How companies can address racial injustice within their organizations

Willie Sullivan, MBA student at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how companies can address racial injustice within their organizations.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: We hear a lot these days about corporations which are pledging and promising to be more inclusive and become more diverse. But are they following through on that? And lots of people are getting MBAs, but now there's a way that those two things are coming together. Willie Sullivan is an MBA student at Emory's Goizueta Business School. He's joining us now to talk about a program that Emory and you founded, which kind of focuses on this-- what you call the intersection between businesses and racial inequality. And there's a competition underway that's already about a year old. Tell us more about it.

WILLIE SULLIVAN: Yeah. So the competition is-- it's the John R Lewis Racial Justice Case Competition. It's named for John Lewis, who many people know is the Democratic Congressman from the city of Atlanta. He represented the Atlanta district in Congress for about 34 years and passed away in July. And he was a champion in the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. Martin Luther King.

And the whole idea for the competition really came from business students that I knew, students that I went to school with saying, you know, during the racial justice protests in the summer, basically saying they didn't know what they could really do. And that seemed to me to have students who are going to be leading some of the most influential companies in the world really need to understand, what does it look like for businesses to actually create racial equity and push the conversation forward around racial justice? And so bridging those two things together, the students as well as the corporations, to understand how-- like, what does it look like for businesses to take a more active role in racial equity?

SEANA SMITH: And, Willie, speaking of that, I mean, this is such an important issue-- and you've had some big sponsorships from major organizations-- Walmart, SalesForce, HP, Johnson & Johnson, just to name a few-- that you're partnering with that are on board with this competition. Talk to us just about the process in getting big names like these involved in your project and what you hope they bring to this competition.

WILLIE SULLIVAN: Yeah. So it really came down to relationships. And being at a business school like Goizueta Business School, you have lots of relationships from alumni and also faculty members. And so it was a lot of kind of pounding the pavement and going out and finding the right people to get to the right person to get to the right person. And each one of these sponsors has a different story about how we made that happen.

What we were really looking for from them was not just a financial sponsorship commitment, but also for them to give us access to people at the companies, to actually work with the students that were competing, to work on their recommendations-- so the semifinalists in the competition worked for six weeks to put together recommendations based on a goal that each of these companies had stated. So the goals were different across the different companies.

But it was really centered around-- we wanted more than just them to give us money. It was really focused on them being a part of the journey with the students to come up what was best for that company to reach its goals in racial equality and justice.

ADAM SHAPIRO: And you talked about future leaders-- that's you. You're going to be an MBA in charge at one point. How will you use this when you're running a company in the near future?

WILLIE SULLIVAN: Well, one of the things that-- you know, because the competition happened in January-- but one of the things that I thought was just amazing about the work that was done by the students there, and it was students from universities all over the country-- from Harvard and Yale, to the University of Alabama, to the University of Southern California, and Rice University-- it was a lot of students from a lot of different backgrounds that were participating.

And for me as well as them, we want people to understand that there needs to be boldness and innovation in the space of racial equity in business. And so for me coming out of this, what I realized is after seeing what the students have presented in the final round, it was amazing to me how much innovation was there, and people just needed a platform in which to be able to do that kind of innovative work. And so I think that's really one of the major takeaways.

ADAM SHAPIRO: We wish you all the best and continued success. Willie Sullivan, the MBA student at Emory's Goizueta Business School-- real quick, when do you get awarded the MBA?

WILLIE SULLIVAN: Next week. We graduate next week.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Congratulations. Congratulations. I'm going to request that we bring you back once you've landed in your position so we can follow up. All the best to you.