. Because this is, you know, it's serious business, but it's not impossible.

But I think what I've heard from you two is focus on some education first, both self-education, but then invest for other folks. And is that fair to say that it starts with leadership, or is that not necessarily?

I would say yes, it does start with leadership, but I would imagine that the push to leadership is going to come from the lower ranks of an organization.

Mm-hmm. How—

there's so many things that you can— I mean, there's so many things to do, just period. But then within EDI also, how does Perkins and Will, or the two of you specifically, prioritize your efforts, your resources, your energy in terms of where to do the work?

I think You know, up until this year, we still had stuff to do within those 7 categories, but I think we're letting society tell us what's next because society is really our staff. So I think we took our lead this year, even though we identified it last year, but we took our lead on what's going on. In society. And so race and design is a priority for us right now, and exploring, as I said before, how it shows up in our work and what can we do to challenge the status quo in that area. Where can we challenge our clients' assumptions? Where can we challenge the planning commission's, you know, zoning and covenants and all, and all that stuff. So I think that is one of it. But the other thing is the priority is really just keeping our eye on the ball. And so the annual report, which reports progress, allows us to understand which areas do we still need to double down on. Mm-hmm. And so we've relied on our progress reports from our studios and the demographic report to tell us what— where we're not there yet. And I'll give you another example. We do a complete slice and dice of our demographics and where folks fall within every aspect of our firm, and we recognize a gap in some design leadership around diversity. And so that is a focus. We have recognized a deficit in, or a gap in gender leadership in certain categories, in certain disciplines. So, those are the things that we bring to the forefront and we elevate across all practice areas, to the board, to the design board, to everybody, so they know that this is a priority that we need to focus on. And we're pretty transparent about it. I think that's the other thing that firms can do is be transparent. What you're looking to do, what you know and what you don't know, and, um, you know, how you plan on getting there.

Meg, anything you want to add to that in terms of kind of priorities or, um, kind of thoughts going into 2021?

You know, I think going into 2021, there's so much uncertainty. Right now, a big push for us has been the hybrid workforce. In some ways, the hybrid workforce, because we're all on the same technology— technology platform and we're talking all the time, some of these things are easier to easier to prioritize. But I would say that we will continue to be focused on Black Lives Matter, Black design talent, and doing everything that we can to be supportive in that area. As Gabrielle mentioned though, you know, this justice part and paying attention to how we can be proactive as much as possible in our communities is, is, is critical., and I, I know for us, our clients are asking us for this type of thing. Um, I, this year more than ever, I have seen more, um, RFIs where people are asking us not just for an EEO-1 report, but what are you doing to advance diversity in your firm? It's the business imperative. Um, we, we're being conscientious. You know, when you're putting project teams together, you just can't be looking at who's bringing the best expertise for this client. You have to look at diversity. Are the people that you're bringing to the table reflective of the community and the client that we're serving? So that will continue to be an area of emphasis for us. you know, acknowledge your milestones and things that go on in your firm. Because I think, or even with people in general, sometimes it tends to be an innate competition. So, you know, when these, when these report, when the annual report comes out, we're sharing with Diversity Traffic, some studios will be like, well, we should be doing that too. You know, we can do better. So There's some healthy competitiveness in this. And then one final thing that I'll say that I think was something that we treasure is the Phil Frelund legacy. Our design competition that we do every year, we renamed that in honor of Phil Frelund, so it's the Phil Frelund Design Competition. Although we had the benefit of Phil Freelon, you know, other people can look within your organizations and how you sponsor things, whether it's, you know, a well-known architect that you want to rename something, somebody honored. There are things that you can do that are both symbolic but are going to help garner some passion and commitment to Do you look back on this program that you would do differently?

Lessons learned?

Start 10, 15 years earlier. I think, you know, it's taken us some time to understand the nuances of different countries. So we're an international firm, so Figuring that out has not been easy, but I think the one thing that the social unrest that started in the US has spread across the world. So while there may not be the same issues in the UK or Denmark, there are similar issues around this. So I think if we had— if we could have figured that out sooner, I think we'd be a little bit ahead of the game.

But yeah, I would echo that.

That's really the only thing I'd do different.

That's the only one thing?

So far.

You've mentioned this kind of the tracker and kind of measurement, and I'm wondering, is that something you can share with us?

Yes.

Okay.

As I— well, I wish I could pull it up now, but it would take some time, but yes. And I see a bunch of questions there about how it shows up.

Then afterwards, or—

yeah, I can do it.

I can describe it if you like, about how you measure success and what that looks like.

Yeah, so each of the 7 categories that I identified before has certain prompts. We'll take recruitment. Which schools did you expand your recruitment from? That's a very easy thing. On building a culture, what programs did you do or advocate for this year? And they have to describe it. See, this is from the studio's perspective. What outreach programs or organizations were you actively involved in? And so by then, it's a narrative response. It's just not Yes and no. So, it's a narrative response, and that's why it's more difficult to analyze and measure progress on the intangible, on the qualitative stuff. So, it takes some time. But from, from their own reporting and the Council's analysis of it, we can tell whether or not there really is a true advocacy and action going on in the studios. And where there's not, then we can double down on that studio and engage them in further dialogue. But how it's all compiled is I come up with a smiley face to a, you know, frowny red face.

That's the metric.

And every color in between. So at the end of the year, you see a matrix of every office and all, and you can see You can see at a glance who's been paying lip service and who's actually making a real difference. And so, and that's the one thing, honestly, nobody reads the report but me, but that graphic alone causes the internal healthy competition. How'd New York get that green face? I want a green face, I got an orange face. You didn't do anything. Yeah, yeah. So it's not terribly scientific, but it is impactful.

I want to ask you each one, one final question, and then I want to start taking questions from the audience. And it's to be just kind of looking back, what's the most rewarding part of the EDI journey at Perkins and Will for each of you? What are you most proud of?

You want to go first?

Yeah, I think I'm most proud of, um, beyond what we've done internally, I'm, I'm very proud of what I'm seeing the profession at large doing, um, because I think that helps everyone. So when I look at, um, beyond Gabrielle, and I'm, I'm looking at a few people at some of the competitor, competitor firms, um, It gives me great pride to see that we're not doing this alone. Finally, I'm also happy to see the partnerships that we have with HBCUs that are increasing and how I think NOMA has elevated their organization a little bit or has expanded it more through Kimberly Dodell, who is the current president, that has been something that people really can see as a resource and people that can help them.

And I'm most proud of how JEDI is really being embraced with the work that we do, that it's not, it's no longer just about firm culture or professional culture or numbers. It's about the real value and impact on where we do work and the communities we're impacting. And without the JEDI lens, I don't think we would make much progress in making things better for all, all communities.

Do you have a project example, Gabrielle, you might want to share?

I do. Okay. Called Destination Crenshaw, and it is an outdoor art and cultural experience in South Los Angeles. For those who don't know, it is one of the largest Black communities in Los Angeles, and it is driven by the community. It's a private— mostly privately funded, and the community wanted to hire, select and hire a team that represented them. Where there was a shorthand cultural connection that they could authentically tell their story. So they handpicked not only Perkins Will for our experience in this area, but several of us architects that work for Perkins Will happen to be architects of color. So, and it's one, the best example that I've ever had in my career that really engages the value and the differences, the cultural competency, to realize a project, a very valuable project for community. I'm not sure that if we didn't have and value diversity and inclusion and have representation that we would get the project. There was a mistrust to hire a firm that could not represent culturally, racially, and, you know, so, and I think there is more and more. I get at least one call a week from another office. How do we respond to this? The client wants to know what's our team structure going to be? What's our philosophy? I said, well, you know our philosophy, and short of representation, if we are culturally competent in our design process, And anybody can do authentic work if they're culturally competent. So representation is always better, but you know.

Yeah, thank you. So we're going to turn to some audience questions. For those of you that might have joined a couple minutes late, you can put questions in the Q&A panel. You can vote for the questions you'd most like to hear answered. And I'm going to go ahead and start, and it looks like Ariel Levy is our first person. So Ariel, what I'm going to do is unmute you so you can ask your question.

All right.

You should be good now. Ariel, are you still with us?

Oh, sorry. I didn't click my button.

There you go. I had two up there.

One of them was what sort of budget, as a percent of revenue perhaps, does Perkins Will dedicate annually to kind of collectively JEDI initiatives? The other one was I'd love to hear a lot more about how you articulated the business case, or I think as you called it, the business imperative. I just, you know, we're finding that it's very easy to talk about, to talk about the fact that diverse groups are more creative, productive, you know, which eventually leads to profitability. But I'm just wondering what sort of data you used in the background to support this. And also kind of the connectivity between that and how you actually measure diversity.

Okay, I'll start with the funding part, the budget. So it's basically half my salary paid for by corporate, by corporate budget, and any training that we are planning in advance We let the offices know that it will be, you know, parsed out and paid for on a local basis. I— there is a budget for sponsorships, other activities of— and it's not really a percentage of annual revenue. I'd say it— I can't even give you a percentage. But I prepare a budget every year based on previous activities and what we're looking forward to the future. So, I'd say overall it's probably a $200,000 budget. And that includes part of my salary. That's where we are right now. It gets chopped every year, by the way. You know, look at this and look at that. But the other question was what?

Kind of the specifics of the business case.

So—

Well, initially, it was purely based on research, right? All of the research that said, and I cited all the research, you know, all the publications, but I couldn't do much more than that and hoped that that would make sense. I did describe and focused on the work that we do all over the world, and are we really culturally competent to design authentically? And if not, what's the risk? And so if you talk about the risk of not being culturally competent and not you know, focusing on Jedi? What's the risk of doing that? So that's where I tried to focus the effort so that— and that was important for us, right? And we had won and lost work previously because our lack of diversity. So we had examples of where it was where it was bad, you know, and actually impacted our business. Hopefully that answers your question. Thank you.

Cindy Branciforte from HR Advisors has a question.

Thank you, Chris, and thank you, Chris, for hosting this wonderful program, and Gabrielle and Meg for your time and insight into this very important topic. I have a couple of questions, but the one that rose to the top really has to do with when you were getting this off the ground and you were visiting the offices. I'd love to hear a few of your baseline questions that you used with each office during the assessment, and who was your audience when you were visiting each office? Right. Okay, so I made sure that I didn't choose the participants. I had the studios choose choose them with this criteria. Had to limit the number of principals, had to have a representative group across discipline, gender, race, all the categories so that it was truly a rep— and, and, and level in the firm from junior to senior, but really limited the number of senior people, of principals, because they didn't want seniors to shut down the conversation. Some of the questions I asked, and it was many years ago, so I'll have to think back, but really it was, can you share your experience, both personally or professionally, both positively and negatively, around anything diversity or inclusion? Have you felt margin— marginalized? Has it impacted your work? And really, that was just one question. I had a bunch other in case they didn't start talking, but it was like somebody turned on a faucet, honestly. I did not have to pry much further than that question to get, you know, all the information I needed, all the information they were willing to share. Some required follow-up conversations and there were some tears, but I think overall just by answering that, asking that one question, folks felt like we cared and they couldn't wait for this to happen, which is probably the other thing I learned, Chris, is that I didn't realize how important this was to a large part of our staff.

So that's kind of— your initial response was, I wish we started 15 years earlier. You could— that meeting told you that it could have been done before.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. Our next question is from, I think, Gentile Cargill. I'm going to give you— you can unmute and ask your question. I hope I got your name right.

Yes.

Hi, everyone. My name is Gentile Cargill, and thank you so much for this excellent discussion panel. So my question is, how do you promote inclusiveness on your team so all employees can succeed? And what programs are in place to promote inclusion? Well, I would say that that is something that's still a work in progress. We still are working on having more representation, especially people of color. But one of the things that we have been very mindful about is that during our promotion process, and we have criteria for promotion for our leadership program. And we have a leadership institute, and we have an emerging designers group. We always specifically ask verbally and in writing for people to be inclusive, to remind them of diversity and inclusion so that people aren't just kind of automatically picking people just because of their experience.. And that has been, that has been helpful. And in fact, if you look at our leadership program year to year, we see more female representation. We still need to work more on people of color, but you can see that it's starting, it's starting to evolve. Again, that it goes, it's, it's the numbers, but it's also reminding people to do this.

And I would say that we We don't— the leaders of the studios don't necessarily have to remind teams to make sure that you're diverse. It's frequently the people in the studio and say, well, that team doesn't look really— or particularly when we're going after a pursuit and you look at the team that's going out. And so everybody, it's on most everybody's mind. And so if we see a team makeup that's not terribly diverse, particularly for a client or a project, then the question comes up from many different places. And so it's really become part of the questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis. And I think that's the only— you can't mandate inclusion. You have to practice it, and you— it has to, you know, be top of mind in order for it to happen.

It's even about the images, you know. The people, who are the people that you're showing that are in your images, right?

Well, and I'll give you another example about that. You know, when we started focusing, focusing specifically on Jedi, we realized that you could not find a diverse set of people entourage in the digital content. So we gathered other firms to send a basically a demand letter to the digital content providers. This is not okay anymore. You must create digital content that is representational of the diversity of this society.

And Gabrielle, just for the folks that aren't on the design side, I think you're speaking about putting in people into renderings and videos.

The renderings, yeah. That's all right. I had to learn what it meant too. I was like, what? Can't you just say put some more Black people in the renderings? I don't understand. Well, we can't find them. I was like, really? So I was surprised that it was a problem.

Gentile, thank you for your question. I've got Aaron Williams with a question.

Hi, can you guys hear me?

Yep.

Great, thank you so much for doing this and doing this. I'm with CBT Architects in Boston. And I really appreciate you guys coming on and doing, talking to us about this because we're starting an effort and in our process of, well, we've been starting it for the past few months, but in the process we've been talking about goals and sort of metrics. My question to you is, what were your initial goals and metrics and how do you stand against those today?

Okay, so there's the qualitative and the quantitative and I'll I'm only going to talk the broad goals, right? Advancing our culture from a Jedi perspective, well, at that time, EDI perspective. Yes, we've done that. It's not something that we have to remind people of. We're helping them do it better. I would say from a demographic standpoint, which is one metric. So, in 2014, when we started doing the demographic, measurement, the numbers, we were 43, 46% women, 43%, I think. We are now 50/50. On the diversity side, we went from 23% diverse to 31% diverse. Now, within that diversity bucket, African Americans still remain the same 4%. So while we can say, yeah, oh yeah, we're doing great, 31%, But when you drill down to it, we have more to go. We have more to do, and we have to double down. So that's the kind of progress we've made and work that we still have to do. So I would say, yes, it's part of our culture. Not done, but making progress. The demographics and where the diversity is within each discipline and rank, we have a ways to go. So overall, I think we're doing well. We're on track. I think that we will probably change some of our metrics. I'd like to put in race and work or cultural competency as a metric. Now that we can talk about it, we know what it is.

Actually, Gabrielle, you've brought that up a few times, and I don't know, Meg or Gabrielle, if you want to just kind of expand on that a little bit, but cultural competency. Kind of in a high level, what is it and how do you teach it and how do you measure whether or not it's been—

It starts with curiosity and not bringing an assumption of what a community or client or project needs. That, and it's, it's a reaction to the standard design practice of we are expert, we know what you need without that community as design partner. Right? So, one of the, one of the success stories for Destination Crenshaw is that the community is truly a design partner. And we're starting construction and they're still part of the process. So, it speaks to being curious, listening, and responding with an authentic design solution that responds to those needs. And it sounds Design 101, but it has not been happening. And so, the cultural competency is understanding the uniqueness of a particular community. You know, cultural erasure is a real thing, particularly for urban areas where designs did not— it wasn't meant to respond to the needs of the community. It was meant to do something else. And so, protecting against cultural cultural erasure. That make sense?

Gabriel, can I ask one other thing?

Yep.

I'm sorry, one other thing just to that. I'm just wondering, because I know a lot of companies have sort of set metrics to this and said we're, you know, and I understand the 4%, you know, Black designers in our field is, it hasn't changed in ages. Do you think it's helpful or not helpful to set a metric of increasing that by a certain date. I mean, we've done it with, you know, sort of sustainability. We've done it with a whole bunch of other things. Do you think that's helpful, or do you think it's better to sort of grassroots it and try and sort of achieve it in other ways?

I think at this point it's helpful because Perkins Will is not the only firm trying to do it. 7 years ago, I said, let's just focus on doubling what we have. Right, made it very nebulous. But now I think it is truly a very important gap to fill, and that we as a profession should say, in 10 years we're going to double this, or whatever, how long, but figure out how long it takes someone to get through school, first get interested in school, get through it, get licensed, you know, all of that. So I think, yes, it's absolutely helpful. To put a target goal out there.

Thank you so much.

We've got a question from Julie Weston. Julie, you should be able to unmute yourself now.

Hi there, thanks for the discussion. This has been great. You talked around some themes that emerged from as the basis of your action plan. Can you restate the 6 themes that emerged? And then I have a follow-up question after that.

Yep.

Hold on, I don't want to misstate. So recruitment, retention— you can combine those if you like— learning and development, inclusion and engagement, And culture of diversity slash office leadership commitment and advocacy. And then the last one was work-life integration.

Thanks very much.

You're welcome.

I'm going to squeeze another question in here because I have the voice.

Because you can.

Because I can.

I am just wondering if If it should be a goal to change maybe the way architecture and design schools are teaching to include the community as a voice more in the process of what they do in school. I'm not sure that that is something that's taught.

Yes, it is. What we're seeing in the profession is happening at the educational level. I'm on a university board that is not, you know, school has not been terribly diverse. I'll just, I'm on the board of RISD, my alma mater. And like many other universities, the BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, BIPOC students and faculty have made demands on the university to change the curriculum, the pedagogy, The prof— who's teaching, increase diversity, because all of that will change the professionals that we hire, right? All of the teaching approaches, most, I shouldn't say all, most around architecture have been through that one same lens, Western, some call it colonialism, right? So, there is a movement in academia to tear all of that down and to make it more inclusive and unique, both in curricula and who's teaching, and to increase students of color.

Thank you.

Todd Henderson.

Wonderful. Thank you both for your leadership on this. I guess I'm curious, you know, where did you find internal resistance to what you're trying to do, and how did you get those folks to come around? And I'm thinking, you know, there's a specific example that I'm thinking of with my organization where just the very notion of entering employees' race and sexual preference into our employee database so that we can graph it causes, you know, enormous anxiety.

I'll start, then you can end, Meg. Um, well, one, um, tracking— so tracking, um, race is one thing. It's, it's optional, right? And so we don't go any deeper than that. If you don't want to be counted as a certain ethnicity, then You don't have to, but there are enough people that check those boxes, and so we get a sense. We did not track sexual orientation until recently. It was given as optional. I think resistance as a whole, when I saw it, it was during the deep dive, right? In those conversations, you got a sense of where the issues might be, some, you know, This person or this group of people don't think it's a problem. Well, then clearly there's a problem, right? So it showed up there, but it hasn't showed up as a huge resistance. It will show up again during the training sessions on a local basis where scenarios are presented, questions are asked, there's conversation. So you get a sense it's not necessarily resistance, It's a difference of opinion, and that's okay, but you're not gonna tear down the overarching mission, which is best for all of us, by an opinion. You know what I mean? And it's, this is where it gets messy and very difficult, and that's where professionals come into play. But overall, we have not had resistance. Meg, you wanna add to that?

Yeah, I concur with that. I also think that when we initially started this, You know, whenever you introduce an initiative at a firm, you know, people are like, well, who's going to pay for it? What's the time commitment? So I think there was initially some, I wouldn't say resistance, but some concern about, you know, making the space. But again, now it's just kind of like people just do it.

I got a call the other day. So, are we planning on training next year for all staff? Should I put it in my budget? I'm like, yep.

Yeah, let's talk about what does ongoing training look like at Perkins Will, and particularly a sub-question around onboarding new folks into Perkins Will and how they are brought into the firm's— this topic.

Sure, well, on the training, we've done unconscious bias training, which focuses a lot on microaggressions. We recently have engaged another consultant really to kind of help facilitate difficult conversations. We don't have a firm-wide, you know, training everybody has to go through, you know, a particular thing per se. Let's say that a lot of it would be what I— is analogous to on-the-job training, just because, you know, we have raised the consciousness of a lot of the things that we've talked about. Today. Team makeup, clients, that type of thing. Part of the onboarding, we're actually revamping some of that right now. Today what it looks like is that part of the new hire orientation, there is a whole section that talks about, that talks about JEDI. But I think because it's embedded into the studios, because we do have diversity champions within the studios, and there are actions and things going on. And some of them are actually, you know, fun things. I mean, the LA office, you know, Gabriel has Black Jeopardy. It just becomes, it just becomes kind of, you know, part of the culture.

Right, and I think some training that we're talking about now is how to train the trainer. So our champions, diversity champions, are perfect people to help facilitate some conversations at the local level. So we're considering that that be some of the training that we do. We've done all staff training twice, I think, in the last 5 years. So, you know, we don't want people to get training fatigue. So the more we can break it down at the local level, I think the more traction it will get.

And then one thing that we're focusing on right now is also the way that we look at performance. You know, not everybody— we can't just always look through the same lens. People bring different experiences to the table, and it's a little bit complex, but we're looking at that process.

Diversity Champion is actually the the topic of our next question from Caitlin Stevenson. So Caitlin, you should be able to talk now.

Hi there. I just wanted to thank you both for a really helpful and informative presentation. As we are, you know, working on similar JEDI goals within our own organization, it's really helpful to hear about your experience. Speaking of the diversity champions, I was curious about how you empower each of those champions to affect change on more of a local level. There was a comment that just came up a minute ago about actually training the trainer, and I'd love to hear more about what that process might look like for the diversity champions. And then separately, but related to that, also just curious how you reward the work of those diversity champions so that it doesn't just become added emotional or mental labor on top of all of their regular job duties. Especially in light of the fact that those types of programs are often falling to BIPOC employees who are being asked to engage and share their perspectives.

Right, so our diversity champions, you know, the program, it's part of the structure, the organizational structure, so everybody in that chart is empowered to do their piece. Their role is clearly defined, and it's to advocate and lead, but not all— not do, right? So the champions are encouraged to have a committee or group of people in their local studio so that they're not doing it alone. I will say that most of our champions to date have not been BIPOC staff. There is an increasingly interest by BIPOC staff to be the champion. But it's very interesting that it's not been overwhelmingly the BIPOC staff that have signed on to do champions. And we don't assign them. You can volunteer. We recommend if someone has, has demonstrated a skill or an interest or a passion, then we ask them if they'd like to do. You don't have to do it. The reward, I think, comes from— so we reward best practices across the firm, right? So if there's something like our Boston office initiated the first really in-depth women's group that went beyond just internal, it was externally focused as well. That became the best practice for the entire firm on that particular affinity group. We do have best practices diversity awards. It's mostly annual. I think we're at every 2 years or so. So that's one of the things, and we celebrate the successes and work that the champions do firm-wide. And they do not have to do it for free, right? So there is a job number for them to charge to for their significant effort. Great.

Thank you for your question, Caitlin. And Meg and Gabrielle, thank you so much for being here today and for being so generous with your time and your energy and sharing your work with us. You know, we covered a lot of ground and there's a lot more. Obviously, we could have kept going for hours, but I think that— I hope that's helpful for folks. As Ira mentioned, this recording will be out in the next few days. We'll also put all of the resources from the chat and the notes from today's discussion and going out with that.

So— And Chris, you'll remind me what I said I could provide you? You'll send me an email or something?

Yes.

Okay, fantastic.

We'll follow up for the tracker with you and we'll include that with everybody else. So thanks everyone for your attention. Thank you for being here. Meg and Gabrielle, again, one more thank you to you both.

Thank you, Chris, and thank you everybody. See you, Meg. Bye.