Sometimes your passions find you when you least expect it. When I started doing my Masters degree, I took a course that asked me to take a series of online quizzes to see what career path may be best for me. At the end of my quizzing journey, the answer was given to me: You should work in Diversity and Inclusion. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about the field before being prescribed my supposed dream career, so I fell into a rabbit hole of googling that really lit the lightbulb above my head. I was hooked, and I decided I’d write my thesis about the topic.
Fast forward to the present day and I’m a fresh masters grad hungry to learn more about DEI. I was so excited, I started reaching out to people that I’ve met at conferences, at school, on Linkedin – just to see if there was anyone who can give me guidance on how to jump in. It was during this time when I reached out to Furkan Karayel, founder of Diversein.com.
I was already somewhat familiar with Furkan, she had presented at a conference I attended during my studies, but I wanted to know more about her business and journey into the DEI space, so I shot her a Linkedin message and crossed my fingers. In the meantime, I did a deep dive into Diversein. I saw an impressive list of clients and sponsors, many companies that I had heard of before or even applied to in the past. I found that there was a regularly updated blog with tons of DEI knowledge that was an incredible resource for someone like me, someone who was just getting started in the industry and wanted to learn as much as possible.
What made Diversein so dynamic and interesting to me was the concept of Inclusive Intelligence. Inclusive Intelligence calls for diversity not only in how our organizations are made up visibly with attributes such as gender, race, etc, but also creating a sort of ‘diversity of thought’, which makes space for different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds. To me, this concept of bridging the invisible, emotional levels of inclusion with the visible attributes of diversity immediately made sense.
I knew 2 things for sure: The first was that Diversein aimed to create long-lasting impact and transform organizations from within, and the second was that I wanted to get involved.
To my surprise, Furkan replied quickly and set up a call with me just to chat, and when we met on Zoom, we talked a bit about our lives and how we were doing. I asked her some of my burning questions about Diversein, the DEI industry as a whole, etc, before she let me know that she was looking for a bit of help ‘eventually’. Without missing a beat, I asked if Diversein was looking for volunteers, and after a short conversation between us it was decided: I was now going to volunteer with Diversein as a Diversity and Inclusion Resource Manager!
This blog post is just the first of many you can expect from me here at Diversein, and I’m looking forward to contributing to our library of resources and gaining knowledge from our connections, clients, collaborators, and of course: Furkan herself!
Amanda Mola is a recent Intercultural Management MA Grad and current HR Intern at Transatel - NTT. Amanda did her masters research on DEI in Multinational Companies Operating in France, and is passionate about Inclusion.