Building Black History: How Sage is engaging its colleague base to drive Leadership and Development

Black History Month was first recognized in the United States in 1970.

And though its existence has brought awareness and recognition to the accomplishments of Black people, we know we have a long way to go before racial inequalities no longer exist in American culture.

I’m proud of Sage’s commitment to evoke societal change in this space, and its accountability to facilitate tangible change in the communities where we operate. BUILD@Sage is a key example of that.

BUILD@Sage stands for Blacks United in Leadership and Development at Sage. BUILD is Sage’s internal incubator for opportunities within technology and entrepreneurship for Black people, facilitating the changes, connections, conversations, and opportunities that matter to them specifically. BUILD@Sage is powered by Sage employees of all ethnicities who are passionate allies to the cause and who wish to offer their support in an active way.

Given the trying times we are in today as far as racial tensions and inequalities, I see BUILD as a game-changer for equal voice and equal opportunity. The team has hosted amazing “BUILDTalk” educational events highlighting Black History month in a variety of ways, which helps raise awareness of Black history within our colleague base. The team is also working on how to use community outreach events like hackathons to foster innovation and awareness for entrepreneurship within the Black community.

I also see BUILD as a potential vehicle to bring external knowledge from Black entrepreneurs into our internal conversations to inspire our own creativity around how we support Black entrepreneurship as a company.

As we celebrate Black History Month, I celebrate in advance the new levels of innovation that will come as a result of what BUILD is doing. We are fortunate to have leaders among our colleagues that self-organize and act as a driving force for critical education and change – and they do this on top of their “day jobs.” Work at this level of importance requires a great deal of time and passion, and we’re fortunate to have colleagues that have embraced this and want to be the change agents we need to have within our Sage community.

When you have people who lead from the front with passion and collaboration, people follow.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Click here to read.