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Welcome to the HBR IDAC Pass from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.

In March 2012, our guest today gave one of the biggest speeches of her life. At the time, she

was a middle manager at Procter & Gamble, the huge consumer goods company. She stood on

a stage at its world headquarters with video cameras live streaming to locations around

the world and said, I am Shelley McNamara, the vice president of Human Resources in Beauty

and Gruming. I am a mother, a life partner, a sister, and an aunt. I am also gay.

She went on to talk about how important it is to feel like you can be your real self at work.

Today, Shelley is chief equality and inclusion officer at PNG, which means that she's responsible

for making sure that all of its 100,000 employees feel welcome and valued in the organization.

And after more than a year of pandemic and political and racial tensions in the US and other

parts of the world, these issues have become even more critical for businesses to address.

So we're going to talk to Shelley about how she's built on her own experience to make

things better for others and what advice she has for leaders trying to do the same. She

also has a new book out. It's called No Blank Snow Pazis, a path to loving self and others.

Shelley, thanks so much for joining today.

Thank you, Alison. Great to be here.

So let's start by talking about privilege, something you mentioned in that speech in 2012.

You know, some people might look at you and say, you're an educated white woman, a senior

leader, a big company, you have lots of privilege. They might not know, which I do from your

...