Institute of Women’s Leadership hosts speaker
The Institute of Women's Leadership invited businesswoman Amelia Hardy to CSB to speak about leadership, equity and inclusion of women in the workforce.
On Feb. 17, the Institute of Women’s Leadership, hosted businesswoman Amelia Hardy to present to students. Intersectional feminist, creative writer, and alumna Sydney Robinson interviewed Hardy during the conference. Hardy has an extensive repertoire, as she is the vice president of strategic community engagement at Best Buy and has previously held the titles Senior Director and Category and Brand Marketing Director. She also holds the role of VP of Inclusion and Diversity.
Relating to the IWL, Hardy is a strong pioneer for women’s leadership, and as a Black woman, her journey has been fraught with intersectionalities about her identity.
“I was at 3M at the time, and it was a little bit more conservative… I think I twisted my hair, I wore it very curly and very big, and I walked into work, and I held my head up high, and I said ‘I’m doing this for my daughter’… A week later, someone else came into work with their hair natural. I can’t say that everybody felt good about it, or I was always treated well, but it really allowed me to lean into my authentic self. Now my hair has just gotten brighter, bigger… I think you should just be who you are… we have to be comfortable in our own skin,” Hardy said.
Running a business means pulling levers, and Hardy, with over twenty years of business experience, knows what it means to be operationally sound.
“I had to understand that not all things that are American, or from the United States, translate [well],” she said. “You just can’t pick up and place that model in other countries. Other countries have their own business models, have their own consumer needs.”
In her role as the VP of Inclusion and Diversity at Best Buy, Hardy is always advocating for equity and inclusion in every facet of work. She argues that one can put an equity lens on anything: finance and the wealth gap, banking, even healthcare.
Using privilege in a space, she says, can help push toward a greater good. Looking at who benefits from things is a simple example of placing an equity lens on a situation.
“It really was because of my life experiences, the experiences of my parents, the Civil Rights Movement, that made me want to engage in my community and eradicate disparities, and that still drives me today, wanting life to always be better for the next generation,” Hardy said.
