ExecMommyGroup, LLC Founder & Principal, Joelle Murchison combines inspiration and life experiences to facilitate dialogue and create strategic solutions to individual and organizational challenges.
She recently presented and participated in Starting Your Journey to Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, a panel discussion hosted by the MetroHartford Alliance and the Racial Equity and Economic Development Committee, where she discussed the importance of ensuring alignment, saying, “It’s critical to be clear about what we mean when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
MetroHartford Alliance Content Manager Nan Price spoke with Joelle about her entrepreneurial evolution.
NAN PRICE: How did you first build out the business and how has it evolved?
JOELLE MURCHISON: I’ve built a niche in which I engage with organizations to help them navigate through their challenges to learn to leverage diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) as a part of their strategy—not a bolt on, not something that’s nice to have.
Because of experiences I’ve had in building and developing strategies at Travelers and UConn, I knew I could be helpful to organizations in all sectors. My clients are in higher ed, the private sector, nonprofit, and municipal government.
NAN: How have all the events of 2020 impacted your business?
JOELLE: As soon as June 2020 came, my entire trajectory went through the roof. The opportunity to support organizations and help them create space for dialogue on the heels of the national uprising around George Floyd’s death was palpable.
Initially, personally, I was extremely impacted by everything that was happening. I had to contemplate how I felt as a Black woman in the United States. I was quickly able to pivot and pull together a framework I refer to as America’s Achilles’ Heel: Courageous Conversations on Race.
I was fortunate to share it with my network and deliver it to several organizations in June 2020, which created a genuine awareness and interest in going deeper within some of those organizations. That created opportunities for me to develop some longer-term relationships.
At some organizations, I even established retained relationships where I got to know the organization and its employees. We talked about their challenges and I helped them develop sustainable strategies to leverage DE&I with a lens around the national crisis we were experiencing—a double pandemic.
It gives me a lot of hope and it makes my work that much more impactful, because I’m working in my community—certainly, there are some opportunities outside of Connecticut and this region. But I do feel somewhat humbled that my network in this region, when they want someone to come in, automatically thinks of me. That is probably the best referral process you can ever have.
Read the entire interview at Innovation Destination Hartford