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[jazz music] ♪ ♪ - Hello, I'm John Harmon, founder, president, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

And I'd like to welcome you to "Pathway to Success."

Today's guest is an amazing gentleman, friend, and advocate.

It's someone who has really embraced education for all its worth.

Dr. Randal Pinkett.

He's an entrepreneur.

He's a speaker, author, and a scholar.

He's someone that I look up to because he has raised the bar in a number of areas.

So, Dr. Pinkett, welcome to "Pathway to Success."

- My friend, John Harmon, it's a pleasure and an honor to be here on this show, "Pathway to Success," under your leadership.

And, you know, I admire you for your vision and your commitment to business in New Jersey, but quite frankly, to business across the globe.

So, it's a pleasure to be here.

- So we're gonna get right into it-- where you're from, a little bit about your background, big family, small family.

- So, born in Philadelphia.

- Okay.

- In fact, my mom and my dad both have roots in Philadelphia.

That's where they met.

That's where my brother and I were born.

My dad was a bit of a pioneer.

He went to the Wharton School of Business in the 1960s.

Subsequently got a job at Goldman Sachs in New York.

And rather than move to New York, my mom and my dad decided to move to New Jersey.

And I grew up in a town that's equally distant from New York and Philadelphia by design: East Windsor, New Jersey, right near Hightstown.

Matriculated to Rutgers University, where I studied engineering.

I was a collegiate athlete at Rutgers-- long jumper, high jumper, sprinter.

Became the first African American to win the Rhodes at Rutgers.

But perhaps most notably-- particularly in a conversation with John Harmon-- I started my first business when I was at Rutgers, along with three classmates.

Now, follow this.

We were 20 and 21 when we started that business, selling compact discs out of our dorm.

And now, those same four, young, Black men, 30 years later--'cause I'll turn 51 next month-- 30 years later, we are still together.

We are still in business together, and we still get along together.

- Wow.

So started educational kind of journey at Rutgers.

And then, you went on to a few other schools.

And now, you have multiple degrees.

I mean, some folks have one, two, but I understand you have at least five.

- [chuckles] - What's the mindset to pursue those number of degrees and then actually attain them?

- So you could say that not only did my parents encourage getting a good education, that I took that lesson and put it on steroids.

So after Rutgers, I went to Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship, earned my master's there in computer science.

And then came back to the U.S., studied at MIT, where I got another-- a third master's-- I'm sorry, my second master's in electrical engineering, my third master's in business administration.

And then, I got my PhD in media technology at MIT.

So five degrees, indeed.

But I'll tell you, some people marvel that I've got five degrees, and I'm humbled by that.

My business partner, Jeff Robinson-- Dr. Jeff Robinson-- he has five degrees as well.

I've never stopped learning.

So continuous learning, lifelong learning, is not just a principle for business.

That's a principle for life.

- Entrepreneurship at the age of 19, 20.

What influenced you at that time in your life to consider or pursue entrepreneurship?

- One of my close friends in the neighborhood was a gentleman named Wayne Abbott.

Wayne was two years older than me.

So, Wayne went to Rutgers two years ahead of me.

I followed him.

He studied electrical engineering, as did I.

He ran an organization on campus called The National Society of Black Engineers, the Rutgers chapter.

And Wayne started the business when he was a senior and I was a junior.

And so, all of us--Jeffrey, Lawrence, Dallas, myself, who are my business partners-- seeing Wayne start and run a business, to make a long story short, inspired us to say, "If he can do it, why can't we do it?"

So, I gotta credit Wayne.

- The power of just seeing yourself in the narrative.

Can you speak to that?

- I grew up always trying to find ways to make money and to sell, but yet and still never imagined I would own a business 'cause I never saw anyone who owned a business.

And here's a statistic that I've shared, and you've probably heard me share this one, John, is, what's the number one predictor of whether you will own a business?

The answer is, the number one predictor of if you will own a business is if your parents owned a business.

- Dr. Pinkett, what inspired you to co-found BCT Partners?

- What inspired me and my business partners to launch BCT was really the ability to leverage our engineering talents, trying to use those talents to uplift communities.

And our mission at BCT is to provide insights about diverse people that lead to equity.

Equity is our endgame-- helping our clients to achieve equity, recognizing the increasing diversity in our society, and bringing some powerful insights using technology, data, artificial intelligence, virtual reality to enable them to achieve that equity.

- Let's talk about your mission and its relevance to this whole DEI conversation today.

- Yeah, think about where we are in 2022.

You know as well as I do, John, we are in the post-George Floyd era.

We're still in the pandemic era.

And both of those societal dynamics that have been overlapping in their coming to fruition have elevated the conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I know you've been probably busier than ever since George Floyd was murdered and in the midst of the pandemic, because we're having and have had a heightened awareness of the inequities that exist when we look at how the pandemic's playing out and the inequities that exist in our communities when we see how George Floyd's murder played out.

And so, we have been inundated with work from corporations, nonprofits, foundations, healthcare systems, government agencies, who have, I might argue, either look to amplify their work-- or quite frankly, weren't doing the work and now see the need and the importance of where we are as a society in the importance of a more diverse, a more inclusive, and a equitable society than what we found.

- But what has your experience been in terms of securing contracts from the public sector, specifically from the state of New Jersey?

- Yeah.

That's a great question, John.

I'm gonna preface it with a few things so that my answer is framed accurately.

So, I'm raised in New Jersey.

I went to college in New Jersey.

I've built relationships throughout New Jersey.

I'm reasonably well-connected in New Jersey.

I run the second largest Black-owned business in New Jersey.

We sit on the "Inc. 5000" of the fastest-growing companies in America, and we've been recognized by "Forbes" as one of America's best management consulting firms.

That's my prelude.

Having said that, I have absolutely no business, meaning I have no contracts nor have I ever had any contracts, with New Jersey.

And I remember testifying before a subcommittee for the legislature here in New Jersey, and Loretta Weinberg was on that committee.

And she paused the committee and said, "Wait, wait, wait, let me make sure I'm clear, Randal.

"You, who came up through New Jersey, "who's connected in New Jersey, whose business is thriving, you have no contracts in New Jersey?"

She said, "That means we have a problem of epic proportions," and I will simply echo her comments.

We have a problem of epic proportions.

The inequities in contracting-- John, you know this-- the inequities in who is having access to opportunity and who is not.

It's embarrassing where we find ourselves in my prideful state of New Jersey compared to, say, Philadelphia or New York, where I stumble on deals.

I've had work in Philadelphia.

I've had work in New York City.

I have no work in my home state.

That's an embarrassment.

That's gotta change.

- No, and I absolutely agree.

You know, it's really sad.

We're in our fifth year for this administration.

The disparity study has not been done to set goals in place.

New York has a 30% goal.

Last year, New York did $3 billion in public contracting to women and minorities.

So here we have one of our best businesses, and we stumble on that.

So you talk about some of the things you do in your organization, BCT Partners-- data, research.

So, how does that data and research really make the case as to the economic standing of Blacks and/or inequities?

- All we have to do is look to the numbers.

I've been around long enough to remember under Governor McGreevey when the minority set-aside program was disbanded for lack of a disparity study.

Now, the irony is-- as you know, John-- a disparity study did ensue thereafter, and those numbers were astonishing.

We're talking less than 1% of the dollars going to minority businesses in New Jersey.

And that was from a disparity study now decades ago that went to Governor Codey, that went to Governor Corzine, that went to Governor Christie-- who we knew would do nothing.

[laughs] He was clear about that.

And then, the baton got passed to Governor Murphy.

And I'm gonna just echo what you said.

We're now five years in to the Murphy administration.

And you follow the history, folks that are listening to my voice, we've had governor after governor after governor, and it's not rocket science.

What's needed are two things: a disparity study to tell us what we already know, and then a policy to remediate the problem that we've already been aware of.

What's missing?

Leadership.

I can't say it anymore simply or more plainly: leadership.

We need leadership that says, "No more talk.

"Now we're going to walk, and we're gonna do what we said needs to be done."

- No, I think that was well said.

And we'll continue to press this issue because it's only right.

It's all about impacting the bottom line.

And it's well-documented that adding Black businesses to the ecosystem of opportunity, it could be very transformational for those who subscribe.

So we're gonna take our break here on "Pathway to Success."

I'll be back in a moment.

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We encourage you to visit our website at www.aaccnj.com, or call us at (609) 571-1620.

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- Welcome back to "Pathway to Success."

I'm going to continue the conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So, Dr. Pinkett, the significance, from your perspective, of business diversity.

And that's a term that my friend, John Rogers, uses versus, you know, diversity, equity, and inclusion-- business diversity.

- So business diversity, to me, has two benefits that everyone should be aware of.

First is, what's the benefit to the business of having greater diversity?

And the research has been compelling and clear.

You out-recruit and out-retain the competition.

You have higher employee engagement and satisfaction.

You enhance your brand, your image, your reputation.

Diverse teams take longer to make decisions, but they make better decisions.

They're more innovative.

And then, there's been several studies-- in fact, three by McKinsey-- that have compared more diverse companies to less diverse companies.

And in those studies-- three times-- they have found that more diverse companies can outperform or do outperform less diverse companies as much as 35% financially.

We're talking earnings.

That's straight to the bottom line.

But then, the flip side is, what's the value of bringing in diverse businesses?

What's the other side of the coin?

And here again, the data is compelling.

We know that African American, Latino-owned, Native American-owned businesses contribute about $400 billion a year of economic impact.

That's out of the National Minority Supplier Development Council.

We know that surveys of satisfaction from customers who've engaged diverse companies report 99% that meet or exceed their expectations.

And then lastly, to the bottom line, study by the Hackett Group says that for every dollar invested in a diverse business, you see a $3.60 return on the investment.

That's 360%, using my engineering education from Rutgers to give you that math.

So again, clear and compelling evidence, both for the value to the business of diversity and the value of diverse businesses.

Both sides of the same coin.

- Why is there still significant reluctance in some quadrants of our society?

- I think what you've highlighted, John, is, in some ways, a commentary on the state of our society.

It's not like we haven't seen the injustices.

I'm old enough to remember Rodney King.

I can fast forward to Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown or Eric Gardner.

The list goes on.

Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland.

I mean, the list is voluminous now, but yet, still we turn a blind eye.

And so, I think as a society, sadly, we are increasingly finding ourselves around people who are like us, that increasingly, if we look around our social circles, we see reflections of our identity, our own religion, our own ethnicity, our own political affiliation.

The list continues.

Until we embrace and are intentional about how as individuals move out of our comfort zone and into our growth zone-- to get out of our community of the like-minded to engage with difference-- we are only going to find two things that will happen.

We will nullify our country's greatest asset, our cultural differences, and we will exacerbate our country's greatest liability, our cultural ignorance.

- So, that was a great and profound response.

I'm gonna let that marinate just a little bit.

I want to just ask you to provide a little bit of advice for folks that are tuned in today that are pondering starting a business.

Can you give them a little advice about going from, say, an employee to becoming their own boss?

- Yeah, yeah.

I can go to town on this one.

I'll try to be brief, John.

I'm gonna say it in five words to keep it simple.

Do not go it alone.

[laughs] Don't do it.

See, 'cause the perception of entrepreneurial success is the individual.

You think Oprah Winfrey.

You think Bill Gates, Steve Jobs.

The reality of entrepreneurial success is the team.

The team and the team.

Oprah Winfrey had Jeff Jacobs.

Bill gates had Paul Allen.

You have a higher likelihood of success, you are able to mitigate the inevitable challenges that you're going to face, and you're able to shoulder the load collectively, which is already a heavy load unto itself.

And I'll just say this: as somebody who has three partners, you're gonna have more fun.

So I encourage you to take the leap of faith, but I simply ask, do not take that leap by yourself.

- Dr. Pinkett, what inspired you to write your first book?

- So, I've written four books thus far.

I'm right now working on number five.

First book was "Campus CEO" for student entrepreneurs, 'cause I was a student entrepreneur.

That was my inspiration.

Second book was "No-Money Down CEO."

That's for the broke entrepreneurs.

The third book, "Black Faces in White Places."

How do you navigate environments where we are still underrepresented and not lose a sense of who you are?

And then the most recent book that just came out was the sequel.

You see a pattern: "Campus CEO," "No-Money Down CEO," "Black Faces in White Places."

Book four?

"Black Faces in High Places."

That's the remix.

That's the sequel.

And it just hit bookshelves Black History Month, 2022.

And it is subtitled, "The 10 Strategic Actions for Black Professionals to Reach the Top and Stay There."

And those are the operative words.

We don't just want you to get to the top.

And we don't just want you to stay there.

We want you not forget who you are, where you came from, that you're also making a difference for the community when you get there.

- What do you say is the obligation of those Black individuals who have been elevated to the C-suite?

And, well, I know in reading some excerpts from your book, Joy Reid talked about opportunity and responsibility.

Can you react to that?

- Yeah, yeah.

Joy graciously wrote the forward for the book, and I'm grateful to her for doing so.

And we talk in the book about two things.

We talk about power, which is something we don't often talk about, power.

Power is influence.

And when you are a Black face in a high place, you have power.

The question is, are you willing to pull the levers at your disposal for the benefit of the Black community?

And the second thing we talk about-- and here's where it really gets to the crux of your question, John-- the word is being unapologetic.

In the last book, we said, if you're not playing the game, the game is playing you.

In this book, the message is, if you're not pulling the levers at your disposal to benefit our people, somebody else is pulling levers for their community.

And so, part of creating a more diverse, more inclusive, more equitable landscape is making sure that we have equal opportunity for all, which means if you're at the table, it's not enough to just be at the table.

Is your voice heard?

Is your influence felt?

And are you pulling levers for all to benefit?

'Cause otherwise, you are just taking up space.

What we're not saying is, you're a Black face in a high place and you only pull the lever for Black people.

What we're saying is, do not shy away from the opportunity and the intentionality of when you can pull the lever for the benefit of Black people.

- So we're getting down to the close here.

What's a typical day for you, my friend?

- Typical day for me, it varies.

I spend the majority of my time building relationships with prospective customers.

You know, my hardest job at BCT-- which gets back to our conversation about New Jersey-- is getting us into doors that are closed.

When I'm not doing that, I am wearing the hat of a speaker, an author, a media commentator.

So interviews, book promotions, speaking engagements, endorsements, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And that's my professional life.

And then, you know, right alongside that, 'cause I wanna be a private success and a public success-- not a private failure-- is just tending to my children, my wife, my family, and being a good husband, a good father, a good son, and a good brother, a good friend.

- You know, Thomas Edison was able to create the lightbulb, but for Lewis Latimer's filament, it would not stay on.

- That's right.

- That's the exchange by engaging a Black business, a Black person.

We're gonna add value, afforded the opportunity to do so.

Well, Dr. Pinkett, that said, word of advice to business owners.

- And so, my advice to business owners is, begin with the end in mind.

What's your endgame?

Like, what do you hope to accomplish and where do you hope to be?

Begin with that end in mind so that when you get to the end, it's already in mind.

- Mm-hmm.

I love it.

Your thoughts about the African American Chamber of Commerce and its mission?

- Oh, that's an easy one, John.

The African American Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey has never been more needed, has never been more relevant, and under your leadership, has never been more prominent.

And thinking more about the systemic challenges, policy, corporate barriers, institutions that have not engaged but need to understand the business case as we've already discussed-- so I'll just say, John, I applaud you for your example, your leadership, your commitment, and above all-- 'cause I came up through New Jersey-- I appreciate your perseverance.

- So my last question today, as it relates to BCT Partners, the future-- what's the future?

- So, we sit at this crossroads.

Some might say it's a moment.

Some might say it's a movement.

We argue that the answer to the question of whether it is a moment or a movement lies within each and every one of us.

We have the benefit of hindsight now on the civil rights movement.

We know it was a movement, but did they know it in the moment?

And the work that we do with our clients around equity and inclusiveness and diversity is helping them turn the moment into a movement.

So I leave that more so as a question to your question, John, than an answer to your audience: is this a moment, or is this a movement?

The answer lies in you.

- Dr. Pinkett, we thank you for being with us today.

And for those of you who've tuned in, until the next time on your "Pathway to Success," this is John Harmon, founder, president, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Thank you for tuning in today.

[jazz music] ♪ ♪ Your partner for success, the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, is extending its hand to those throughout New Jersey who are seeking to partner to mitigate a host of systemic challenges that have plagued the Black community.

We talked about the high poverty, the high unemployment, and the low net worth of Blacks here in our state.

But he also talked about our desire to come to the table with solutions and to lend value.

So for those of you out there that have resources and opportunities and information, let us partner with you to identify Blacks for board seats, for supply diversity opportunities, for career opportunities, and for programming in underperforming communities.

That's what our partnership is all about.

Through free enterprise and capitalism, for the last 15 years, we have been pressing forward to make our state more competitive.

And so, we're asking you to give us a call.

The African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey is your partner for success.

♪ ♪ announcer: Support for this program was provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

PSEG.

JCP&L.

Investors Bank.

Berkeley College.

NJM Insurance Group.

New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

♪ ♪