Prakash Janakiraman – Co-founder, Nextdoor | Matt Barnard – Founder, Plenty
Tina Sharkey – Co-founder, Brandless | Stephen Hawthornthwaite – Co-founder, Rothy’s
Maxine Williams – Global Chief Diversity Officer, Facebook

This year, Global Paint for Charity attended an exciting event on diversity and inclusion. On February 4, our CEO and Founder, Rony Delgarde, along with other Global Paint executives headed to San Francisco for this year’s Beyond Board Forum.

According to their website, Beyond Board’s primary mission is “to help support board diversity, inclusion, and innovation by creating unique business opportunities.” The event featured engaging speeches sharing corporate executives’ insights on Board Diversity and Inclusion. The impactive speakers all expressed valuable and innovative thoughts in relation to their experiences within the corporate world.

The Global Chief Diversity Officer of Facebook, Maxine Williams, inspired many when she said “Know your truth. It can be difficult to pursue a dream. Know who you are and why that matters to you.” This opinion from Williams was a common theme throughout the entire event. Williams also explained the cause of gaps in diversity intention and the absence of inclusion when she said “human beings often don’t connect individual action with collective results.”

Other speakers shared their thoughts on a wide variety of topics such as marketing sustainability and consumer relationships.

Tina Sharkey, a renowned entrepreneur, and advisor described the relationship between the brand and customer as something that should be genuine. She also let forum attendees in on the secret of brand loyalty when she said that the key is authenticity. “Be truly authentic with employees, partners, and customers” she said.

Attendees were also influenced to think about their marketing efforts in a way that is more personal when Stephen Hawthornthwaite, the Co-Founder of Rothy’s said “I would encourage people to think about sustainability at a much higher level. What can we do today, that is not marketing?” He goes on to explain that companies will be remembered by their sustainability.

Along with being invited to this event as part of the 2020 Winter Nasdaq Milestone Makers Cohort, Delagarde was invited to an excellent opportunity to network with other global executives such as Prakash Janakiraman, the Co-founder of Nextdoor and Matt Barnard, the Founder of Plenty. Overall, this was a progressive event that allowed many corporate people to gather and discuss topics relevant to them. Global Paint for Charity would like to thank Sarah Zapp, the Founder of the Beyond Board Organization, for making this opportunity possible.

To see all photos, click this link https://www.snappr.co/gallery/san-francisco-ca/event/04-feb-2020/event-shoot-637