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Groton Daily Independent
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 102 ~ 59 of 63
Not bad for a woman who originally wanted to be a beautician.
“I had plenty of people who told me since I was a female that I should stay on the beautician side,” White said. “Because I was African-American, the stats say you’re not going to make it here. But I said to myself that I’ll prove them wrong. That was the tingling in my re to say ‘That’s what you think, but that’s not what I think.’”
White now oversees 3,500 employees for A ac’s U.S. operations, focusing on product innovation and expanding distribution. She received several honors this year from the American Business Awards and was recognized by Black Enterprise Magazine as one the most powerful women in business.
Though African-American friends and peers have told her of their struggles to climb the corporate ladder, White says her ascent was made less dif cult by A ac’s initiative for diversity. A ac’s executive leadership team is one-third female and two-thirds of the company’s workforce is comprised of women. About 40 percent of employees are minorities.
“It’s what made me stay,” White told The Associated Press in an interview. “Certainly, I’ve had opportu- nities. But for me, you can’t replace an organization that has the groundwork already laid to allow people to be who they are and honor their work product and not their skin color.”
During her tenure at A ac, White has sought to uplift her colleagues with early morning devotion times, where employees join her to read Bible scriptures and meditate, sometimes in her spacious 12th- oor corner of ce at A ac headquarters in Columbus. She also began a career development program for those in the company in 2014.
But White wanted to do even more in the community, speci cally for young girls she felt needed men- toring in a major way.
In 2015, White created the Bold Moves, an eight-week summer program in Columbus to inspire African- American girls ages 13 to 17. The program is backed by A ac and features nearly 30 women who are com- munity and business leaders teaching various lessons ranging from personal nance and entrepreneurship to business etiquette, resume writing and more.
Hercules and many other black girls have been inspired by White and have taken part in Bold Moves. The program works with Girls Inc. to recruit girls such as Hercules — who’s been involved with both pro- grams for years.
“She cares about the people,” A ac CEO Daniel Amos said. “When you know the boss cares about you, you work harder for them. It’s that caring attitude that really makes her the person she is. Then, it’s her IQ and her ability to manage and leadership skills ... She’s got the combination of it all.”
White felt she could relate to the girls. She and her sister were raised by their single mother in impov- erished public housing in Dallas, where drugs were rife and she recalled people around her who made a lot of “bad decisions.”
Mentorship, she said, helped her overcome the obstacles and set her on her career path.
“I want to be a lighthouse,” White said. “This is an opportunity to show a different picture of what suc- cess looks like.”
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Follow Jonathan Landrum Jr. on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MrLandrum31 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/jonathan%20landrum
5 things to know about China’s twice-a-decade party congress
BEIJING (AP) — The crucial parts are being held behind closed doors, but journalists, academics and more than a billion Chinese citizens are closely watching for any public hints signaling change at this week’s twice-a-decade congress of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Possible outcomes include the emergence of President Xi Jinping’s closest allies, signs indicating the di- rection of an increasingly aggressive foreign policy and clues about the possible next leader of the world’s second-biggest economy.
Five things to watch for: ___