How To Make Diversity a Reality

In the wake of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992, Willie Woods (MBA 1993) was part of a group of HBS students who traveled to the city with their Competition and Strategy professor Michael Porter. The group thought it would be a good opportunity to take some of Porter’s ideas about what makes a nation competitive and apply those on a city level. Two organizations spun out of that experience: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a nonprofit focused on improving urban economies, and ICV Partners, a Black-owned private equity firm focused on companies in the lower middle market. Willie Woods is cofounder, president, and managing director of ICV Partners, and in this episode of Skydeck, he talks to contributing host Chitra Nawbatt (GMP 6, 2009) about what it takes to make real change to the diversity of your organization.