Last week at the Graduate School of Media and Public Affairs, a diversity executive spoke about diversity in the corporate space and her own professional journey.
Sharifah Anderson, senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Federal Home Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), said that a company's commitment to diversity and inclusion goes beyond just appointing a diversity officer. He said that everyone needs to be able to support and share. That effort.Thursday's conversation with interim business school dean Vanessa Perry was part of the school's diversity and allyship initiative week.
Mr. Anderson said of his work as an associate at Fannie Mae before his current position. various Private law firms and lawyers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were already promoting diversity and inclusion, but this topic was not front and center.
“That work is very focused on expanding access, including building affordable housing and partnering with businesses to come up with innovative solutions that increase access to credit. '' Anderson said. “So in many ways, I felt like I was doing diversity and inclusion work, even though I didn’t have a full-time role.”
Anderson said she was exposed to racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity as the daughter of two Jamaican immigrants growing up in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. She said she was inspired to become a lawyer so she could expand access and opportunity for others because of the limited resources in her community.
Anderson said Fannie Mae's mission at a “fundamental level” is to buy and sell mortgages to investors and provide mortgage banks with capital to make more mortgages for future homeowners. He said it was something to do.
“I think today, more than ever, we are thinking more deeply about what it means to provide liquidity in a way that serves all communities, especially underserved communities,” Anderson said. he said.
Anderson said many of Fannie Mae's diversity and inclusion efforts address valuation biases that devalue homes belonging to marginalized groups. According to a 2022 Brookings report, appraised home values in Black neighborhoods are 21 to 23 percent lower than those in non-Black neighborhoods.
“Much of the work we do at Fannie Mae involves understanding how bias shows up in our processes and systems and how to eliminate it,” Anderson said. Told. “And that helps all of us. I think understanding diversity and inclusion that way would change the way we look at this work in a big way, but that's not what's being talked about in a lot of places.”
In 2018, Fannie Mae established Future Housing Leaders. programpartnering with other financial institutions to support a more diverse housing industry.
Anderson said half of Fannie Mae's roughly 1,000 employees identify as people of color, which helps the company overcome obstacles in serving more communities. He said that
“Those things are important because if you look at the demographics of this country, what we know is going to be in the future and is going to be there now, it's a great opportunity to really serve a broader range of households. '' said Anderson.
Anderson said diversity and inclusion in a company involves more than appointing a chief diversity officer, and that the “real test” of diversity and inclusion is how the organization divides up the work. He said that it is important to investigate.
“It’s so much more than one person or one team,” Anderson said. “It has to be incorporated into everything you do.”
