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 Former Second Lady Tipper Gore with Clinton/Gore Latina Appointees at the LATINA Style 50 reception in 1999. |
It is hard to believe that 15 years have passed since we launched the LATINA Style 50 Program to evaluate the top 50 corporations for Latinas to work for in the United States. It has been an interesting journey to say the least. The 90s were not a time when corporations were paying too much attention to Latinas, so getting them to focus on them was a challenge.
I remember when we met with Carol Evans of Working Mother Media telling her what we were planning to do. Her company produces the Working Mother 100, a selection of the best companies for working mothers to work for, and her list is one of the most respected in the market. She was incredible generous with advice and assistance on how to design the survey. Sheila Wellington of Catalyst was another great champion that provided us with assistance and direction on the inner workings of corporate America. Eddie Fraser the CEO of Diversity Best Practices, at the time, also provided invaluable insight on the challenges women face in the corporate world. Rick Bela, the then CEO of HACR, and a number of Hispanic leaders gave us their guidance on how to produce a list that was respected and not in any way influenced by financial pressures. All of this went to a much higher level when Moe Vela secured the participation of the White House and Mrs. Tipper Gore. Her involvement got in motion a White House legal team that had to “vet” what we were doing since the welcoming reception for the LATINA Style 50 was hosted by Mrs. Gore at the Vice President’s residence in Washington, D.C. The reception and the awards ceremony were a great success and it launched us on our path. The list of course ruffled some feathers and a number of companies questioned the credentials of their competitors and wanted to know what made them better than themselves. We were spending so much time responding to these inquiries that in 2004 to respond to all the requests for information, we decided to expand the Awards program to include the LATINA Style 50 Awards and Diversity Leaders Conference focusing on corporate best practices.
In 2010, we added the Latina Executive of the Year and the Employee Resource Group of the Year to the program and finally in 2012 we added the Veterans Outreach Program. This past February we celebrated our 15th anniversary of the Awards program. During the program, we were able to reminisce on our beginnings and celebrate how far we have come.
Comcast Corporation was our Company of the Year, Yamilet Torres of Oracle was our Latina Executive of the Year and ConAgra Foods took top honor as the Employee Resource Group of the Year. I would like to thank all of our friends and partners who helped us launch and grow the program, their support, guidance and encouragement has made it possible to create the most respected evaluation of corporate America’s employment and career development practices as it pertains to Latinas. We have come a long way but there’s still much further we need to go.
Robert E. Bard
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Past "Publisher’s Message" |
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