An Interview with Millette Granville
Millette Granville grew up with a flair for fashion. Her original career goal was to be in fashion design and merchandising. An internship with Macy’s changed the course of her career as she uncovered her true calling for management and talent recruitment. Millette is now weaving the fabric of corporate America by implementing game changing Diversity & Inclusion initiatives that not only impact corporate culture, but also deliver profit building results.
WISE: Millette, can you tell me a bit about your career path. How did you become a D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) leader?
MG: Originally, I wanted to be a fashion designer. Yes, I wanted to work in fashion merchandising and design. I started that path with an internship at Macy’s. After the internship, Macy’s hired me full-time and I also managed other retail stores. I started really enjoying the people management aspect of my job, and I wanted to take it to next level with recruitment. I moved into the temporary help industry to concentrate on human resources. I focused on the recruitment and customer management side of the business.
With that experience, I moved into executive search with the Grapevine Group. There, I really got a chance to learn as the daily pace settled down. Eventually, a professional colleague of mine and I decided to branch out and we formed our own executive search firm Granville & Webb HR Connections, Inc. We worked with a number of high-profile pharma companies including Sanofi-Aventis and Pfizer. Our clients were starting to expand their diversity work at that time. A couple of our big corporate customers were having challenges in recruiting diversity into their organizations. They wanted to diversify aggressively, but were challenged when it came to their plans to recruit and on-board diverse talent. They chose to work with Granville & Webb to help support their diversity initiatives and recruit top diverse talent into their organizations.
My next leap took me to TBS (under Turner Broadcasting) television network. I was introduced to film festivals and I partnered with Marketing on the sponsorship and presence we had at diverse film festivals. I was very proud of the work that was done to diversify the cast of “The Closer” and our efforts to highlight the cast at various events. If you look at that cast, you’ll see diversity in age, generation, gender, and race. While the work was very exciting, a mentor of mine asked me to take a look at Wachovia (now Wells Fargo). Early talent recruitment and diversity was important to the company. When you have the CEO of Wachovia holding people accountable and tied to dollars, people tend to get a bit more enthusiastic about diversity.
After six years, I was lured back to the entertainment business for a short period of time, and then Delhaize America found me. At Delhaize America, I was also responsible for leading the Global Diversity Committee. In my current role, I am the Vice President, of Talent, Diversity & Inclusion and Organizational Development for Food Lion LLC.
WISE: Why do you think people are afraid to talk about diversity?
MG: Sometimes people are afraid of what they don’t know or they are afraid of offending someone. It’s important to create an environment where you put people in a position in which they are comfortable to talk or ask questions. As an example, trans-gender inclusion in the work place is a pressing issue now. I organized a learning session where one of our trans associates shared their story. Some of our leaders were not aware of the challenges that our transgender associates face in the workplace. Another example, we hosted Courageous Conversations around the protests and riots in Charlotte. Providing people with a way to learn, engage and support is crucial. The hope is that the learning continues to cascade within the organization.
WISE: What’s the best way to start a dialog about D&I initiatives?
MG: Drive the bottom line impact – it’s not just rhetoric. D&I has to be intentionally connected with the business. We have to talk the talk. What was bottom line on this? What was sales lift by segmenting the market? When I first joined Delhaize America, I was meeting with the global CEO about the impact of diversity on the business. He was very interested in understanding diversity in the U.S. I shared with him that Multiracial households would have an increase of 47% buying power by 2020. How does that impact our product assortment? What are the demographics shifting to? The changing demographics is very important to our business because it will impact the type of assortment we carry in our stores and how we connect with the community.
With Food Lion, we’ve focused on many diverse segments when using coupons at diverse events within the various communities we serve. We can track the direct sales impact all the way down to what the total basket size was. We are able to demonstrate that understanding our diverse customer base makes us better at providing the right products and assortment that are most relevant to them.
WISE: How can someone drive diversity in an organization if they are not the CEO or top level management?
MG: Everybody [in an organization] is responsible for diversity and inclusion. You can lead by example. If you know that there are things happening that aren’t inclusive, change it. As a leader, be sure you have a diverse and inclusive work environment. Second, build awareness in your organization. As a leader, I introduced unconscious bias sessions to Food Lion demonstrating how bias can impact everything we do. We worked to empower people at every level to take ownership in practicing inclusion and understanding how their own beliefs impact their decisions.
WISE: You’ve worked across so many industries. Within the grocery industry specifically, is there anything that stands out to you regarding diversity versus other industries?
MG: [The grocery industry is] slowly changing. It’s still a very heavily male dominated industry, but change is happening slowly. The demographic shift in our country is going to make it impossible for us not to embrace diversity. Our customer needs are changing; the customer face is changing; what we need to provide is changing. When you don’t have a diverse workforce, how can you keep up? Here at Food Lion, we addressed a customer need for ethnic hair care. We introduced more ethnic hair care products and within a few weeks sales increased by 17%. An introduction of LBGT greeting cards tripled sales in the first two years on shelves. It is important to have a diversity lens when making key business decisions. We have a heavily male-dominated industry in which the customer base is still largely made up of women. Why would you not have more women at the table?
WISE: You’ve led diversity programs globally. What does diversity look like on a global scale?
MG: . Global diversity is very important. Ahold Delhaize is a global company with operations in Belgium, Greece, Indonesia, Serbia, Romania, Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. It is important that all of our brands are able to serve their diverse customer base in a way that is meaningful to them. The focus on diversity will differ based on the country. I shared the unconscious bias learning session with a few of our global brands and they have used the session to provide education and awareness to their leaders. We also started several business resource groups in our Belgium location. We are committed to continuous learning and best practice sharing across our brands.
WISE: What do you say to leaders who are uncomfortable talking about diversity or initiating D&I initiatives?
MG: D&I
is a business imperative. We aren’t
doing it just because it’s the “right thing” to do.
It connects to the business bottom line.
We have to
mirror the communities we
serve.
It always comes back
to the business. What is the thing
that you want to do right for the business? What measures would you put in place for the business? It takes diversity of thought and experience to make the business succeed.
What I have learned is if you are successful in demonstrating how diversity and inclusion has a
direct impact on the business, leaders are more likely to seek out diversity of
thought when making business decisions.
At Food Lion, you can count on us to put the needs of our customers
first and to support a diverse and inclusive work environment.