2021 Influential Businesswoman Awards

8 Acquisition International - Influential Businesswoman Awards 2021 fact of life, instead pushing to give them the knowledge on what their lawful rights are as an employee. By giving them these tools, such as letting them know the latest information of employment laws forbidding companies from asking the salary history of its workers, Robinson Haden herself has her finger on the pulse of all these developments and changes so that she can inform the rest of the group. Thanks to this work, she has recently been able to share more additional information that promises to help women of colour in professional settings to be sure of exactly what legislation is out there that protects them. Furthermore, Robinson Haden has been able to share the latest rule that was recently adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about the risks companies not diversifying their boards will inevitably face. This new rule, promises more much needed oversight relating to diversity and inclusion in the corporate world, suggests that those companies staunchly refusing to allow people of colour and minority groups to participate in board rooms and executive positions will face delisting on NASDAQ. ‘Together,’ Robinson Haden continues, ‘we gain strength’. With legislation like this promoting this attitude of unity and inclusion all the way up to the top of the modern world’s leading organisations, the contemporary corporate ecosystem is finally seeing a long-awaited shift, with companies refusing to put in place the appropriate diversity policies quickly falling to the wayside. Moreover, although it is a good thing that social movements such as the Black Lives Matter protests and the uproar over George Floyd’s tragic murder have been gaining such traction, Corporate Counsel Women of Color finds it important to point out that such things are nothing new to it or its members. For the past 17 years, it has been striving to make a more equitable workplace for the benefit of all. In this manner, it has been helping the organisations that will employ its members and pupils as well as focusing on the education and guidance of the members themselves, ensuring that companies know how to set up programming to attract a diverse pool of candidates. Essentially, Corporate Counsel Women of Color is aware that in order for change to happen, education and growth must first take priority. Thus, when working with these companies, it helps them to understand the how, what, and why of creating a diverse employee attraction programme, showing them that making your company an inclusive and welcoming place need not be hard. In tandem with this, Robinson Haden cautions the companies she works with away from initiatives such as diversity, equity, and inclusion task forces; these programmes often don’t result in any tangible change and simply result in taking more steps backwards than forwards, and so her advice steers them away from these and towards more actionable change. The ‘death by delay’ phenomenon is often the main killer of such initiatives, as the participants can often get hung up on overthinking everything and then falling into stagnancy, unable to move for the unnecessary and bloated processes that have built up over the development period. Bucking this trend, Robinson Haden guides them towards a ‘get invested’ approach. Promoting good allyship amongst the top brass of companies, she encourages businesses to build diversity within senior management. By starting with the people with the power to make a difference to the teams below them, Corporate Counsel Women of Color encourages companies to employ diverse managers with the training and education to perform outstandingly in these roles, effectively developing a pipeline through which more minority groups can be recruited to the teams they’re directly responsible for. Fundamentally, a large part of this is ‘setting the tone’. It’s all well and good for a company to declare they are an inclusive company, but that means nothing if the leaders and decision makers are all white, as whilst that is still the case any changemaking initiatives will freeze before they can make a difference. Starting with the top of the companies also creates visible role models for young people of colours looking to get into the corporate world, knowing the importance of being able to see people like you succeeding in the things you are interested in to give you the confidence boost needed to make it yourself. For Robinson Haden, this role model was her father, James Russel Lowe Robinson, a lawyer who allowed her to carry around his briefcase and to earn $5 an hour typing up his briefs for him in order to get an idea of the typical work that comes with the job, and the importance behind such things. His encouragement, and the support of the other professional people of colour in her area, fuelled her passion throughout her tenure at North Carolina Central University in 1994, directly followed by a stint at Maurer School of Law where she earned her J.D. in 1998. Therefore, she is incredibly serious about the need for the kind of supportive network that she enjoyed growing up, ensuring others can access this. Corporate Counsel Women of Color is the system that its members can truly rely on whilst the current corporate system is in the midst of being fixed, giving its members the mentors, sponsors, and work assignments for training and development that will allow them to get ahead with their careers without feeling constantly stymied by the barriers to entry that – to this day – the professional world still attempts to impose. Today, Robinson Haden is a high-flying legal expert and foremost voice in the industry, widely known across New York and globally. Her diligence and dedication have secured her position as a true expert when it comes to anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, and anti-retaliation training. With support from the corporation, she spent nearly two decades working for, CBS Corporation, she was able to juggle her time working on her litigation caseload and also leading Corporate Counsel Women of Color from the front until 2020. Now, she solely focuses her time as the CEO of the non-profit, and serves on law school advisory boards, and support of minority entrepreneurial ventures in order to ensure the work is only ever on a trajectory towards further breakthroughs. After all, with the world in such a state of flux and everything about the social, legislative, and corporate ecosystems changing thanks to the pandemic, now is a time ripe for positive change; positive change that Robinson Haden is dedicated to making a reality for women of colour everywhere. Fundamentally, Corporate Counsel Women of Color strives to make a healthy environment where women of colour working in law can find support, creating a network of like- minded individuals who are on hand to provide encouragement, career growth help, and advice to those just starting out.