Career Responsibilities

They said Dawn Staley lost last night. 82-59. A championship dream shattered. Plot twist: She'll still earn more this year than the coach who beat her. In what world does a Black woman coach with 3 championships out-earn a white man with 12? In a world where she built a brand, not just a team. Despite Geno Auriemma's legendary status, Staley's new contract makes her the highest-paid coach in women's basketball at $4 million — outearning his $3.54 million. Many don't know that while rebuilding South Carolina, Staley drove around campus in a van with a bullhorn, begging students to attend games. Think about that: A championship-winning Olympic gold medalist reduced to carnival barking for attendance. Black women, and underestimated folks in general, usually go above and beyond in their roles, just like Staley did—and still make less. Until the system changes, there's something we can do on our own: build a brand. Once she built a brand, look what happens: → Attendance: 2,500 → 19,000+ sold-out crowds → Salary: $250,000 → $4,000,000 annually → Instagram: 56K (Geno) → 579K (Dawn) That's not just a gap. That's a revolution in influence. When you only "let your work speak for itself": → One loss defines you → Your value is tied to outcomes → Setbacks become your story When you build a powerful personal brand: → Your platform outlasts any defeat → Your influence creates opportunities beyond results → Your salary reflects your impact, not just your record Let that sink in. Some context: → In corporate America, only 1.4% of executives are Black women → Leaders from underrepresented groups with strong personal brands report 2.8x more advancement opportunities Staley didn't just win championships. She changed the power structure. Here's the truth: When we create platforms instead of waiting for gatekeepers... When we leverage visibility to demand what we're worth... The rules change. The question isn't if you deserve this kind of influence—it's when you'll start building it. Because if Dawn Staley—starting with a bullhorn and a near-empty arena—can build something that transcends championships and transforms compensation... Just think about how many underestimated executives are still trying to work twice as hard for half the recognition. Still waiting for permission to be visible. Still playing smaller than they dream. The blueprint is clear: Excellence is necessary. But visibility is revolutionary. Only one of them gives you power when the scoreboard doesn't. ✌🏾🧡

Heat. Air Quality. Insurance Costs. An Indian Reality We Must Confront. Reflecting on a recent article I read around on how global heatwaves, air pollution, extreme weather are no longer distant threats. They’re having real, measurable impacts on homes, health, and financial risk. As an insurance broker, I believe it’s our duty to understand these changes, and help India stay resilient. Here’s what our sector should be really be thinking about:   What’s Changing, and Why It Matters 1. Rising temperatures and worsening air quality are more than environmental issues, they lead to greater health risks (respiratory, cardiovascular), increased mortality, and greater stress on medical systems. 2. Homes in many Indian cities are more exposed: ageing infrastructure, poor insulation or ventilation, and limited cooling systems magnify heat stress. 3. As insurers factoring in more frequent claims for heat damage, pollution-related losses, and weather disasters, premiums go up. That may make cover harder to access for many.   What the Insurance Industry Must Do 1. Embed Climate & Health Risk into Underwriting We need granular data: mapping risk zones for heat, pollution, flood etc., and using that to price fairly. Homes in “hot-spots” may need additional risk mitigation built into policies. 2. Design Products that Pay for Prevention Develop solutions that reward preventive measures, from cool roofing and air filtration to safer construction practices, where it is best to avoid the use of hazardous materials like asbestos. Parametric/trigger-based covers can also play a role, activating when thresholds such as heat index or AQI are breached. 3. Educate and Partner with Clients Many customers are unaware of how indoor heat or local air quality can damage property, health, and finances. Brokers must become educators, helping people assess risk, explore mitigation, reduce exposure. 4.Collaborate with Regulators & Local Governments Building codes, city planning, heat-mitigation infrastructure, pollution control, these are public goods that reduce risk for everyone. Working together can help reduce insurance risk, keep costs manageable, and make adaptation scalable. Why This Is a Leadership Opportunity India is uniquely placed. We have diverse climates, rapid urbanisation, and growing awareness. By acting now: Build trust: clients will value brokers who anticipate change, offer stable, forward-looking solutions. Drive innovation: those who develop climate-resilient products will lead, not lag, as regulation and customer expectations evolve. The realities of climate change are here and so are opportunities: to protect, to innovate, to lead. Insurance isn’t just about recovering losses, it’s about building resilience and enabling safer, healthier lives. #ClimateRisk #IndiaResilience #HealthAndClimate #RiskManagement https://lnkd.in/dYrveZd3 

Black women are now the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States. The numbers are exciting, but the full picture is more complicated than a headline can capture. Between 2024 and 2025, Black women-owned employer businesses grew by 13%, with revenue up nearly 6%. Businesses without employees grew at the same rate, with revenue surging 8%. Women-owned businesses overall grew at just 4.4%. But here's the context. Unemployment for Black women rose from 5.4% to 7.3% by December 2025, as federal job cuts hit them disproportionately hard. Per economist Katica Roy's analysis of BLS data, over 300,000 Black women either left the workforce or were laid off in just three months last year. This entrepreneurial boom is fueled by resilience, but also by a system that keeps falling short. Per Wells Fargo's 2025 report, Black women earn 70 cents for every dollar earned by white men. White women earn 83 cents. McKinsey & Company's 2025 Women in the Workplace report found that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 60 Black women are promoted, compared to 82 Asian women, 82 Latina women, and 93 women overall. Labor economist Valerie Wilson told the New York Times: "It was a sharp and unique decline in employment for Black women." Therapist Krista Norris, PhD, who specializes in working with individuals of color, told Fast Company that entrepreneurship feels like a saving grace for many Black women. She says it gives them back their "agency" and "financial mobility" when the traditional system fails them, and that entrepreneurship can be a place where "cultural identity, authenticity, wellness, and purpose-driven work are embraced." Challenges remain. Black women-owned businesses still face financial barriers and fewer funding opportunities, and most are smaller sole proprietorships with limited capacity to absorb shocks. According to last year's Wells Fargo report, it could take roughly 40 years for Black women business owners to reach parity with their male counterparts. That timeline needs to change. 💎 Read the full article by Sarah Bregel in Fast Company to learn more about why Black women are leading entrepreneurship growth in the U.S. and the systemic barriers they still face. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eje7tZ6m #WomenInSTEM #GirlsInSTEM #STEMGems #GiveGirlsRoleModels —————————————————— 💜🩷💙💚 This is why representation and investment in girls and women matter. For a decade, STEM Gems has been empowering the next generation of women leaders in STEM, because when girls see what's possible, they build what's next. Learn more about our decade of impact and donate to STEM Gems here: https://lnkd.in/ed-nJVsN

What's driving the changes in today's complex property insurance market, and how can we turn challenges into opportunities to better serve customers? Recently on #WednesdayswithWoodward Angela Orbann, National Property Lead and Vice President of Personal Insurance, and Daniel DiMugno, Assistant Vice President, Risk Management, Personal Insurance, both from Travelers, joined my colleague Travelers Institute Vice President Jessica Kearney to examine how the company views evolving market pressures.   You can watch the replay here https://lnkd.in/ggWMCHKK   Here are a few things we learned from Dan and Angi: ✅ The property insurance market experiences more ups and downs than other lines of business, mostly due to catastrophic events. ✅ New technology helps insurers and agents understand home characteristics to better serve customers. This helps carriers price policies and assists agents in guiding homeowners to appropriate coverage. ✅ Travelers leverages data and tech to proactively help customers reduce risk. For example, Angi told us how aerial imagery allowed Travelers to alert one homeowner to the risk of large trees near their home, and they removed the trees, preventing major damage in a wind event the next year. ✅ Evolving products allow agents to partner with customers to help put the appropriate coverage in place. Agents play a key role in helping customers understand risk-sharing options that offer more flexibility, such as peril-specific deductible options and dozens of endorsements. ✅ Technology is transforming the claim process in meaningful ways. Travelers’ proprietary geospatial platform identifies areas impacted by weather events often before claims are reported, allowing for rapid and precise deployment of claim professionals. Advanced technology can also take automatic measurements from photos, dramatically speeding up the claim process. Huge thanks to our webinar partners: The Risk and Uncertainty Management Center at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina;  CBIA; UConn MS FinTech; American Property Casualty Insurance Association; MetroHartford Alliance; Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America (BIG I); NAAIA - National African American Insurance Association        

It’s easy to get caught up in brainstorming and dreaming big. But without execution, even the most brilliant ideas stay just that—ideas. Execution is where the real magic happens. It’s about bringing vision to life, turning potential into progress, and creating lasting impact. Here’s why great execution matters: → Vision into Reality Anyone can imagine a better future, but it’s the execution that makes it real. The bridge between an idea and a result is built on hard work, focus, and resilience. → Overcoming Challenges Even the best plans will hit roadblocks. It’s the ability to adapt, learn, and push forward that sets successful people apart. → Sustained Growth Ideas spark innovation, but execution sustains it. Consistently showing up, delivering on promises, and following through builds credibility. → Impact Over Intention Intentions are great, but results are what count. The world doesn’t remember the idea that stayed in someone’s head—it remembers the action that created change. Execution turns inspiration into something tangible, measurable, and impactful. What’s your key to turning big ideas into great results? Let’s exchange insights!

Black women have not stopped wanting executive roles. They have stopped trusting systems that do not reliably reward their talent. 90% percent of my clients are Black women and women of color. They are ambitious, capable, and deeply invested in their careers. Even with everything happening in the world, that has not changed. What has changed is how predictable and transparent advancement feels. I speak weekly with women and men who want to build long-term impact at the executive level. They are not disengaged. They are paying attention. They are watching patterns and outcomes. They are noticing who absorbs risk and who is protected. They are tracking which behaviors are rewarded and which ones quietly raise the bar. Some of this response is fear. Much of it is information. → Advancement that remains conditional → Visibility that increases scrutiny → Performance that expands expectations without expanding authority → Investment that does not guarantee continuity In environments like this, caution becomes a rational professional response. This is also why, in moments like these, job search often begins to outweigh development. A job search offers options. It restores a sense of control. It feels responsive to uncertainty in a way development does not always promise. That does not make development irrelevant. It explains why one often emerges as the clearer immediate choice. I’ll say this directly to you. It is okay to be prudent with ambition. Many of you are not done wanting more. You are waiting for evidence that the conditions are worth reinvesting in again. And when those conditions begin to stabilize, the leaders who move forward fastest are not choosing between development and opportunity. They are prepared for both.

Nobody talks about the grief of losing a career you fought twice as hard to build. Madison Butler 🏳️🌈🦄, CPT made it to the C-suite. She did all the clawing. All the fighting. All the things Black women have to do just to get a seat at a table that wasn't built for us. She had a 10-year plan to eventually go solo on her own terms. Corporate America gave her 18 months. And it's not that she failed or wasn't good at her job. But corporate America decided it didn't want us anymore. She told me she recently had a real good cry over it. Not because she's sad to leave corporate; there are upsides to that. But because something that was hers was taken from her. She built it. She earned it. She fought for it. And it was just... gone. Madison isn't alone. In 2025, 600,000 Black women were pushed out of corporate jobs. Most can't find their way back in, at least not at the same level they left. So what do you do when the traditional path closes? You pivot. You build a platform. You become a creator. And everyone celebrates the pivot like it's a win. But you can successfully pivot to content creation and still be mourning the career you built. You can be "winning" and still feel like something was stolen from you. Both things can be true. If you're a Black woman grieving a career right now, while also trying to figure out what's next, I see you. The grief is valid. Even when you're building something new. 💖 ---- This is Part 3 of my Black History Month series on what it's really like being Black at work and online. Be sure to follow me, Rhona Barnett-Pierce, so you don't miss the rest. P.S. Madison and I went deep on this week's episode of The Workfluencer Podcast. We spoke about what it really means to build a creator career when you've been forced into it.

Brilliant ideas don’t build brands. Flawless execution does. I’ve seen ideas that would win awards on paper, the kind that make everyone in the room go “This is it.” But then the launch hits… and nothing. No spark. No relevance. No results. Why? Because the execution sucked. If you hand your brand over to an agency and say “go build it,” without strong internal leaders guiding it through every stage it’s going to feel off, generic, and like someone else's brand wearing your clothes. Build in-house muscle that can carry the vision forward and don’t confuse a good deck with a good outcome. Big ideas don’t win on their own. Execution is the difference between a cool concept and commercial impact. If you’re not: – Defining success from day one – Building a clear roadmap (not just a timeline) – Assigning real ownership – Stress-testing for bottlenecks – And planning for what happens after launch Then don’t be surprised when it falls flat. Ideas get the headlines. Execution builds the brand.

𝐃𝐚 𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐅𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬—𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐥𝐞𝐰. Great ideas don’t change the world—𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬. Leonardo da Vinci sketched helicopters centuries before they became real. But without the tools, funding, or execution, his designs stayed on paper. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬. They have the vision, but they get stuck. Why? Because execution requires: ▪️𝐀 𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐚𝐩 – Break down your vision into small, executable steps. Complexity kills momentum. Keep it simple. ▪️𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 – No one builds alone. Surround yourself with investors, mentors, and operators who can bridge the gap between idea and reality. ▪️𝐀𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 – Waiting for perfection? You’ll never launch. Start small, iterate fast, and improve as you go. ▪️𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 – One introduction can change everything. Find people who’ve built before and learn from their mistakes. I’ve seen countless entrepreneurs with groundbreaking ideas—but the ones who succeed are those who 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝. What’s the biggest challenge stopping your idea from becoming reality? Let’s discuss.👇 #Execution #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Startups

78% of Black women executives report being expected to mentor others while their own advancement stalls. They call it "being a team player." I call it what it is: exploitation of your brilliance. Three truths every high-achieving Black woman needs to hear: 💰 Your mentorship has monetary value. When they ask you to "help out," send an invoice or decline. Your knowledge isn't free community property. 👏🏽 The same company that celebrates you in diversity reports is evaluating you on metrics that punish community building. Make them pay for both or neither. 🙅🏽♀️ Your colleagues get sponsors. You get assigned mentees. The math doesn't work. Find your own sponsor who opens doors instead of adding to your workload. My client refused to mentor for free last quarter. Result? 40% more time for strategic projects and her first promotion in 3 years. Say it with your chest: "I value my expertise at $X per hour. Would you like to proceed?" Are you tired of being everyone's unpaid coach while your own career stagnates? P.S. I'm starting a cohort of high-achieving women who are done shrinking to fit and want to shut down imposter syndrome and turn confidence into cash. No fluff. All fire. Visit https://lnkd.in/eYUsUsTB for details.