(upbeat music)
-: It's such an honor to be here.
I'm Aliya Bhatia, and I'm humbled and grateful
to be one of the winners for the 2022 DEI BCG
North America Award.
So I work for an organization called Vot-ER.
We help hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, social workers,
health care associations around the country
to integrate voter access into the work that they do.
And part of why we do that is because
the American Medical Association describes voting
as a critical determinant of health.
That it's so important that if we're going to impact
people's health, we also impact the things happening
around them including their environment,
their access to food, their access to good jobs,
and voting is a really important way
to move and shape policy.
So I remember being a young sprightly associate
in the Atlanta office, and I had set up a meeting
with Alan Wise to talk about an interesting idea
for a workshop around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And as a young person I wasn't sure how
I was going to be received.
I was really new to the firm.
And I sat down with Alan and presented this idea
around bringing the whole office together
around topics of diversity.
And he was excited about it.
He offered me a mentor, he offered me resources,
and he said to make sure to keep him in the loop
as the idea progressed.
That evolved into a workshop that we affectionately
called Harnessing All the Brilliance,
which we did in partnership with
the National Center for Civil and Human Rights
under the leadership of Doug Shipman
who is a BCG alum, and then also with Rod Garcia Escudero
who ran training for the office and is now
the head of the Atlanta office.
And it was through that work that I learned
the valuable importance of uplifting more junior voices
on the team and making sure folks who may not have
an obvious in to be able to give their perspective are given
the opportunity to bring new projects and new ideas
to the forefront.
And I think that's a really critical DEI area of expertise.
When I think about what organizations can do to support DEI,
it's about constantly evolving,
it's about using some of the same things that we
teach and learn at BCG to set goals and to create strategies
that are integrated with DEI concepts,
and that we're measuring each touchpoint along the way.
When I think about individuals,
it's both about the inner work of developing and how we
communicate around DEI and how we advance DEI
in our everyday actions.
And it's also about something that we think is
really important at Vote-ER, which is making sure that we
cast our political voice through our vote and making sure
that a part of what we're doing is shaping the policies
around us to support that DEI ecosystem as well.
(upbeat music)