‘I equate trust with safety; protection from harm if you will. And also with the freedom and ability to blossom, to explore.’
Pedro Pina, VP Head of YouTube for Europe, Middle East and Africa, has been named as one of Europe’s leading LGBT+ role models. Pedro explores the ways in which brands can build and maintain trust with diverse employees and consumers. He highlights the importance of companies having visibility of under-represented groups at leadership levels and that diversity and inclusion should no longer be considered challenges for HR departments to address but rather be part of your organisation’s innate culture.
If you would like to hear more about Pedro’s experience of diversity, inclusion and trust, why not have a listen to the full interview on Spotify.
Key Insights
- The importance of visibility of diverse representation at leadership levels
- The role brands have in helping embrace diversity
- How organisations must be adaptive in today’s ever-changing environment to be sustainable
The following is a short excerpt from Trust and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion featuring conversation between Pedro Pina (VP - Head of YouTube Europe, Middle East & Africa), Catherine McGregor (Management Consultant) and Chris Downie (CEO Pasabi).
Catherine McGregor: How much, do you think, in the 21st century leaders have got to have an inclusive mindset? That you can't really be a great business leader if you’re not thinking about inclusion and diversity ?
Pedro Pina: I think most leaders to be successful need to lead organisations that can adapt to the ever-changing environment around us. If there’s one thing that we know, it is that the world has accelerated tremendously and the level of change is quite unpredictable at this point. So you need organisations that adapt very very quickly. For those organisations, and this is true from a political party down to a company down to an NGO, this is true across the board. So, the level of instability and the level of change that is being thrown at us is incredibly high. So you need organisations that shift and change and adapt. But in order to do that, they need to be incredibly innovative; they need to read the signs of zeitgeist, of the time, in order to be able to make those adjustments and a lot of those adjustments have to be done in a short period of time. And that requires trust. And so in order for organisations to adapt quickly, they need to create a culture where failure is ok, where different voices are heard so that different options are considered for a world that keeps changing all the time. And therefore, because of all of this, I don't think there’s any option for any leader these days other than being inclusive if they want a business to be sustainable and adapt constantly.