JetBlue recently announced the winners for the fourth cycle of its BlueBud business mentoring program. Eat Your Coffee, Sustainable Snacks and 9 Miles East Farm will participate in an in-depth business mentorship program with JetBlue, learning what it takes to get their brands off the ground. BlueBud offers innovative and budding food and beverage brands a unique opportunity including access to JetBlue’s leaders and an inside look at the airline’s distinctive product development culture and award-winning onboard experience. The BlueBud program launched in 2015 and originally focused on up-and-coming environmentally and socially responsible food brands based in New York. JetBlue has expanded the program to include small businesses in the greater Boston area.
The Medtronic Foundation today announced 12 individuals from around the world as recipients of the 2018 Bakken Invitation. This Medtronic Foundation program recognizes and connects people who “live on, give on and dream on” through their advocacy, contributions to innovation and volunteerism after overcoming health challenges with the help of medical technology.
Tony Hernandez is of the mindset that risks are the best way to implement diversity, both behind and in front of the camera. Mandates aren’t enough. “The real change is going to come in a farm system, in letting people get the [talent representation] to get the job, or taking real risks on people. Your episode might be messed up because the person’s a rookie, but, without that, we’re going to keep pulling the same 20 diverse directors,” Hernandez explains. “We all need to take a little bit of a gamble to fix the problem, and it’s not that crazy.”
Diversity and inclusion are words that are used a lot these days. But what do they really mean? Are they just talking points? Window-dressing to create a better image? Just a way to claim “political correctness”? Or do they go to the core of corporate culture and practices? For a rapidly growing number of businesses, it’s the last question that’s producing an emphatic answer of “yes!” Because in today’s America—and around the globe—diversity and inclusion are the keys to long-term success for any company seeking to appeal to customers and audiences in a time of rapid demographic, generational, societal, and attitudinal change.
Four years ago, a disease that rarely made headlines — Ebola — raged in West Africa. There was no vaccine, treatment or cure. Though the initial response was slow, the international community ultimately mobilized resources, developed scientific innovations and promised to make sure a tragedy on the same scale would never happen again.