How can you leverage data to be a diversity, equity, and inclusion change maker? With Sabrina Shadie

Data Malarkey - the podcast about using data smarter

In this episode of the Data Malarkey podcast, data storyteller Sam Knowles meets Sabrina Shadie, a multi-award winning ethics and equity change maker; a diversity and inclusion advocate; and, a resilience champion. Sabrina’s the founder of the D’Rose Development Consultancy, a company that aims to simplify ethics and equality regulations so that caring business owners can deliver inclusive and sustainable strategies. She’s a catalyst for change not only through her own business and the impact it can have on its clients, but also in the networks and associations she creates, from Change the Balance to the Diverse Business Network.

In the often challenging, threatening, and sometimes toxic atmosphere that characterises many public debates today, Sabrina stands out for the calm, informed, evidence-based approach she brings to issues of diversity and inclusion. She doesn’t only help organisations build ethical business practices because it’s the right thing to do; she helps them understand how embedding positive actions increases productivity, sustainability, and compliance, and is essential to good governance. And to do this, Sabrina is no stranger to identifying powerful and persuasive data and then using that as the underpinning for really persuasive storytelling.

Our conversation was recorded remotely, via the medium of Riverside.fm, on Monday 15 May 2023.

Thanks to Joe Hickey for production support.

Podcast artwork by Shatter Media.

Voice over by Samantha Boffin.

Sabrina describes herself as having always loved facts, been up for an argument, but only an argument based on evidence; an informed debate. When helping organisations to become more equitable, she’s always cautious to ensure they’re not just doing it as a tick-box exercise and then moving on. “There’s no point being tokenistic,” she observes. “That benefits no-one.”

At her consultancy, D’Rose, Sabrina uses data to find where an organisation’s baseline performance is, to set targets, and to project into the future. In some of the many intersectional debates her work requires businesses to have – be they focused on racism, sexism, or ableism – there often isn’t much data on which to build a baseline. In Sabrina’s experience, this is particularly true for disability.

When challenging deeply entrenched views – often held of generations and based on little more than irrational prejudice – Sabrina has an awesome and impactful hack that empowers those whose attitudes she’s working with to become more equitable. She uses approaches taken from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to actively dismantle and then rebuild those whose identity is based on their misperception of superiority. Now that’s genuinely inspired, lateral, and impactful data storytelling.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Sabrina on LinkedIn – where she’s very active, particularly on video – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-shadie/

D’Rose Consultancy – https://droseconsultancy.com

Change the Balance CIC – https://www.change-the-balance.org

Diverse Business Network – https://www.diversebusinessnetwork.com

To find out how you rank as a data storyteller, complete our data storytelling scorecard at https://data-storytelling.scoreapp.com. It takes just two minutes, and we’ll send you your own personalised scorecard which tells you what kind of data storyteller you are.