Fully qualified, he often saw himself as an “imposter” at these gatherings.

I interviewed him this week to get his feelings and outlook during the nation’s upheaval over race.

He spoke with the formation of the I.D.E.A. Initiative as  a”safe space” for people of color to gather – and more recently, to advocate for change in the C-suite and boards of media, tech and marketing companies.

Emotionally exhausted by the present turmoil, he is optimistic about change, although not sure how it will look.   At  AT&T, he is finding an “awakening across leadership.”

*Note:  This recording was made in June.  We have republished today as one of the most important segments from 2020.   Kirk is not longer at Xandr having been named. CEO of GroupM NA  in August.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

While some businesses need outside funding, he urges Black founders to first build a sustainable business model.

Andrews is the founder and CEO of a thought leadership event and publishing business called Overture Global.  He recently launched a content studio as part of the company called Ensemble with #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here.

I am grateful to Kirk McDonald and my other dear friends, along with so many new acquaintances, for having spoken so candidly and personally about what is like to be Black in our industry and for sharing their anguish and hopes in this time of racial injustice and social unrest.

Simply put, we’re having conversations we’ve never had before.

Several of the executives in the series speak of needing a “safe space,” a place where fellow people of color can freely share about who they are and to discuss  difficult issues in their work experience.

Well, Beet.TV is now that “safe space.”

I hope that the series will help to foster understanding and progress.  The series is far from over.  We will produce more videos in the months ahead.

As a publisher, we are determined to bring more people of color to regular Beet.TV industry coverage.  And we have made progress.  Much more to come.

I am very moved by Kirk McDonald’s words about my work.  I have published this short video on this page. Thank you Kirk, my friend, for opening the conversation.  We all need to take a few steps forward.

Update: Since we published this video, Kirk has been appointed CEO of GroupM North America.   Congrats Kirk.

Here is our series to date: 

• Black Women: We Can Be Our Worst Enemy, Innovid’s Stephanie Geno
• Channeling Frederick Douglass: He Would Want Us All to Vote w/ Maria Weaver, CMO, Comcast Advertising
• Being Black in AdTech: “You Lose Bits of Yourself” w/Kerel Cooper, SVP Global Marketing at LiveInten
• People See Color in the Workplace — And that’s OK, NBCU’s Brian Norris
• Let’s Recognize and Celebrate Our Differences, Dish’s Sean Robertson
• “The Mask Doesn’t Work: Be Your Beautiful, Authentic Self,” Monique Nelson
• “We All Have to Develop Empathy” Now, IBM’s Kareem Yusuf
• Racial Diversity Programs Must Address Systemic Racism, Comscore’s Tershone Phillips
• “Our Voices and Ideas Are Suppressed in the Workplacew” w/ Kelle Coleman, SVP Brand Partnerships, Nielsen
• “We’re Not Allowed to Fail, We Have to be Perfect w/Cavel Khan, Chief Revenue Officer of Tumblr
• “Diversity Needs to Woven into the Fabric of Everyday Decisions,” Facebook’s Alvin Bowles
• Being a Black Woman in Silicon Valley: The Stereotyping is Exhausting w/ Kenya Hayes, Head of Comms, NA, Appsflyer
• “We All Play the Game.” We’ve Learned to “Code Switch” at Work, Christian Borges
• Kirk McDonald: Exhausted by the Turmoil, Positive about Changes Ahead’
• Andre Swanston Shares His Experiences, Lessons and Hopes for Society in this Beet Series Debut

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

“Networking is hard for everyone,” especially for black woman who feel out place.  Even though it can be uncomfortable, she urges her colleagues to make the commitment to expand their social networks, to “get out there.”  She also speaks to the importance of connecting with mentors at work.

Geno is SVP of marketing at Innovid.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here.

If she could “channel” her famous ancestor during this time of social upheaval, he would tell everyone to vote, says Weaver, CMO of Comcast Advertising, in this interview with Beet.TV

In this wide ranging interview for the Black Lives Matter series on Beet.TV, she urges women of color to “bring their whole selves to work,” not a version shaped by what is expected of them.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and the widespread upheaval over racial injustice, she is encouraged  by the movement of many corporations to make real change in hiring, mentoring and moving to be more inclusive. For society at large, however, much more work needs to be done, she notes.

Celebrating their Douglass legacy, Weaver’s two daughters Alexa and Haley recently took part of a virtual group reading of the abolitionist’s July 4 speech which was delivered on July 5, 1852.  The segment was produced by NPR.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here.

The relentless effort to fit in, to “code switch,” into a person who fits the workplace norms results in losing “bits of yourself,” he adds in this interview with Beet.TV

Seeking to build a dialogue among his colleagues of color and other under represented minorities, he joined his colleague Erik A. Requidan in founding the Minority Report podcast.  Cooper hopes that in addition to fostering a dialogue, the podcast will be guide to young people coming up in the industry.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

But that’s fine.  Being identified as a Black man in a leadership position in a major media organization and mentoring others, is a good thing, says Brian Norris, SVP of Advertising Sales at NBCUniversal.

Norris, who heads the direct-to-consumer sales efforts at NBCU, says that mentorship is key and he points to his start in the industry at  Lifetime Television with the help of the IRTS Foundation.  Today, he serves as Vice Chairman.  The son of a New York City bus driver and registered nurse, he points to the opportunity afforded him by the IRTS organization.

While introductory internships are valuable, people of color need to be mentored and brought to the c-suite.  Now is the time for companies to be on”right side of history,” he urges.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

We need to understand our differences and celebrate them.  Galvanized by recent events of racial injustice, we are more aware of the issue, and now we have to have a dialogue, he urges.

He notes that the advertising and media industry has to do a better job in bringing diversity. He sees retention and career progress as a major issue to be addressed.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

Be your “beautiful,” authentic self, she urges young Black men and woman in our industry.  “As much as you try to wear the mask, it doesn’t work.”

Asked it she is hopeful about change following the murder George Floyd and the subsequent turmoil, she says there is little room for hope, it’s all about dedication and “doubling down on our purpose.”

UWG is the industry’s oldest  standing multicultural advertising agency.  It is 49% owned by WPP.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

But a healthy work “experience” is essential, particularly for Black men and women dealing with the realities of racism in society and the current turmoil.   A “safe space” for dialogue is important.

Empathy and understanding are paramount now,  says IBM’s Kareem Yusuf, who heads the company’s AI Applications business. He is committed to driving empathy throughout the organization, he told me in this interview from his home in San Francisco.

Raised in Nigeria, educated in England and transferred to the United States by IBM, Yusuf provides an outsider/insider look at racism in America as he shares his journey.

Editor’s Note:  I am grateful to Kareem and the others in this Beet.TV series for sharing so openly.  It is my hope that this series will help foster empathy and understanding.  We surely need it now.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

Tershone Phillips reflects on her job path from Mindshare to Nielsen to Comscore where she is managing programmatic products.

Grateful for the support along the way for efforts at all these companies, and for the corporate embrace of  the Black Lives Matter mantle , she says that businesses need to address the systemic issues around racism.

A daughter of two retired Black NYPD officers, she shares her hope for police reform.

Straddling the Millennial and GenX  ages herself,  she hope that the passion of young people will power a new era of civil rights changes.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

Notwithstanding, the Black woman show up and  “show out.”  We have “no choice.”

She addresses the issue of diversity and inclusion and disparities where well intentioned programs have been weighted toward gender diversity vs. racial diversity.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

A veteran of Vice, Twitter and Microsoft, earlier this month Khan joined Tumblr, which is now a unit of the blogging platform Automatttic company.

Accomplished at work, outside he fears the dangers of discrimination.  He hopes the current focus on racial injustice will lead to change.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

We spoke with him about his journey from Detroit to Wall Street to Silicon Valley and how mentors have helped shape his career.  He speaks about his loneliness along the way and how his fellowship with colleagues of color, in groups such as I.D.E.A., have been so helpful.

Looking ahead, he hopes the current crisis will not be a “moment in time,” but a period of transformation.  His hope is that people of color will move to senior positions in adtech and in corporate American.

While he applauds the public statements and funding around Black Lives Matter by companies, he says that we need to hold companies accountable for true progress.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

Wanting to be productive, but self filtering what she says is the norm:  Passion and dedication can be seen as intimidating or aggressive. It is exhausting and frustrating

Hayes, who has worked at Rocket Fuel, YuMe and Criteo, urges the industry to put black woman and menin leadership positions,  where they are way under represented.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

He explains that means changing how “we speak, act and even how we walk.”  He says it’s exhausting and a distraction from being productive.

In this interview, he also speaks of his pain over recent instances of racial injustice and how the public outcry makes him hopeful about change.

He implores corporations to bring more people of color the C-suite and to the board.  This is the goal of the I.D.E.A. Initiative, a group he helped form and serves on its board.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality. Please find additional videos here. 

Like many young black men, Swanston has been subject to multiple random police stops and searches with guns drawn. He’s been handcuffed with no charges or arrests.

He is now sharing this with his industry colleagues to bring into focus, in a personal way, the reality of black Americans and the issues of racial injustice.

In the interview, he urges greater diversity and inclusion in the adtech world and calls for better STEM training and coding for young people of color to fill engineering roles.

Backed by venture capital, Tru Optik is part of the slim 1 percent of VC-funded companies that are headed by a black CEO. He says that disparity is a fundamental issue that needs to be addressed.

Shocked and saddened by recent events, Swanston thinks we are going through a positive time where the notion of Black Lives Matter, which was marginalized by many when founded about five years ago, is now widely accepted.  Finally, “the lives of certain people have value,” he says.

This video is part of an ongoing Beet.TV series of interviews with men and and women of color, addressing their personal experiences and hopes for essential change addressing racial inequality.