The leadership journey can be a difficult one with unseen challenges that ruin reputations. Skilled people can be left wondering what went wrong if they don’t have effective sponsorship. These challenges are even more pronounced for underrepresented people in leadership roles. Ricky Robinson and Keith Powell talk about the importance of having a sponsor, and of being sponsor ready.
Ricky Robinson is Vice President of Human Resources for a $35B leader in the medical device industry. His 20+ year career has afforded him leadership roles in Human Resources for some best-in-class global organizations spanning industries from commercial goods, retail, smart home, and med tech. Ricky is extremely familiar with being the “Sole Brother” on the executive leadership team, quite often challenging diversity, inclusion and unconscious bias issues within corporate America, as an advocate and sponsor for underrepresented groups. Having spent his career as a mentor and coach, he continues to share the tips and tricks that help underrepresented employees reach their full potential as co-founder – with Keith Powell -- of C-CRETS (www.c-crets.com), which is a career advice platform offering career coaching services, online courses, and topical content through blogs and a podcast.
Keith Powell is a Chief Operating Officer in private education with over 20 years of corporate experience in the U.S. and Canada. Most of his career, Keith led global finance and operations functions for Fortune 1000 companies in the automotive, chemical, consumer and commercial goods, e-commerce, and smart home industries. Keith was the “first” or the “only” quite often climbing the corporate ladder. Having mentored and coached hundreds throughout his career, he continues to share practical, digestible advice to underrepresented employees as the co-founder of C-CRETS with Ricky Robinson.