Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NB studios original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jaz and Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

Music 0:18
even better than I was the last time, baby. We back and

Leaha Crawford 0:35
we back and we back and we back and we back and we back. And I was the last do. Hey, hey, hey, happy Saturday, Las Vegas. Hey, Julian, how you doing? All

Leaha Crawford 0:51
raspy and heavy.

Leaha Crawford 0:54
How are you very good?

Leaha Crawford 0:56
Okay, did you watch December 7? No, I see I wasn't even talking about football. Did you watch the Little League World Series? You didn't. You didn't watch it the Summerlin team? Well, I want to say congratulations to our to the Summerlin baseball team for making it to the I could this is the World Series of Little League Baseball. It was absolutely we watched the game. I was in the tears, yelling, hollering and screaming, oh my gosh, yeah. And, you know, and I know a little bit about base, I know the fundamentals of baseball,

Julian Rosado 1:33
really just man,

Leaha Crawford 1:37
but congratulations, because that goes to show that, you know, in the valley, we are becoming a sports, you know, a sports empire,

Julian Rosado 1:44
yeah, after the A's come, yeah,

Leaha Crawford 1:46
that's yeah, we are. We are really, really changing the cricket.

Leaha Crawford 1:49
Yeah, you want to know what cricket.

Leaha Crawford 1:52
I love you. I love you. Well. As always, we talk about growth, and we talk about giving yourself grace. And again, the valley. We have some things going on in the valley on September 22 and 23rd we have the Women's Leadership Conference. It has been in the valley. Has been going on in the Valley for 18 years.

Phyllis James 2:16
This year will be the 18th. This year will be the 18th

Leaha Crawford 2:20
year, and we have the pleasure of having Miss Phyllis James in the studio with us. And if you've listened to our shows, every time she comes on, she drops so many nuggets. And I can tell you, I have been at the conference for the past couple of years, and I have grown every year because of it, and you just get little nuggets. You never know who you're going to meet, who you're going to see, and what they're going to just say that can possibly bring a shift in your life, in your career. Phyllis,

Phyllis James 2:53
welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me

Leaha Crawford 2:57
always a pleasure. Okay, so who is Phyllis James? Well,

Phyllis James 3:01
you could say that I'm a lawyer and a leader and

Leaha Crawford 3:08
lawyer. Okay, so let's talk. Okay, you're a lawyer. Where'd you get your law degree, your JD

Phyllis James 3:13
from? Harvard University, Harvard University. And where'd you go to undergrad, Harvard University.

Leaha Crawford 3:20
Love it. And Where'd you grow

Phyllis James 3:22
up? I grew up in Washington, DC, wow, back when DC used to be called the Chocolate City. Okay, did you go to Banneker High School? No, actually, okay, Woodrow Wilson High School? You went

Leaha Crawford 3:36
to Woodrow Wilson? Oh, yes, okay, I did not know that. I have a lot of friends that graduated from Woodrow, Wilson, yeah, all right, so Dc, then to Boston. Boston is an absolutely amazing city. It is, had you and you were there for seven, eight years, seven years, seven years. Then where to after Boston?

Phyllis James 3:53
I returned to DC, and I was a law clerk to a judge who was then the chief judge of the DC Court of Appeals, which, in if you're looking at comparable state court systems, would be the highest court of last resort for the jurisdiction. And after that, I joined a law firm in San Francisco.

Leaha Crawford 4:21
So now hold up, we have Dc. You've lived in Boston. You lived in San Okay, San Francisco.

Phyllis James 4:27
Go ahead. Yeah. So I was there for 14 years, where in a private, elite corporate law firm, where I became the first African American partner in the firm, and after 14 years in San Francisco, I moved to Detroit.

Leaha Crawford 4:49
So Okay, now let's start again. So we go DC, Boston, DC, San Francisco. Wow, in Detroit.

Phyllis James 4:56
Yes, I accepted. A post of Corporation Counsel, which is the equivalent to general counsel for the city of Detroit under then Mayor Dennis Archer. And it was the first administration after the 20 year tenure of Mayor Coleman Young. So it was kind of a new beginning, and what we thought or hoped would be a new renaissance for the city of Detroit.

Leaha Crawford 5:30
Okay, so we're in Detroit, and then where do we go from Detroit?

Phyllis James 5:34
Well, I spent eight years there as general counsel for the city, and then I came to Las Vegas. I was recruited by MGM Resorts International to work with that company, and I had a number of roles at MGM legal counsel. And then I became the chief litigation officer. And then I became also the chief diversity officer, and that role morphed into chief corporate responsibility officer for the corporation.

Julian Rosado 6:12
I love it. This is a Netflix series.

Leaha Crawford 6:19
No, I told you amazing, right? Just amazing. So in those roles, because when we hear like, Chief Diversity Officer, I mean just all the titles, does that mean? Well,

Phyllis James 6:33
it means that I progressively took on more responsibility and the various roles I had, but it also means not to be un humble, if that's a word, but I went from being An associate in a law firm to basically taking on roles where I was the first woman or the first black woman to occupy so at the city of Detroit, I was the first full time woman Corporation Counsel for the city. There was a predecessor who was there for as an interim for a few months, but as the real Corporation Counsel for this city, I was the first woman when, and as I said in my law firm, I was the first African American partner at the firm, and when I joined MGM Resorts, I was the first real African American executive on the Strip.

Leaha Crawford 7:56
Shattered Glass. You just shattered a bunch of glass everywhere you went, the glass ceiling turned out that way. As a matter of fact, the glass ceilings you wanna, I'm gonna see if I can find you a pen. No, because your career has been that. Did you okay? So as a young woman living in DC, going out, going to Woodrow Wilson, yes. Did you envision this life for yourself? No,

Phyllis James 8:23
actually, I did not. So for me, my great aspiration was to go to college, because neither of my parents had gone to college, and so that's what I wanted to do.

Leaha Crawford 8:38
And then you didn't just choose any school. No, you just No, not just No, because DC has amazing schools. Yes, it does. You know, you chose Harvard University. Or Harvard chose you? Right? Harvard chose you? Yes, okay, I love it. I love it for the Women's Leadership Conference, what was the because just hearing your experiences, I know it wasn't easy, always easy. Well,

Phyllis James 9:04
you're exactly right, and I was not the founder of the conference in my first post at MGM Resorts in a long time position, I was a lawyer for the comp for the corporation, and one of my first assignments was as counsel, legal counsel assigned to the newly formed corporate diversity committee for the corporation. You know, MGM had rolled out diversity and inclusion initiative had formed a board committee chaired by the honorable and late Alexis Herman. And so from the beginning. Time I had involvement with the evolution of MGM corporate diversity and inclusion initiative, and this conference occurred as it was initially the Women of Color Conference started as a result of a collaboration between the companies, corporate diversity department and a group of local women leaders of conference who were interested in doing two things, one, convening Women of Color to talk about career advancement and how they could better position themselves for promotion in organizations around the Las Vegas region. And secondly, to build a solid core of networking among women of color, I remember the Woman of

Julian Rosado 11:02
Color Conference. Can you tell me how important dei is to a corporation? Because I believe, like, right now, like, dei has just been falling off, and, you know, they think, well, we gotta hire just the best people. And can you just phrase how important dei truly is to a corporation. Well,

Phyllis James 11:24
I'll start with your statement. We have to hire the best people. The first and foundational premise of dei was to make sure that women and people of color were recognized as being people of talent and worthy of being hired as among the best people, and so for anyone Who says that dei was set up to establish a preference for minorities or women. They're dead wrong. It was to ensure that the talent that is represented by people who are women and persons of color are repri are recognized and represented in roles in corporations. And the entire purpose of dei was to be integrated into the basic systems of corporations as a part of the way HR operates as a part of how supplier diversity operates as a part of how corporations relate to their surrounding communities, because women and persons of color are part of the surrounding community in which every Corporation of America operates.

Julian Rosado 13:10
Drop the mic. Told you, and I bet you only seen amazing outcomes for the Corporation since,

Phyllis James 13:16
well, for MGM Resorts, I can speak for them because I worked there, it was an absolute plus in strength, or the growing culture of the corporation and MGM Resorts as it exists Today, is the product of a successive series of mergers, yeah. And they brought Caesars. Yeah, no, they did not buy Caesars. That is a separate Corporation. MGM acquired the Mirage Corporation, yes. And after that, acquired the Mandalay resorts series of companies, and so it's one thing to buy other corporations. It is another thing to meld those different operating arms into one cohesive, functional Corporation. And dei for MGM came at a time when it was trying to unify disparate segments of people under one umbrella, and dei represented a tool to meld all of these different people who were increasingly diverse, men, women, people of color, to meld them under the same umbrella. And the mantra is, we are all. Different and we all bring different strengths to the mission of the corporation, and together, we are better than separate. And together, we will build a stronger company. That's what dei was a part of at MGM Resorts.

Leaha Crawford 15:22
Wow, that again. So the conference, the conference, because we, as you know, she is humble and she is kind, and she has a wealth of information and experience, and she's she wants to pour that,

Phyllis James 15:39
pour that, yes, I do, but I want to go back to one more point that Julian touched on, and that is that dei as practice well is really a form or a philosophy by which a company approaches the leadership of its people, recognizing that its people are all diverse, and you will reach the highest level of your mission and performance of your Mission and success when you have the key for unlocking the potential of everybody who works for you and for bringing out the potential of every single person, that is what dei represents, and it's basically just a form of inclusive leadership of all people, and it's a fundamental philosophy of how you lead human beings.

Leaha Crawford 16:57
Wow, again, women's, the Women's Leadership

Julian Rosado 17:00
Conference, said by a Harvard grad,

Leaha Crawford 17:04
eloquently in the King's English, unemotional, to let you know what dei truly is. So if you ever need to go back and listen to that so that you can get a clear understanding of what dei truly was meant to do to bring out the best in everyone. That's right, and not just a certain few, right, exactly, and not just a certain few, all right. So let's talk about this Women's Leadership Conference. Because for more information about the conferences, I know you have the website up and running. I know I know marshon, just so I know the website is up and running. And you know every you can get more information. Let me give you the website real quick. Is www, F, W L e.org/conference, www, dot F, W L e.org/conference, and that is fabulous women leading excellence.org talk to us about the conference. What have you put together this year?

Phyllis James 18:00
So this conference, and I want everybody to know that this conference is inclusive. It includes and invites participation by all members of our community, women, men, persons of color, persons who are not of color, but the focus is on leadership, and we do have a special focus on the perspective of women, because of the traditional legacy of past discrimination and exclusion of women. So first point we want our conference to be inclusive of everyone, and it's it is meant to try to promote the development of all of its participants, to groom them for leadership roles. And what that represents for women in particular, is, in my view, leadership represents the path to power and authority. And so if you want to become an instrument of change and making companies and our communities and society better. You need to be in a leadership role. Secondly, leadership is a path to greater economic independence and security, because leaders make more money. That's the long and the shirt of it, okay, and so that is the focus on leadership and everything that we do at our conference, it's meant to basically accomplish three goals. First, renewed inspiration. If you've never been a leader, we want to inspire you. To become a leader. If you are a leader, we want to inspire you to become a better leader. Secondly, skills, developing, skills, competencies as leaders. I firmly believe Leah and Julian that you will not go far anywhere in life if you do not have a fundamental core of skills that will bring value to your organizations, regardless of what kind of organization you're a part of. So we hope that everybody will take away something that enhances the skills that they came with. Thirdly, networking is important, as you will see in all the literature on networking, networking is the path to more net worth, because it's through networks that people find out about information that can make them a better leader. Find out about industry trends, but also find out about job opportunities that are not advertised on the market.

Julian Rosado 21:22
I know where I'll be.

Leaha Crawford 21:24
So you comment absolutely, absolutely gonna be there. All right, so it is September, 22 and 23rd Yes, at MGM Grand conference center. Yes, right. For more information, www, F, W, l, e.org, that's female women, leadership excellence.org. Backslash conference. Why keep this going? Why is it a passion of yours to keep this going?

Phyllis James 21:57
Well, for many reasons. The first is we know that women remain underrepresented in leadership positions across America, across industries, across institutions, across academia, across government. It doesn't matter where you look in America, women are underrepresented in leadership, and so it's like anything else in this great country. When you focus on an issue and you work at it you accomplish results, and that's what this represents. Secondly, we want to groom better leaders for society, and that includes men as well. If you look around many of our problems, just cry out for better leaders, whether it's at the community level, whether it's at state and local government, whether it's at national government, we need more informed, innovative, creative leaders, and that's what we're trying to do. And thirdly, it is important, given the onslaught the onslaught of criticism of dei we need to keep the flame burning so that people understand that dei is nothing more than inclusive leadership, and it is the modern brand of leadership for today's America, because today's America is diverse. It is not the workforce of the 50s. And in order for our country to continue to thrive and be the powerhouse that America has been on the world stage, we need to be grooming inclusive leaders,

Leaha Crawford 24:28
right? I told you. And then she always breaks it down with three points, all right. So for more information, www, dot F, W, l, e.org/conference, www, Frank Well, fabulous women leading everything. I like it. Fabulous women leading everything.org.

Julian Rosado 24:50
I feel like putting my name on the ballot. Put

Leaha Crawford 24:52
your name on the ballot. Put your name on the ballot. Well, what I can say is, as an going to the conference. Says, How do you come up? I mean, because every year is even more impactful speaking.

Phyllis James 25:05
Are you going to be speaking? Oh, well, I do opening remarks, but I don't take up a lot of time on the main stage, because we're trying to present phenomenal people, mostly women, who have such unique and inspiring stories to tell, and there are many, many of them across America. So this year, I'm especially excited about our main stage speakers, we have an African American woman who spent 23 years at the FBI, when people of color and women were a rarity at that white, male dominated institution, and she became the first black woman Assistant Director of Special agents, and she also became the first woman national spokesperson for the FBI. And after that, in her time, after she left the FBI, she went to Bank of America, where cyber security was becoming a big issue. We know it's a huge issue today, but she was a part of developing the infrastructure that private corporations now rely upon to keep their data safe. So we have, she is our opening keynote speaker. We also have the opening. That's the opening. We have another woman named Lisa Sun, who is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants to America. She grew up grooming entrepreneurial skills by helping her parents sell mongolian beef among other things, from their food truck, that is how they made their living. And after college, she went on to the McKinsey firm, where she distinguished herself as a data analyst, focusing on, how do leaders develop self confidence? So she's going to talk about that. And her company, which is called gravitas, and she named her company gravitas because early at McKinsey, she was told that she needed to develop more gravitas to be successful.

Leaha Crawford 27:54
Oh, wow. Oh, wow. So that is just two of the speakers we are running out of time. Oh, we are. Fill us out. Mrs. Miss James, let's come back on. Thank you. I look for I look forward to our annual meeting. I do right, and I look forward just hearing from you and hearing about who's going to be there. So here locally, so you don't have to travel. You can go home in the evening and come Yes, um, and you can basically just get some good nuggets and meet some people that are having impact around the world.

Julian Rosado 28:27
Yeah, I was thinking just the connections alone by the people that will be there,

Phyllis James 28:30
right? I will tell you, every year we have people in our survey responses tell us that this conference was even better than they expected, and they take away so much that enriches their personal and professional lives.

Leaha Crawford 28:52
I love it well. That ends our show for today. Thank you again for coming on, Julian, you ready to go? I'm

Julian Rosado 29:00
man, I'm ready to go. I'm gonna stay in here some more.

Leaha Crawford 29:02
You want to hear some more? All right? So I will bring you with me so we can go to the conference, okay, for two days, and you can go right, and you can meet the people. Okay? You meet the people. All right, until next week. I am Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosado, and you have been listening to growth and grace. Have an amazing, amazing yo. Be safe out there. Y'all this weekend, it is Labor Day weekend. Don't drink too much. We should just be careful and enjoy yourself in Vegas. Peace.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai