Marva Smalls, Keynote - Diamond xChange 2019

Good morning, and thank you, Deborah. I was stuck on a call when you came in, but it's always great to see you and always to be in the company of your leadership and others of you in the room. And I thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts with you today. You know, it's really an honor for me because CDN is a remarkable organization. It's the kind of farsighted, far-reaching, industry-wide initiative that quite frankly ought to exist in the United States and every other country. You know, this conference, your gathering here, is just one example of the powerful, positive impact that you are having. You are the catalyst that's making change happen, and I salute you. And the conference's focus on data could not be more welcome because data underpins transparency, transparency delivers accountability, and accountability is the only way to make our sector truly and permanently diverse and inclusive. Sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant. So thanks to the ongoing improvements in the way that we collect, measure, and monitor diversity data, we're possessing even more powerful tools to advance diversity and inclusion. I also want to thank you for offering me the opportunity to talk about a subject that is the primary focus of my professional life and the passion of my entire life. I grew up in South Carolina, parents were part of the civil rights movement, you know, so early on, you know, whether it was through voting or whatever, data was an important part of my life and being a catalyst for change. You know, and my mission as Viacom's Executive Vice President of Global Inclusion Strategy is to ensure that diversity and inclusion are woven into every fiber of our being as a corporation. So for us, it's not a sidelight but a highlight. It's not something we do in our spare time but something we do all the time. And it's not something we have to remind ourselves to do; it's second nature. And our directive comes straight from the top, from our CEO. We even have a senior-level Global Inclusion Advisory Council whose 16 members include the chief operating officers of all of our divisions, including the managing director for the UK, who's the managing director for international, who's based in the UK. And this initiative has really paid off for us. We're only one of 16 companies with female majority corporate boards in the Russell 3000 index. And we're putting our money where our mouths are. Our leadership's compensation is tied to their ability to create inclusive work environments. And another way we are practicing diversity and inclusion is by empowering our employees to lead through employee resource groups. You know, and they support our businesses by serving as a sounding board for our programs and a cultural touchpoint for our global brands. Our objective at the end of the day is to create an environment where every single employee brings his or her whole self to work each and every day, because we all do our best work when we are true to who we are. And that's essential because if the people who fill our conference tables, our writing rooms, and our production studios are homogenized, I feel marginalized, we cannot possibly create content that will be culturally relevant today or even in the years ahead. In other words, this is one case where doing the right thing is doing the smart thing. Doing good is good for the bottom line. And during my 25 years at Nickelodeon and Viacom, I've been a regular visitor to the UK where I've worked to help ensure that our offices are diverse, inclusive, open, welcoming, creative, and vibrant. But it's only since Viacom acquired Channel 5 back in 2014 that I've become more deeply immersed in the wider debates about how best to advance diversity and inclusion in Great Britain, both in broadcasting and across society as a whole. While the UK is one of the most multicultural countries in the world, and the mission of diversity and inclusion cuts across all boundaries, many of the specific challenges and issues you face here—unique history, culture, geography, even language, to be honest—differ significantly from the US. And adding to the challenge, diversity and inclusion wasn't even a low priority for Channel 5's previous owners; it had fallen off the bottom of the agenda, quite frankly, just as Channel 5 had fallen off the membership lists for the Creative Diversity Network. From my perspective, looking across the 180 markets that Viacom operates, when it comes to using data to advance the aspects of diversity and inclusion, the UK is leading the way. Legislating mandating the publication of gender pay data has already started to be a real game-changer, and I hope the work of the race charter has equal potential to increase the hiring of people of color. Under the leadership of Sharon White, Ofcom has notably upped its game, requiring the leading broadcast licensees to publish workforce data covering a range of protected characteristics and pushing a new focus on social mobility. Now, initially, there were misgivings at Viacom about the ethics and perhaps even the legality of surveying our employees for this type of data, but we have come to see this level of transparency as positive, as an approach we can roll out and adapt to other countries we operate in. In addition, it's been a great step forward that the UK's leading broadcasters have come together with the CDN to launch Diamond to monitor representation on screen and in the production teams behind the camera. And at Viacom, we are pleased that the chairmanship has rotated to James Currell. We look forward to partnering with him and you and being a great resource for Deborah as well. But there are other examples of highly publicized diversity reports, but there are none that match, that's as quite as comprehensive and collaborative as what Diamond is doing. It is unique in what its mission and goals are, and for this, you have my admiration. Because we like to say at Viacom, we don't want to just follow best practices; we want to be a part of next practices. And I think this work of Diamond is part of a next practice that we are going to champion and move across the world. But before we get too carried away with data, data in itself is just numbers and statistics. But we plan to operationalize that data toward other goals, to aim higher, to set measurable objectives, and take all the steps necessary to meet and exceed those goals. To put it another way, it takes strategic thinking, goal-setting, dedication, determination, and plain old hard work. So with this in mind, I'd like to offer you five axioms that I believe should guide our approach to driving greater public accountability and ultimately better outcomes through the most effective application of data. So, number one: do the math. To persuade businesses to prioritize diversity and inclusion, we must use data to demonstrate the financial imperative as well as the moral one. If there's one thing that gets executives guaranteed to pay attention to, it's the numbers. And we have some eye-catching numbers to support our argument. For example, according to Nielsen, between 2017 and 2050, 50% of the global population is expected to come from 9 countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and the US. By 2020, women will control 75% of global discretionary spending—75%. And already, some 244 million people live and work outside of their native country worldwide. In the US, there are 120 million multicultural Americans with a collective spending power in excess of 4 trillion dollars a year. And no less authority than the McKinsey report suggests that ethnically diverse companies are 33 percent more likely to outperform their peers, while gender diverse companies are 21 percent more likely to do the same. So if someone told you you could impact your bottom line by 21 percent, 33 percent, who would walk away from that? So any business leader would be short-sighted or negligent to ignore that kind of data. So it is our job to use data to persuade the businesses we work for and work with that it is in their self-interest to add and multiply and not divide and subtract, to stay ahead of the global demographic change curve, and to differentiate themselves and win rather than lose out to a competitor who understands their audience better than they do. So, number two: it's the ratings, stupid. In other words, it's about the audience. Because in television and the media industry more broadly, success depends on knowing and serving your audience. Data analysis is at the heart of creative strategies as well as our commercial ones. And that's exactly how Diamond and other diversity data initiatives should be positioned: as an extension of the tools we have at our disposal already, as a means of better serving our audiences, helping to make sure we enrich our content with a full range of perspectives that are experienced and expected by those who view and use our services. And that, of course, means making sure those perspectives are at the table when all key decisions are made. Number three is targets, not quotas. We are more likely to be motivated by measuring progress toward an aspirational target rather than be forced and perhaps failing to hit an arbitrary quota. We should be aiming to expand both cognitive diversity and cultural diversity. We need both linear and lateral thinkers, and we need socio-economic diversity that brings a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds to the table, including those who grew up on council estates and those who did not attend Oxford or Cambridge. An aristocratic approach to recruitment may bring you to a very creed of color, but it's no guarantee against homogenizing and groupthink. And no one's going to win with sameness. A successful team can't solely rely on strikers; you need defenders and goalkeepers. Axiom number four: more carrot, less stick. Of course, there's always a place for the stick. Is it a surprise that 40% of British companies have publicized wider gender pay gaps in the second year of reporting, considering they face no sanctions for doing so? But generally, our approach should favor persuasion over punishment. After all, the goal is to move everyone forward. We will succeed by encouraging busy executives with limited time and resources to embrace the use of data, to see that developing a deep understanding of the makeup of their workforce and their customer base is an opportunity to build a competitive advantage, rather than being a chore or a challenge. And number five: it's not a sprint, it's not even a marathon, it's a continuum without a finish line. The fact is this: however much data we manage to generate and analyze, there will be no measurable end point at which our efforts become redundant, no moment when we finally say the battle to make our sector truly diverse and inclusive has been achieved. The task we face—to weave diversity and inclusion deep into the DNA of our industry so that good practice is the rule rather than the exception—is an ongoing and enduring one. We will always have room to improve, and we will need constant vigilance to keep doing it better. That's the task we have embraced and are embarked on at Viacom, and the data is a key driver behind our strategy. In the US, for example, as part of the development and greenlight process at Paramount Pictures—and we're now adapting it in our media networks—we've just announced that all of our productions will be required to complete a plan designed to enhance access and opportunities for groups historically underrepresented and marginalized in the media industry. And this mirrors what we're doing at Channel 5 under Ben Frow, where all productions must outline in advance how they will help the channel meet its diversity and inclusion targets and report back on achieved results, and as part of the editorial sign-off process, which can ultimately be matched against Diamond data. In fact, we are working to roll out data-driven initiatives across our international operations with a particular focus on gender in all countries. The next practices I'm talking about—using a best practice to push forward a next practice—but most importantly, all of these KPIs, these key performance indicators, are linked to our short-term incentive plan right across our business, where every percentage point is a percentage of every qualifying employee's bonus to be allocated by yours truly, based on their performance against the targets we have set for each brand's line of business around diversity and inclusion. That's the carrot and the stick in action right there, together. Ultimately, I believe that our collective efforts will lead to sunnier days ahead. The geopolitical weather may be stormy in many countries; the US and the UK included face backlash over multiculturalism. But beneath the headlines, a majority of our populations' day-to-day attitudes and practices are changing, and these changes will accelerate with the passage of time and the movement of generations. These changes will not just impact our industry but will reverberate throughout the global economy. Powerful voices are calling out for greater efforts to increase inclusivity, and you know what? Audiences are voting with their eyeballs and their wallets. With the box office success of Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, and just last week, Captain Marvel starring Brie Larson, it's a huge wake-up call to all of us. Data is behind all of this. So that's why lasting and real change no longer just feels possible; it feels inevitable. But only if we make it so. Only if our actions move us forward. Only if we take the initiative in our own hands to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice. Conversations with many of you in this room have made me optimistic about the future, and I look forward to working with you in the coming weeks, months, and years to make this happen. Thank you for your time and your attention, and best wishes for a successful conference.