Throughout my career, I’ve had the pleasure of working with bright, innovative, wise people across hundreds of organizations, dozens of projects and too many years to count. I am beyond grateful for the relationships developed during the journey that brought me to what is now Sapient Insights Group. I know this is where I am supposed to be. I am excited about our future contributions to the business community and am delighted to share our story with you!
I remember wandering into a session called “Women in HRTech” at an HR Tech conference shortly after I left the corporate world and started my firm, SteelBridge Solutions. As I listened to the guys on the podium talk about the contributions women were making in the industry, I watched the Twittersphere explode with questions from my female colleagues. “Why aren’t more women delivering keynotes?” “Where are the women leaders in HRTech?” That session had a profound impact on me as a business owner. From that day forward, I was determined to bring together a team of savvy, smart, influential women to help answer the questions being asked by my fellow peeps!
I met Stacey Harris at the same HR Tech conference. I was flattered that an ‘influencer’ found value in something I tweeted and I tracked her down in the analyst pool to introduce myself. From the moment we met, I thought we were kindred spirits. I loved Stacey’s passion for data and for sharing the insights gleaned from her research. I will admit I was a bit envious. As the only employee of my firm, I was too busy building the business and serving clients to have the time and ‘head space’ to conduct research for my practice. I knew it was a gap for SteelBridge and I had to figure out how to fill it!
Because of the strong relationships I had with past clients and colleagues, my firm experienced success beyond my wildest dreams. I quickly found myself stretched beyond capacity and capability. My coach recommended adding a senior leader to help scale the business. I found the perfect partner in Teri Zipper! I admired the work she did at Mercer, knew she was a phenomenal business developer and when I found out she LIKED building processes and infrastructure, I hired her on the spot to be our Chief Operating Officer.
Fast forward to early 2020, before the world turned upside down, and a Sierra Cedar Research Roundtable where I was honored to represent the consulting industry. The conversation was designed to explore the value of the annual HR Tech Survey and its associated research. Imagine my excitement when I later learned Sierra Cedar was searching for a new home for the research group! Encouraged by business matchmaker and trusted advisor Kim Seals to seriously pursue this, Stacey, Teri, and I visualized a new firm leading with established and cutting-edge research supported by deep consulting expertise. AND the leadership team would be comprised of those savvy, smart influential women I had envisioned!
Our bold new vision required a bold new name! A bright spot of “Quarantine Spring” was the freedom it gave my partners and me to dream big and collaborate on building the new firm. My favorite session was a virtual happy hour where we brainstormed naming ideas. We came up with lots of words, but the ones that stood out were ‘wisdom’ and ‘insights’. We all agreed our business exists to share data, insights, and practical wisdom to solve client business problems, so we wanted to convey that in our name. With a little help from our branding partner, we found a cool word for wise – sapient – and Sapient Insights Group was born! If you look closely at our logo, you may even see the homage we pay to our patron animal – a wise owl!
Launching a business under normal circumstances is challenging. Launching Sapient Insights Group amid the unprecedented changes occurring in our society today has challenged each of the leaders of the firm to examine our core values in new ways. The good news is that we are all closely aligned on how we will operate in this new world. Being inclusive is a core value for us and, in that spirit, we believe it is important to share our position on the plight of our colleagues in the Black community.
We don’t pretend to fully understand the complexities of long-standing systemic racism in our society; however, we are committed to being true allies in defeating racism. The human resource related research and advisory work we do for our clients puts us in a position to be a positive force in the efforts to eliminate actions that promote division, social injustice, and racism. Here are a few of the steps my partners and I have been, and will continue to be, working on to act against systemic racism:
- Ensuring inclusion is core to Sapient’s workplace culture and how we staff our research and advisory projects, bringing a diverse group of experts to support the work we do.
- Being a source of mentorship to help more Black women grow and scale their businesses, as we know this is the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, yet the least funded and supported.
- Working with our clients to implement HR policies and practices within their organization that recognize and reduce bias.
- Signing and implementing the PwC CEO Pledge.
We understand there is much work to be done, and we will use our voices to meet this and every other challenge as we embark upon this next chapter in our careers!