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FORTUNE.COM // NOVEMBER 2019
WHEN BRIAN RITCHEY attends a meeting,
he’s almost always the one running it. But
when the COO of Pennsylvania-based metal supplier
Ritchey Metals put on a virtual reality headset, he
wasn’t at the head of the table.“I was in the board-
room with a group of diverse women. I was the only
male in the room. They would try to interrupt me,”
Ritchey remembers. “I was so annoyed at everyone
in the meeting—no one would listen to me.”
Ritchey was testing a new VR-enabled diver-
sity and inclusion training program developed
by Pittsburgh-based leadership consultants DDI.
Intended to teach (mostly white, mostly male)
executives like Ritchey what their employees experi-
ence at work, the scenario places the participant in a
meeting with a familiar set of challenges in the way.
Meeting attendees cut him off, make decisions at a
lunch he wasn’t invited to, and accuse him of “just
being too sensitive.”
“It’s really what it’s like to feel excluded at work,”
says Mina Sipe, a senior innovation consultant at
DDI Labs who developed the simulation. The firm
works with 78% of the Fortune 500 in some capac-
ity, giving this technology the potential to change
VR in the Boardroom
What’s it like to be ignored, cut off, or excluded
in the workplace? VR simulations can help ex-
ecutives feel it. By Emma Hinchliffe
RESTON, VIRGINIA
ATLANTA
SAN FRANCISCO
LAS COLINAS, TEXAS
RELOCATION DENVER
VR
OUT OF THE BAY,
NOT LOOKING BACK
TWO U.S. compa-
nies announce a
new headquarters.
One sets off a
countrywide bid-
ding war, paired
with protests. The
other is welcomed
with open arms,
congratulated
and celebrated.
The first company,
Amazon, botched
its “HQ2” move to
Long Island City
company the North
Face is packing
up its gear and
moving from the
Bay Area to Denver
by 2020, after
Colorado presented
the company with
$27 million in tax
incentives to move.
With the Bay Area’s
high cost of living
and operating
unlikely to subside
anytime soon, we
can expect plenty
more hackneyed
“Why I Left San
Francisco” Medium
posts to come. —
ASHWIN RODRIGUES
how leadership teams
nationwide under-
stand exclusion and
treat their millions of
employees.
For some, the train-
ing provides a sense of
validation. “It brought
up triggers from early
in my career,” says
Dina Clark, North
American head of
diversity and inclusion
at Covestro, a high-tech
materials producer.
Other participants have
cried, started sweating,
or almost flipped the
table—a far cry from
the usual zoned-out
reaction to corporate
training videos.
earlier this year.
The second is Walk-
er & Co.—a beauty
company for people
of color—which
moved from the
Bay Area to Atlanta,
following an acqui-
sition by Procter &
Gamble. Founder
from San Fran-
cisco to Reston, Va.
Earlier this year,
drug distribution
giant McKesson
moved its head-
quarters from San
Francisco to Las
Colinas, Texas. And
outdoor clothing
Tristan Walker cited
a desire to be closer
to his customers
as the main reason
for the move to the
South. And he’s
not alone. In 2018,
engineering and
construction firm
Bechtel relocated
DEVIN HANCE
—FORTUNE MEDIA
