Intel's Rosalind Hudnell discusses importance of boosting diversity

Rosalind Hudnell, chief diversity officer and global director of education and external relations at Intel, said training, transparency and oversight can minimize bias.

- By Becky Bach

Rosalind Hudnell discusses efforts to increase diversity in engineering and medicine during a Jan. 23 talk as part of the Dean's Lecture Series.
Norbert von der Groeben

In 1971, ninth-grader Lloyd Minor was bused from his white Little Rock, Arkansas, neighborhood to attend a formerly black school as part of urban desegregation efforts of the era. What he saw there stuck in his memory: Plaster peeled off the walls, and the library had only a few tattered books.

“What I had been told was separate but equal was certainly separate, but in no way was it equal,” Minor said. “That caused me then to see that diversity is a moral imperative.”

Today, as dean of the School of Medicine, Minor, MD, has made diversity the initial focus of the newly launched Dean’s Lecture Series.

“Diversity is at the core of everything we do,” Minor said in opening remarks at the inaugural lecture Jan. 21. “To be a highly performing organization, we have to embrace diversity because … creativity doesn’t come from a monolithic, stereotypic focus.”

The featured speaker was Rosalind Hudnell, chief diversity officer and global director of education and external relations at Intel.

“I’m so jealous of the representation of women and people of color in medicine,” Hudnell told the audience. Nearly every child wants, maybe just for a moment, to be a doctor, inspired by the respect the profession commands in society and its portrayal on popular television shows from Marcus Welby, MD, to Grey’s Anatomy, she said. A significant majority of students who start medical school finish. By contrast, about 40 percent of college students drop out of engineering after the first year, she said.

In 2013, Intel’s approximately 100,000 employees were 76 percent male and 86 percent white or Asian. Hudnell said Intel has been working hard to diversify its workforce. The company recently captured headlines by pledging $300 million over three years to recruit and retain more minorities and women.

‘Why aren’t we better?’

“We’ve spent the last decade building capability,” Hudnell explained. “Then, we stepped back and said, ‘So, why aren’t we better?’”

The key is to set goals to boost diversity and hold everyone accountable, she said. Now, Intel is committed to reaching market representation across its workforce by 2020. Hudnell admitted she isn’t quite sure how that’s going to happen, but she’s confident it will. “It’s time to use our capability and lead.”

I’m so jealous of the representation of women and people of color in medicine.

And in that regard, she believes Stanford’s School of Medicine has an advantage. “I think, quite frankly, you are incredibly blessed and lucky to have a leader who truly gets it,” Hudnell said.

The medical profession is in a much better position than engineering and technology fields, she said, and she challenged those in the audience to think about what “you’re going to do with this phenomenal capability that you’re sitting on.”

One step is to install institutional safeguards to combat bias, Hudnell said. The biases won’t be eliminated — they thrive in an atmosphere driven by high standards and tight deadlines — conditions that are present both at Intel and Stanford, she said. But by offering training and fostering transparency and oversight, bias can be minimized.

According to Hudnell, another key ingredient of workplace diversity is encouraging a healthy work-life balance. Although many programs to support child care and personal wellness are in place at Intel and other technology companies, she said the next step is to ensure workloads are appropriate.

Hudnell noted that she hopes to work with Minor in the future on cooperative efforts to build diversity.

The next lecture in this series will feature Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Corporate Governance. Wadhwa will speak at noon Feb. 20 at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge.

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu.

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