As a Black man who worked at the highest levels of corporate America, James White says it’s time to take more direct action in the fight for social justice. Throughout White’s thirty-plus years of experience as an operating executive, the former CEO and Chairman of Jamba Juice has made diversity, equity and inclusion the driving force of his leadership vision.
In the book Anti-Racist Leadership: How to Transform Corporate Culture in a Race-Conscious World, White argues there are deep-rooted reasons behind corporate America’s failure to be fully inclusive. He co-wrote the book with his daughter Krista White during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“One of the big topics of discussion over the last couple of years is the issue around structural and systemic racism,” White says. “The way to combat that, to build better companies is to take a hard look at the systems that operate inside a company. What are the structures and what are the key processes? And where might those systems, structures and processes have places that are biased against someone or specific groups inside our companies and work to reverse those?”
