Part 2 of The Impact Series : Pamela Fann, Founder of Integrated Solutions
In this installment, we’ll delve into why diversity is important for innovation and growth as well as Pamela’s inspirations. We’ll meet some leaders in this space that have helped to shape not only Pamela’s experiences but set the stage for future leaders in this space.
MTGS - Why do you think diversity is important for innovation and growth in energy today?
Pamela Fann - I want to be clear on diversity because we are all diverse. We’re all diverse people, and this is what folks should recognize. We all bring something unique and special to the table. If you’ve got a room full of men making decisions for a population of people who don’t represent everyone in that room, it’s an issue. The key problem is your solutions are only going to be based upon your own personal experiences. If your experiences as a male, or as a male who may have a wife, a significant other or a daughter, it doesn’t have the direct female perspective that is needed for a female based problem. The same is true if you have a group of only Black people in a room deciding for a group of people who represent a larger group of all of us. We’re not monoliths. We’re all diverse people. We all have different perspectives on things.
The more people that you invite to these conversations and that you have at the table, you bring about different perspectives and different thoughts, and it keeps you from having groupthink.
I remember this time at Coca Cola. I was in Global Public Affairs and Communications, and we were in this meeting. It was a group of mostly women, and I was the only person of color in this room. A good friend of mine was presenting our annual report that she was responsible for curating. I’m looking at this annual report, and as the pages continue to flip, I’m becoming increasingly irritated, but everyone else in the room was incredibly pleased. I had to do a systems check internally to see what’s going on. At the end of the presentation, everyone’s clapping and I raised my hand. I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m highly offended by this annual report.” There was just like a look of shock amongst everyone’s faces, because everybody was in agreement that it was wonderful, so they asked, “What offends you?” Every single page of the report had a picture of either a group of children or women of color from another country who looked to be either desolate or poor while talking about what the company is doing to help support them. I stated “I don’t know if this is the image that you want to represent this company that I know does so many other great things. Things other than going into underdeveloped countries and supporting brown women and children, but this is what it shows me. I’m offended by this.”
Until that moment that I said it, no one else got it. It’s in moments like that that if you don’t have a diverse perspective, or one person in the room to say, maybe this isn’t the right decision, or maybe we should be thinking about it this way, and not even in a negative connotation, then you are missing the bigger picture.
I always also tell the story of the gentleman who helped to discover Flamin Hot Cheetos, that it was his heritage and diversity that led to this product line. This bad batch of Cheetos came out (of the oven) that didn’t have any kind of coating on them. Richard Montanez, a janitor at the time, offered to take them home. He and his wife experimented with flavors and putting different seasonings on them that were of his palette. He shared them with his family and community, and they loved them. He then took the chance to call up the CEO of the company and told him that he thinks he made something that his community would like and wanted him to try it. The CEO responded that he was coming to that plant for a meeting and asked him to present his idea. That’s how Flamin Hot Cheetos got their start and how Richard became a vice president in this organization, a global company, just by being innovative and bringing what he knew to be true for his community’s experience.
You have to think there’s never been an instance in time when having diverse perspectives in an organization has not been profitable. I know companies think about that, “What is our profit? Are we either going to make money by doing this, or how are we going to save money by doing this?” Not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s also going to be very profitable for your company if you have diverse perspectives.
That’s why it’s so important to be diverse if you want to compete in this global economy. You’re going to have to think globally and come out of your frame of thinking that the only opinions that matter come from people who look like you. Because, truth be told, most communities don’t look just like us. If you go outside the five mile radius of where you live, communities are diverse. If that’s who your market is (in that 5 mile radius), you’re only targeting that one customer who looks just like you. But if your market expands and is targeted towards a national or global market, then you need to be thinking diverse.
Think about it like this. You would not take advice from your financial advisor if he told you to keep all your money in one spot and don’t ever move it. Your financial advisor tells you to diversify your funds, put them into different things, to make your money work for you. Same thing with your business. Diversify your business, your people working there, the organizations you work with, the partnerships that you align with, and your audience because it’s only going to be beneficial to you.
MTGS - So based off those diverse voices, are there any businesses or projects right now that have inspired you and what stood out about their approach?
Pamela Fann - Within this sector, I’ve been really inspired by some of those first organizations that I told you about that I tried to assist in getting in front of utilities. Carla Walker-Miller has a Black woman owned energy services company (Walker-Miller Energy Services) that has been going for twenty plus years now in this sector, and just over the last three years or so, got her first tier one contract after 20 plus years. She’s an inspiration.
There’s Patricia Watts with FCI Management Consultants out of California. She’s another one that’s been in the business for 20 years doing this work. There’s Louis James with Seel LLC. He has a black, veteran owned energy services company who’s also been around for about 20 years.
I’m saying them because they’re pioneers in this. From what I’ve seen and those that I know who have been doing this work consistently for over 20 years, they have proven able to do the work. All of them have had struggles within this industry, getting top contracts up until the last five or six years. This has been a problem, but they’ve proven that we can have longevity in this business, and we can do well.
There are also women owned businesses, ILLUME Advising and Resource Innovations that are doing really great work. Nina Gupta with GreenLite (a woman owned business) develops energy efficient lighting and has programs for energy efficiency.
There’s several that I look to as a business owner, to learn from and to model my business after, because I want to have that staying power as well. We’ve only been in business for four years now. I want to continue to see longevity in the way that they did, and even if it doesn’t mean getting those top million dollar contracts over six years and just plugging away in garnering good partnerships and doing great work for people. I want to model them globally because I also support global work.
But thinking globally, there’s a program that I recently learned about that I presented on. I was in Bern, Switzerland, speaking at a Renewable Energy Conference and one of the case studies that I pointed out during my presentation was the Barefoot College International’s Solar Program, which started in India (in 2015). It has since expanded to ninety-five countries. It teaches rural community women how to engineer and install solar systems for their communities. So, it takes care of two issues, one is providing much needed electricity to rural communities in underdeveloped countries but also gives women the entrepreneurship skills and the skill set to be able to do this work themselves. They are powering their family homes and their communities, while creating entrepreneurship opportunities out of that. They can go and install power and do service work themselves in other communities. I love that program and how it’s manifested and empowered so many women in rural communities worldwide to be able to do this for their families and earn a living from it.
It’s more about that passion work. I don’t know if I talked about what inspired me to do this energy work and start my own business, but a lot of it had to do with empowering women and girls, especially those in rural communities in underdeveloped countries, and empowering communities that are working through environmental injustices. Being able to help support them with project installation and work that will support their communities with green, clean renewable energy, which leads to healthy breathing air and living healthier lives. That is my passion work. It’s why I started my business and touches at the core of what I do and why I do it.
In the final part of our three part series, Pamela and I dig into what it takes to break into the energy sector and what she envisions in the future of energy. We discuss what is happening right now in clean energy and how it’s changing the face of life as we know it around the world.
