Surviving the Pandemic and Structural Racism as Entrepreneurs with Joy Stephens
This episode features Corporate Culture Consultant and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Specialist, Joy Stephen’s engaging in a conversation about surviving and thriving as entrepreneurs during this pandemic and a culture of racial injustice. Navigating the waters of structural racism is a challenge on its own, but when you add on the pandemic things are taken to another level causing new and increased anxiety. You’ll get to hear practical solutions and framework from a dynamic diversity expert and a Harvard trained psychiatrist that are also engaged in entrepreneurship.
What You’ll Learn:
-Dealing with the stress and pressure of working in the diversity, equity and inclusion space
-Strategies to navigate structural racism
-The power of supportive communities
-Inspiration to pursue entrepreneurship
-Turning frustration into fuel to live authentically
-Benefits of historically black colleges and university (HBCUs)
-Managing the emotions and pressures of the pandemic
How to connect with Joy:
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/joy-stephens-newheights
Website: www.newheightsawait.com
YouTube Channel “A Moment of Joy” : https://youtube.com/channel/UCI7znWEN-dqbyu9D2ZK6hHA
About Joy Stephens:
Joy Stephens brings a unique and varied collection of work experiences to the table. While possessing dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, as well as a Master’s in Business Administration, Joy spent her 20+ years in Corporate America with companies like Proctor & Gamble and Kimberly Clark. She has worked in manufacturing, research and development, quality assurance, sales, sales management, and corporate training. It was her experience in corporate training that helped her find her true passion and ultimately transition into training and coaching full time. Joy believes that empathy and compassion are the keys to better leadership, better communication, and stronger working relationships. She imbues all of her workshop facilitation with the goal of recognizing the humanity in each other.
Joy is also a Board-Certified Life Coach, specializing in Career Development. She focuses on executive and individual coaching, specifically around Career Transitions, guiding individuals from one major life pathway to another. This includes coaching clients moving from college to the workplace, one career/industry to another, or individual contributor roles to leadership positions.
Seeing the need for more in-depth understanding of the impact of empathy and inclusion, she developed a series of workshops in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion space. These include both in-person and virtual workshops covering a variety of topics from recognizing micro-aggressions to understanding historical race relations. In this capacity, she has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies, colleges and universities to conduct unconscious bias training, facilitate open-forum dialogues around race and privilege, engage in innovative team building, assist in the creation and promotion of Employee Resource Groups and coach leadership teams on inclusivity and communication. To date, she has delivered training to over 3,000 employees across 12 countries. Her reviews routinely report that her participants find her classes refreshing and highly impactful, and her facilitation style engaging and authentic.
