The below transcript is from a 2013 interview with Chris Mendoza, VP of Multicultural Market Development, MassMutual Financial Group. Interviewees for the series My Inclusion Dividend were asked for their personal opinions and not those reflective of their current or past employer. The views expressed are not necessarily those of any employer or this website.  Click here for other interviews in this series.

The Dagoba Group: Please provide us a brief overview of your work history and your current role.

My work history started in 1977 at age 14. I was a radio personality DJ and later became a radio journalist in El Paso, TX. In 1988, I became an Allstate agent-agency owner in the search for a new, lucrative career. In a short time, I was promoted to Sales Manager and Manager of Agencies in San Antonio and then Houston. An opportunity arose in 1996 to take on the lead role for customer relations, reporting to the CEO of Allstate. This opportunity precipitated a move to Illinois. A year later, this position transitioned to be the head of the Hispanic marketing initiative for Allstate. My last position with Allstate was Sales Director for the National Sales Education Center. I left Allstate because I really enjoyed the work in diverse markets, and Nationwide offered me a position in 2002 to take on a more direct diversity marketing role out of Columbus, Ohio.

In 2007, MassMutual approached me about taking on a leadership role in developing multicultural markets. I was impressed with MassMutual’s over 150 years of experience and their commitment to building a thorough diversity marketing strategy. It was a dream opportunity. Currently, in addition to leading our multicultural marketing team and business strategy, I also sit on the leadership marketing committee.

The Dagoba Group: At what point in your career did you become aware of the topic of diversity and inclusion in the workplace? In what way?

Great question. It was hard to remember when I was first aware of D&I. I guess it goes all the way back to when I was in the first grade in El Paso, when one of my playground friends told me I was Hispanic. I didn’t think much about it, given the comment came from a Caucasian kid, and my community in El Paso was predominately Hispanic. That comment, though, stuck with me over the years.  I didn’t fully understand it until much later in my life. That kid held up the mirror for me; one that helped me see something I knew about myself but hadn’t really noticed.

On a workplace basis, it was when I first became an insurance agent that I began to fully appreciate the diversity of being Hispanic and helping customers of all types. Beyond selling our products, my job was to educate people about potential risks that they faced if they did not have adequate insurance protection. The whole conversation around death and disability was not very welcomed within the community. There’s a fatalistic sensibility within the Hispanic culture, so understanding this cultural nuance around these topics and financial services helped me to build more effective relationships. I became a trusted advisor to the point of clients calling me for help with other non-insurance related matters.

The Dagoba Group: Think back to your first D&I development? What topic was it and in what capacity? What was the impact of that development experience on you?

I clearly remember that when I was living in Houston, Allstate was very interested in activating an Hispanic marketing initiative. At the time, I was one of the very few Hispanic leaders in the company. They asked me to attend a debrief session with the ad agency that they were hiring, and it made such an impression on me. The company invested a substantial amount of money on market research in order to inform the development of the strategy. It intrigued me so much that I enrolled in graduate school to earn an MBA with an emphasis in marketing.

The research validated my thoughts about the market being fast-growing and diverse. Growing up I perceived Hispanic to be just of Mexican-American origin. The research opened up my eyes to see the diversity of the Hispanic world.

The Dagoba Group: Could you tell us a time when you applied a D&I strategic approach? Please describe the current situation, the approach and the resulting situation.

It was definitely when I was determining the go-to multicultural market strategy for MassMutual. The company’s financial services offices across the country already were working in these markets, but we did not have a defined, holistic business or marketing strategy. We took a very heavy research approach, targeting consumers, and that research informed the development of our strategies. We started with the Chinese market and eventually moved into other markets. Sales managers, financial professionals, and leaders within the organization were interviewed, in addition to external agencies, to better understand the full market from all angles.

We were able to build advocacy amongst our offices and leverage wins to further build our success. There was some skepticism in the market. This approach has been going on for five years now, allowing us to grow our reach into the multicultural markets.

The Dagoba Group: Can you describe a situation in which you saw a clear and measurable impact from an inclusion strategy or an inclusive behavior? What was the impact personally and on the business?

Actually my boss, our Chief Marketing Officer John Chandler, not only gave me a seat at the table, but also created an inclusive environment in which I and everyone on the team felt welcome to bring our full self to work. He recognizes we all have skills to bring to the table and continually pushes us to seek our self-development. He encouraged me to enroll in a 12-month leadership development program specifically for minorities. It was a liberating experience, because as I’ve developed in my career, I felt like I had to be like everyone else. I had to fit into a box that minimized my culture and life experiences in order to get ahead. You have to dress like everyone else, act like “them” and truly minimize your uniqueness. The program helped me understand I did not have to do this. That my diverse background was, in fact, a strength and not a weakness. I was shortchanging myself and the company when I was focusing on my sameness and not leveraging my differences. Today, I am a more valued contributor by speaking from a place of authenticity. I credit him and Lorie Valle-Yañez, our Chief Diversity Officer, for supporting me in attending the course.

The Dagoba Group: At the Dagoba Group, we define diversity to be the presence of difference. How do you define inclusion?

Inclusivity signals to me no differences. We are taught words like “tolerance” and other words to describe how people are different. Inclusion means more to me about our shared commonalities. I feel that we are more alike than we are different.

The Dagoba Group: For those companies that have not invested in an enterprise wide D&I strategy, what is your advice?

I would ask, “Why not?” It does not happen by itself. The very nature of having a workforce from all walks of life and generations IS diversity. So, a company’s leadership that does not understand the fact that in order to survive they must change and leverage the skills of their diverse workforce is a company that is going to be left behind. It is never too late for a company to break traditional behaviors, to grow and expand in the new marketplaces of today. The conversation needs to start today.

Oftentimes, I see D&I sitting in Human Resources, which could make sense in a few organizations, but it could be limiting for others. In some organizations, Human Resources is a corporate function and thus their reach and influence in the business could be limited, making it more challenging to help drive change if there are not internal champions at varying levels. A company needs a vision that includes an internal focus and an external focus in order for it to be successful. Internally, the strategy must serve management and employees. Externally, the strategy must serve a diverse customer base. Lastly, companies who want to survive need to understand that diversity and inclusion is a business imperative – not an option. The best way I know how to drive change is to hold up the mirror to ask ourselves… what we need to do differently today to succeed tomorrow.

Interviewers Mason Donovan and Mark Kaplan are principals at The Dagoba Group, a global diversity and inclusion consultancy, and authors of The Inclusion Dividend (Bibliomotion, 2013).