October 17, 2022

Sharon Fenster is a public relations and diversity, equity and inclusion expert. She has managed the reputations of industry leaders such as Motorola, Microsoft. Samsung, Sharp Electronics, MSNBC, GE, Honeywell and more.

Sharon is also considered an expert in DEI and is certified in diversity and inclusion by Cornell University. Sharon was president of the NYC chapter of PRSA and has advocated for greater diversity equity inclusion in the PR world.

In 2018, while serving as president of the NYC chapter of PRSA, she advocated for greater diversity equity inclusion in the PR world. This included a controversial stance at that time – calling for the release of diversity data among various organizations, not only industry associations, but private companies and agencies.

In this episode of MsInterPReted, Sharon discusses what it means to be an ally; checking your privilege and using it for good. She talks through her personal journey from being bullied, to corporate communication to allyship and the changing landscape of diversity equity and inclusion in corporate America.

Sharon shares her passion about the importance of tracking the data, and companies putting action where their words are saying “so if a company says, oh, you know, we want to be great diversity advocates. If they’re not tracking their data to find out who they promoted, where they promoted them, how much they paid them, etc., how do they know where they’re going? They don’t. And I always say what gets measured gets done right.”

We also discuss how to handle the threat of retaliation for standing your ground and address the possibility of internal or external blow-back.

Learn how allyship feeds into authentic leadership or heart centered leadership and why its so important for workers today.