By Loren Spiller
doingmoretoday.com
Taleisha (Nikki) Ming-White’s long-term passion and support for diversity and inclusion made her an ideal choice for a new fellowship.
The opportunity was created by the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion™, or CEO Action, a coalition of 1,300-plus CEOs committed to advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Established in 2017, CEO Action brings together corporate leaders to address systemic racism and social injustice.
Ming-White serves as the organizational and leadership development administrator for Regions Bank’s Learning and Development team. She now also has the unique opportunity to represent Regions for up to two years with the CEO Action for Racial Equity fellowship program.
Ming-White, a graduate of Tuskegee University, a historically Black College and University, has been matched with the education pillar in her fellowship.
“This fellowship is Foot Soldier work that has the ability to bring about real, systemic change, and it would be my honor to represent Regions in this historical effort,” said Ming-White. “It’s not for my own legacy, but for those who come after me and the ones fighting now for the chance to build a legacy. Over the last few months, I have felt the pull that I should be doing more. This is it. When passion, purpose, ability and corporate advocacy align, what a change we will see.”
CEO Action was launched in 2017 by U.S. Chairman and Senior Partner of PwC Tim Ryan. Regions Financial Corp. President and CEO John Turner became a signatory in 2018.
Although the coalition has made progress in its efforts to address bias and discrimination in U.S. workplaces, recent nationwide social unrest further illuminated the need to do more.
This led to the launch of the fellowship program, which is bringing together people from signatory organizations in various industries and fields of expertise to create policies and programs that will further combat systematic racism and social injustice, resulting in greater equity and inclusion.
As a member of the CEO Action coalition, Regions Bank was invited to nominate a participant to be part of this groundbreaking fellowship opportunity.
Ming-White is a longtime supporter of, and participant in, Regions’ diversity and inclusion efforts. For the last five years, she has led programs to increase diversity consistent with Regions’ business goals. Through this work, she has collaborated with colleagues in Human Resources on further incorporating diversity measures in hiring while also improving the bank’s diversity tracking and reporting.
Ming-White also helped create diversity and inclusion training materials and coordinated Regions’ involvement in the INROADS internship program and various diversity conferences. As an affirmative action specialist, she supported equal employment opportunity and affirmative action (EEO/AA) programs and compliance.
Currently, Ming-White sits on the board of directors for Childcare Resources in Birmingham, Alabama, and serves as co-chair for the Junior League of Birmingham’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Taskforce.
“I’m proud of Regions’ involvement in CEO Action, which has led to this great opportunity for Nikki to represent us in this way,” said Clara Green, head of Diversity and Inclusion for Regions and leader of the bank’s Diversity and Inclusion Center of Expertise. “By lending our support and resources, we are demonstrating our broad commitment to racial equity beyond the walls of Regions. Although Nikki will be missed as she steps away from her leadership role during the fellowship, we are excited about the work she and the team of fellows will be doing.”
Ming-White is working with other fellows from across the country to identify, develop and promote scalable policies and corporate best practices to drive racial equity. The fellowship, which started Oct. 1, will tackle issues ranging from education, healthcare and economic empowerment to public safety and more.
