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CAREER ADVICE

AT&T's David Huntley Talks About Race and

How Far We Have to Go Follow us

Written by DiversityInc Staff on November 28, 2017    

I interviewed David Huntley, AT&T’s SEVP and Chief Compliance O cer, some months back and we had a
very good discussion; in fact, we went over the allotted time by 20 minutes, and that doesn’t include the
conversation we had before we got started. The interview de nitely went off script but in a very positive
way.

We posted the rst part of the interview in September — AT&T’s David Huntley: Understand Where the
Growth Opportunities Are.
Tweets
This is the second part of the interview, and the conservation got real and deep.
Congratulations to our partner #Hilton for being
named the #1 company to work for in the U.S
Shane Nelson: Your dad was a chauffeur during a time when Blacks were not treated as equals to whites.
two years in a row!… https://t.co/JmY9q4Blry
Did he experience any bias toward him and his family How did he communicate that to you and your February 19, 2020
brother And what did he say about being resilient and overcoming that
. @AIGinsurance's business community lead

David Huntley: He was born in 1912, so he grew up during the Depression, and I could tell you that he saw a Ryan Metzger talks about how allowing
employees to show up to work as the…
lot of ugliness in his time. But he always said, “You can’t let that stop you from being who you are, because
https://t.co/b44aUUAaE3
if you do, you’ll never be a happy person.” He always lived in the future. He saw that things were changing. February 13, 2020
He saw what the movement was all about, and he saw that we were making strides and headway.
. @AIGinsurance's assistant vice president

You know, he was fortunate to work for somebody who was a good person and who treated him with Brandi Monique describes the importance of

More in Career Advice: #mentorship in… https://t.co/P1y0f9IlIL

respect and allowed him to be who he was. And that really was his safe harbor. But that didn’t mean he was
February 13, 2020
oblivious of what was going on around him. So in terms of what he did for me and for my brother, the
biggest gift he gave us was he didn’t pass along hate. Q&A with Nia Jetter, @Boeing’s Domain Lead for
#Arti cialIntelligence, #cybersecurity and

He always told us that it was the art of the possible, that’s the future. “Look ahead, don’t look back; but look #DataScience, about the…
https://t.co/QJPIxZys5W
at what is to come.” He saw things were changing and he said to us, “Be prepared. Be prepared for when
January 29, 2020
AIG’s Brandi Monique things change and for when things open up.” That’s why when I talk to groups of young people, and my
Shares her Mentorship sons in particular, it’s always about being prepared and how you ca position yourself to take advantage of .@Boeing's #777X had a successful test ight
Journey today! Read about it below. #featuredpartners
the future.
January 23, 2020 https://t.co/56zQFoIHY8
January 27, 2020
Shane Nelson: You’re deeply involved in the community. What is the importance of organizations and
corporations having relationships with external organizations in recruiting or just external organizations in . @DowNewsroom's CEO @JimFitterling talks
the community and how you can work and leverage in that space #sustainability. #featuredcontent
https://t.co/47wK04E2kO
January 27, 2020
David Huntley: When you work in the community and you help others, it should give you some perspective.
That perspective should cause you to appreciate what you have. It can also give you an appreciation for Follow @DiversityInc 85.8K followers

Accenture’s Cline, what more there is to do.

Hershey’s Slater, TD Bank’s
Mobley Discuss Growing But sometimes I think we get caught up in ourselves. Sometimes we can just get caught up in our own
and Effectively Leveraging
families and we don’t think about others. I’ve always wanted to make sure that I have the perspective of
Your Diverse Abilities ERG
at ERG Festival others. I don’t operate in a vacuum. We don’t operate as a company in a vacuum. And so, I think that it helps
November 20, 2019 round me out the more involved I am in the community.

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3/6/2020 AT&T's David Huntley Talks About Race and How Far We Have to Go

I need it. I don’t know how to answer this in any way other than to say it helps me be the best me that I can
be when I have that external component, because it’s a part of the diversity that I think we bring to the table, 
and that is perspective. So yes, it’s a huge part of who I am and what I encourage others to do.

Shane Nelson: I want to ask how you felt when Randall came out last year at your ERG summit and
addressed the elephant in the room — racial tensions in the U.S. (referring to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson
Marriott’s Arne Sorenson in Forthrightly Addresses Current Racial Tensions, Says ‘the dialogue must start with me’).
One-on-One Interview with
DiversityInc CEO Carolynn Randall has talked with us many times over the years and he has always embraced diversity and inclusion.
Johnson
He’s transparent about it, he’s forthright about it. But this was different, it was groundbreaking, it was a
October 30, 2019
powerful message. How did you feel about it

David Huntley: I have some insight on that. I knew what he was planning to do, and I had a preview of his
remarks. I knew that for him, he was taking a risk. You know, it turned out really well. It was embraced by
the business community. Essentially, just about everybody embraced it.

But how did I feel My rst emotion was pride. I felt really good that I worked for a company who had a CEO
Intersectionality and who had enough courage to take the step that he took to speak out on this subject.
Navigating Your Career
October 14, 2019
I think it went to the heart of the matter, which is, “Forget your politics.” It’s about who we are as people, and
it is whether we are willing to see past color to try to understand who that other person is. I understand that
point of view because tolerance, as he said in his speech, is for cowards, and because you don’t have to do
anything when you tolerate somebody.

But to understand somebody, that takes work, because you don’t always like what you hear. And so his
remarks — you said he’d always embraced the subject, diversity inclusion, but to me he went deeper, and he
looked inside, and he said, “Why doesn’t this matter” And that’s what I would hope we would all do, is look
inside and say, “Why should it matter”

Yes, I was incredibly proud of him because he was honest. That was the other thing about it. It was honest.
It wasn’t a gimmick. He wasn’t trying to appease anybody. That’s how he felt at the time, given the
circumstances. What he did, in my opinion, is he stepped up.

Shane Nelson: Now you mentioned risk. What was the risk

David Huntley: You know what the risks are when you’re a CEO and you step out and you take on what
might be an unpopular position to take. But you know what’s interesting about that is he was the perfect
person to step out and do that, because if I had done that, they’d say, “Yeah, right.”

But for him to do that, they said, “Wait a minute. What” You look at his politics. You look at his color. Yes, it
was a risk.

You know Randall knows what the risk was, but he was still going to do it because it was the right thing for
him to do because he was so passionate.

That’s what integrity is all about.

We have an uno cial tag line from a compliance prospective: “Just do the right thing.” The reason we put
the “Just” in front of the “do,” is because if I just said, “Do the right thing,” that’s me telling you what to do.
But if I say, “Just do the right thing,” that implies that you should know what that is on the inside.

And I believe that integrity means you do what’s right when nobody’s looking. It’s doing what’s right when
it’s hard. That’s what integrity is about, and we need to call our integrity into question at all different levels
and at every turn. That’s what a lot of our employees are asking me from time to time. In this day, what
does integrity mean

Shane Nelson: Given what’s going on in the country still — we have police shooting Black kids, a Black
young man just died over the weekend, 15 years old, for no reason at all — what conversations are you
having with your kids, with your sons Your dad had the conversation with you growing up, you and your
brother. We’re still going through what your dad went through, right, in those days

David Huntley: Exactly, exactly right.

More in Career Advice:

Shane Nelson: What conversations are you having with your sons

David Huntley: The same conversation. It’s the same conversation. It’s the same conversation that I remind
my white counterparts that they don’t have to have. I gave a speech, when I rst took this job, to the Urban
League State of Black America. I started out, I was given remarks, when I said, “I can’t say that.” I had to ask
myself when I was making the speech, “Are we making progress” To your point that another shooting just
occurred, are we making progress Are we making progress when there was, at that time, Trayvon Martin
AIG’s Brandi Monique
Shares her Mentorship
And most particular was closer to home at that time. Remember the chant on the bus in Oklahoma
Journey
(Referring to Fraternity Chant Goes Viral in the Worst Way Possible).
January 23, 2020

My son knew that young man. That was close to home.

So when you talk about the conversation, I had a conversation with my oldest son that night about his
friend’s brother who said something like that. He had spent the night at their home and he was trying to
make sense of what it meant. The kid called him back and tried to explain, he tried to apologize. I thought
my son’s reaction was perfect. The kid said, “Are we good” and my son said, “I don’t know. I’m going to have
Accenture’s Cline,
to work on this.”
Hershey’s Slater, TD Bank’s
Mobley Discuss Growing
It just means we have a lot of work to do. I’m hopeful, if we put our heads together collectively, just like we
and Effectively Leveraging
Your Diverse Abilities ERG put a man on the moon, we can solve this. But we have to put our heads together; it has to be an open
at ERG Festival debate and an ongoing discussion.
November 20, 2019
https://www.diversityinc.com/atts-david-huntley-talks-race-far-go/ 2/5
3/6/2020 AT&T's David Huntley Talks About Race and How Far We Have to Go

A wise man said to me, his father, it’s a process and we have to think about it as a process, because I think
we think about it as a “want it done” kind of thing. That we’re going to sit here and we’re going to have a 
conversation and we’re going to solve it, but it’s a process and it’s going to take time to do that.

We haven’t gured out what the process is to solve it. So what happens is, there’s a shooting, we’ll talk
about it, and then that’s it. But what’s the plan to solve it There have been a lot of things tossed out about
Marriott’s Arne Sorenson in how to solve it and it’s a big equation, but it’s solvable. It starts with education, healthcare, job
One-on-One Interview with
opportunities, all those different things.
DiversityInc CEO Carolynn
Johnson
There isn’t one easy solution, but I think it is solvable if you approach it as a process that has a beginning
October 30, 2019
and that should have an end. But we just have conversations and then nothing happens. So you’ve got to
get the right people with the right interests at heart.

We are de nitely grateful to have companies like AT&T and others really speak up. Senior leaders speak up
and address their workplace, workforces, and really let them know that things like this won’t be tolerated in
the workforce.

Intersectionality and I do think it starts with companies. They do a lot of the hiring and I’m hopeful that they can work with the
Navigating Your Career
government administration to really try to take the lead on this. But we’ve got a long way to go.
October 14, 2019

You thank us for the work we do. I have to tell you, I really thank DiversityInc for the work it does to make
sure that bar is high. When I talked to senior leadership, we consciously went after this and said we need to
make sure that what we do gets translated to you the right way. We want that recognition. The ranking isn’t
something that you just give away — you have a high bar. The higher the bar, the more work people will do
to rise to the occasion.

At&t Career Advice David Huntley Race Randall Stephenson

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