ADWEEK 29
®
| APRIL 6, 2020“O
ne thing I always say is, ‘I don’t roll alone,’” notes Heath. Part of her
overall approach to being a diversity and inclusion champion is simply
including more people in her process. “I like to collaborate. I think it’s
more fun, and then you have a stronger product that way,” she says.
Heath’s resume would inspire any marketer. Seven years at Google, nearly
four years at IBM, faculty roles and her own successful consultancy (the
Spectacled Marketer) preceded Heath’s four-year career at LinkedIn. Along
the way, she finds time to sit on Adweek’s Diversity and Inclusion Council and
the Digital Marketing Institute’s Global Industry Advisory Council.
Being a woman of color in the tech world can be alienating, and Heath
cites “a perception that we don’t have as much latitude to make an error”
as something she fights against. The best leaders, she says, are just as
vulnerable and human as any of the people who report to them. That means
being honest about your struggles as well as your accomplishments.
“I’ve made a commitment to be as real as possible with what it means
to be a woman of color working in an industry where there are not very
many people that look like you,” says Heath, “especially at the most senior
levels of our industry.”
With the added pressure to prove oneself, supportive relationships are
that much more vital. Heath counts several mentors—such as Caroline
Clarke, Black Enterprise magazine’s chief brand officer—among what she
calls her “board of advisors.”
Though it’s important to be honest about diversity issues, Heath aims
to focus less on the obstacles and more on the opportunities for growth.
While acknowledging that there’s still a ways to go in both tech and
marketing, she’s committed to serving as an example of success—and to
sharing how she got there. —M.E.O.S
tudies have quantified it, but Brown Duckett already knew from her own
experience that most Americans don’t have money tucked away and couldn’t
come up with a few hundred dollars for an emergency. In her working-class
household growing up, even grocery money was scarce sometimes.
“I saw my parents struggle through job loss and ups and downs in life,” she says.
“My goals always have been to help people like me, like my parents” get a handle on
their finances and, beyond that, launch small businesses and learn to budget and
save for those inevitable rough patches.
She’s become an evangelist for financial health, particularly in diverse
communities, as she leads an aggressive effort at Chase to open 400 new branches
over the next five years, 30% of them in low-income areas.
So far, she’s overseen new locations in Camden, N.J., Anacostia, a primarily African-
American neighborhood in Washington, D.C., and some 90 other cities. A remodeled
Harlem branch, like most of the new outlets, has dedicated space for on-site workshops
“to make them even more meaningful to people’s lives,” she says.
Brown Duckett, one of the few black women in the industry’s C-suite, will continue
to chip away at the deep-seated mistrust that underserved communities have of banks.
“For too long in this country, racial and other social issues made banking inaccessible
for people like me,” she says, noting that her priority at the country’s largest bank is
creating programs “that open doors to opportunity for more people, including black
Americans, women, Latinx and Americans living paycheck to paycheck.”
With Essence magazine as a partner, Brown Duckett launched a financial literacy
program last year aimed at black women, 70% of whom are the sole or primary
breadwinners for their families, bolstering them for what she calls their “CFO role.”
She’s also active in Chase’s effort to recruit 4,000 African-American interns in the
next four years and provide ongoing support to black-owned small businesses.
Creating her own fund named for her parents, the Otis and Rosie Brown
Foundation, Brown Duckett gives annual scholarships to students and grants
to nonprofits under the motto, “Extraordinary things can be done with ordinary
resources.” —T.L.S.
Thasunda Brown Duckett
CEO, consumer banking
JPMORGAN CHASE
Ariel Johnson Lin | executive
director, sports and entertainment
marketing | JPMorgan Chase
With the backdrop of what she describes as a
“high-touch, fully integrated mentor-protégé
relationship with an any-means-necessary
model,” Johnson Lin pursued and landed a
Chase partner deal with actor-comedian Kevin
Hart. Her mentor’s advice about taking on new
challenges “reminds me to trust my gut, be bold
and create a path based on conviction.”Tyrona ‘Ty’ Heath global lead
THE B2B INSTITUTE AT LINKEDIN
Afiya Addison
global program manager
The B2B Institute at LinkedIn
“The main focus for me with Afiya, as another
woman of color, is to help keep her focused
on what’s possible,” says Heath, who hired
Addison to help her build The B2B Institute as
global program manager. “[Heath] has taught
me to lead by first understanding everyone’s
needs, before brainstorming the solution.”
As a result, Addison says, “When there is
disagreement, people now look to me to drive
consensus and resolution.”