Initiative

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<p>Employees say:</p><p>"The transparency between leadership and the employees! I feel that we're constantly made aware of everything that is happening within the organization (both good and bad). Also, the dedication to making Initiative a great place to work! There are constantly new, fun and exciting programs for employees to participate in and it is strongly encouraged to pursue your own personal passions."</p>

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The technology is rarely what derails an AI initiative. The people are. Dr. Deepika Chopra explores why COOs leading large-scale AI adoption need to understand the psychology of their teams—because resilience, problem solving, and trust aren't soft skills, they're execution variables. She'll share practical frameworks for building the human culture that make transformation actually stick. 

Deepika Chopra, Author, The Power of Real Optimism

The Psychology Behind Successful AI Rollouts

Conferences

So I, I always start every talk regardless if it's at BCG or Google or Amex or at UPenn Health System or with oncology patients with one thing and I wasn't gonna do it here. I don't know why, but I decided right back there why should the people of the Fortune COO summit be denied this one simple thing and so if it's all right with you if I can ask you guys to just close your eyes. And take a collective deep breath together with me, so breathe in for 3. And then exhale for 3 counts. Something that I find interesting is that sometimes that is the only time that even myself or people will take a deep breath throughout the entire day and in the reality of it that's actually not OK you need to be deep breathing more but when I was invited to speak today I actually found myself thinking about something really interesting so we're spending this enormous amount of time talking about artificial intelligence. And not enough time talking about human beings, which we all are. Because every conversation about AI is ultimately a conversation about change, and change is primarily not a technological experience, it's a psychological one. And as a psychologist and a behavioral scientist myself, that's what really truly interests me. Not the technology itself, although it is very exciting and interesting, but what happens inside of people when the world around them changes rapidly. Because whether you're excited about AI or overwhelmed by it or skeptical of it or you are leading an organization through it, there's one thing that I think almost everyone shares right now and it's uncertainty. From a psychological perspective, uncertainty is very fascinating. So something about the brain is that human beings don't actually struggle with the hard things. We struggle with the unknown things. We can handle challenges, we can handle complexity, we can even handle adversity, and many people in this room, all of us have at some point. But what we struggle the most with is not knowing. And when uncertainty increases, the brain does something interesting, not because we are negative, but because the brain is interested in survival. And what it does is it starts to try to predict. And when it doesn't know what comes next, it starts to look for certainty, for control, for answers, and when we just can't find the answers, what the brain does is it starts to fill in the blanks. And unfortunately or fortunately it's just how the brain works, we start filling in the blanks with worst case scenario planning, and all of us have this in common again, it's not because we are negative, it's because our brain is doing what it's supposed to do, which is protect us. And it is designed for survival. Our brains are not designed for happiness or for growth, and that is something that was astounding to me when I learned it. So you can learn all the tools, you can read all the books, you can listen to all the podcasts, you can watch all the talks, but unless you feel a sense of safety, your brain will not hang on to that idea and notion of growth. And in the Power of real optimism, the book that I wrote, I wrote about how the brain is constantly actually searching for potential threats. That tendency has helped humans survive for thousands of years. But in periods like we are in now with rapid change, that sort of search can actually become a liability. So we're actually going to talk a little bit about what resistance is. So uncertainty and the idea of uncertainty activates the same systems in our brains that were designed to keep us safe. And what happens there, it activates that threat mode which is the amygdala. Our thinking narrows, our risk tolerance drops, our creativity goes down, and people become more attached to familiar ways. And what leaders often interpret in this moment as maybe resistance is something completely different sometimes. Uh, it's a very normal human response to uncertainty. It's not a capability problem, it's a psychological one. How many of you guys out there have rolled out a major change initiative in your organization and you believe that the message was crystal clear, but you're only to discover later that different teams interpreted what you had said that exact same message in completely different ways. Has that ever happened? Yeah. Well, when information is incomplete and people, they don't wanna leave blanks, our brain doesn't leave the blanks, they start filling them up like we just talked about and under uncertainty those interpretations often become more fear based, more reactive and more protective. So one of the most important leadership responsibilities during a transformation period is not managing the change. It's actually managing your team's interpretation. One of the central ideas that lies in my work on optimism is the idea that optimism is actually something that is very misunderstood. So whenever I'm speaking to a large audience of people, I always ask them what's the first word that comes to mind when you think of optimism? And oftentimes I, I'll just have people shout it out, and most of the time without surprise it's this resounding like positivity being positive. And you know I think that it's, it's alarming sometimes for people that I, I'm someone that this is what I study. I'm known as the optimism doctor, which by the way I am not the most optimistic person, um, but that's for another, another day, another story. The good thing is that what I teach is that optimism is actually something that's learned it's a psychological skill, it's not a personality trait, so that's good news for me. Um, but I think what people oftentimes are looking for and they believe what optimism is, is this idea of certainty that everything, knowing that everything's gonna work out, but that's not optimism, that's certainty, and certainty is a luxury that I think very few leaders have right now or honestly very few humans have right now. Real optimism is actually something a bit different. Real optimism is the belief that even when things don't work out or we don't know exactly how they will work out or what comes next. We have the capacity to respond. To adapt, to learn, to shift, to figure it out. And that distinction really matters because adaptability is what we're talking about and adaptability is becoming, I believe, one of the most valuable skills of our time. Not just individually but for organizations, so I thought I would leave you guys with 3 practical ideas that you can take back to your teams. The first one is create clarity wherever you can. The brain handles difficult better than it handles ambiguity. So when people don't understand what's going on and something is unclear, they start to create stories and I know we all have done this in our own lives personally, but guess what, it shows up in an organization as well because we are human. And a lot of times the stories that we start creating to fill in those blanks are often worse than the reality. In periods of uncertainty, clarity becomes a form of leadership, not because you have all the answers, but because you're willing to communicate what you do know and what you don't know. And what matters most right now. People can tolerate uncertainty. We can learn that, but what we struggle oftentimes with is confusion and so clarity really matters. The second one is building adaptability again, not certainty. So I think one of the big mistakes I see when I'm working in the trenches with organizations is that. People I think leaders try to try their hardest to eliminate uncertainty altogether but really honestly we can't do that. So instead of asking how do we make people feel certain, I think a better question is how can we help people feel capable. Capable of learning, capable of adjusting, capable of pivoting, capable of responding because confidence doesn't really just come from certainty, it comes from the evidence that we have successfully adapted before and so optimism is so much more about resiliency we have all already every single person in this room has. Already persevered through your hardest days and your organization has persevered through their hardest days and so one of the things we know from a science based perspective is reminding ourselves of what we have persevered through and also historically what people have persevered through, especially in leadership in change in large technology shifts is very important. Adaptability starts with this idea that that we call cognitive flexibility, and that is the ability to generate more than one possible outcome, more than one possible solution, and there's an exercise that is my favorite exercise that I love to lead teams through, and I call it the three futures exercise. And so what it is is it's taking a current challenge that your team is facing and then asking everybody to write down three possible futures. The worst case scenario, which you will note, some people are really good at coming up with those first, and by the way, I'm one of those. And again I wouldn't try to squash the worst case scenario because oftentimes that that might be something we have to prepare for, but the key here is to not just stop there. Also to imagine and start to talk about what's the most likely scenario. So this is looking at the reality of the situation, and sometimes those two things can be the same. And then the third one, the best possible outcome. And so the key really here is, is to ask with all of those scenarios what would we do in each of the cases. And the goal really isn't the best prediction. The goal is the flexibility. And so even if someone believes or your team believes that the worst case scenario is actually the most likely outcome, that's not the point. The point is to try and have cognitive flexibility and come up with 3 different possibilities and hopefully more. And the third thing is not and we talked, I heard, um, one of the speakers a couple sessions ago talk about this too, but the third one is don't underestimate the role of meaning. One thing we often miss in sort of this conversation about AI is that people are sort of not just asking how will this change my work. When I go into teams and I'm I'm talking about this, a lot of times what I'm hearing is people are asking, will I still matter? Will my contribution matter? Where do I create value? And those are not technological questions as you'll see those are deeply human ones, because regardless of how much technology changes, people still want purpose, they still want meaning, they wanna know that their work still matters and that they have value. Those needs don't disappear. If anything, I think they're starting to become more important during this period of change. And maybe that's why I feel actually quite optimistic is not because the uncertainty is going away, it's not, and not because the change is starting to slow down, it's certainly not. I'm optimistic because I've spent my career studying humans and human beings are remarkably good at being adaptable. We learn, we evolve, we recover. We develop skills that we never imagined we'd need and we find meaning in new circumstances and we do it over and over again and so the organizations that thrive the most won't necessarily be the ones that have the most certainty or that are the most fast. They're gonna be the ones that remain curious, flexible, resilient, connected and engaged while things continue to evolve because ultimately this moment is not just testing our technology, it's actually testing our adaptability and adaptability begins with the belief that we can meet what's next we've done it before and that belief is what I call real optimism. Thank you.

Workplaces have been actively rethinking how they approach diversity initiatives, creating an important moment for leadership and talent strategy. While language may be shifting and hiring programs may be restructured, the underlying business imperatives—talent access, belonging, and culture resilience—have not disappeared. In this session, panelists will move beyond reactive pivots to examine this strategic evolution, focusing on how to align people initiatives with enterprise risk, growth, and workforce strategy. 

Jarvis Sam, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Rainbow Disruption
Ray Dempsey, Founder, Dempsey Inclusion Group
Moderator: Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media; Co-Chair, Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit

The New Culture Calculus: Prioritizing Inclusive Growth Strategically

So I wrote about this in my newsletter recently and I want to share a stat that I was really, really intrigued by. So Littler surveyed employers to find what most impacted their businesses over the past year. 71% said DEI policy changes, 65% said immigration policy changes, and both of those were more than twice the share who selected any of the other workplace policies. So you know it's clear the language about this has shifted dramatically in the past year. How are you each describing what you do now and has the underlying strategy changed, or is it just the vocabulary that has changed? And Ray, we'll start with you and go to Jarvis. All right, well, Kristen, thanks for having us here. I, I think this question is a great way to start this because there's a couple of, I believe, practical truths. The language has undoubtedly shifted. Um, millions and millions of people have been convinced that DEI is a bad word and that it represents bad stuff. The vast majority of those people have no idea what it actually is or was, but that's a slightly different point. I. I think that the practice has had to kind of refocus in on what it is meant to do, and that is to create value for the business. And I think there's loads and loads of organizations that have been really thoughtful about examining their portfolio of activities and initiatives. They've been thoughtful about understanding where there are risks and and exposure in this environment. But those who have been committed to driving real and measurable diversity, equity and inclusion to create value for the business, if they were doing it before the murder of George Floyd, they're still doing it. Um, they understand that it actually is not just a good thing to do or the right thing to do, it's not just a social imperative, it's, it's a genuine business imperative. When I advise clients on how to think about this context, I, I, I often say I struggled initially with what we call it, and I've decided I don't care what you call it. We can, we can change the, the letters, change the acronym, but more than ever before, the determination to be thoughtful about how every person, every leader is intentional about driving the best person, the, the best opportunity, the best market and consumer focus, and that's why I'm optimistic the, the work will endure. Jarvis, I wanna ask specifically because Ray, you mentioned. The business case of DEI, I feel like people are obsessed with the business case for DEI. Maybe it's because it seems like the only safe way of talking about it right now, but in, in your view, how do you feel about it? What is the new value prop or this new business case for DI? Yeah, I love this question and thanks so much, Christian, for having us. Uh, for me it's always been around this concept of the value proposition. Part of the rebranding effort that DEI has to undergo is an acknowledgement. that from the very beginning we were charged with creating a reorientation of how our systems either create or promote access or limit and reduce it for communities, particularly through the lens of selection, hopefully to have an impact on outcomes, but not in an attempt to drive outcomes driven approach. Part of the challenge that we encountered is that following George Floyd's murder, organizations felt this unequivocal commitment that. had to be all things to all people and so certain aspects that should have been controlled by government intervention, nonprofit engagement became the workplace's authority to engage and connect. But in that pursuit, this construct around how we resolve elements of social justice and social advocacy became so deeply entrenched in how we do effective workplace DEI building and advocacy internally within our organizations. The challenge we begin to see an unclear separation between activism and advocacy and so our organizations were put on the front lines to have to tackle challenges that they were quite frankly ill equipped to have to navigate from the beginning. Then trying to justify that through this lens of the business case created a very clear slippery slope at best and fallacy of thought, argumentation and reasoning. At worst, allowing for government, namely through the lens of the EEOC, to come in with a significant amount of challenge questioning how does this contribute to good faith efforts promoting advocacy within the workplace. And so this centering on rather the value proposition of what it means to build diversity within our workforce, understand what that means for our culture, and then define where and how our systems. Not our strategies, not our programs, that's further downstream, but truly our systems may be creating differentiated outcomes for communities becomes the big question now. You brought up the EEOC, and I think a lot of people here probably are wondering, you know, we keep having this pendulum swing between Democratic. Republican-led led regimes and administrations here, but as, uh, you know, a people officer, it's hard to think how do we, how do we navigate between the changes because it's, it seems like you can't prepare for, for either scenario. How do you kind of stay middle of the road or do you stay middle of the road, Ray, any thoughts on that? Well, the EEOC was born out of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And while there's been so much policy shift, largely in the form of executive orders and, and I don't downplay the impact of those, there's been real impact on real people and real organizations, but the law that guides this practice of DEI is still the law. It's still the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There are some court cases that have kind of. Tuned around the edges in some areas, some of them in real and important and meaningful ways, some maybe not so. And so my, my optimism again is that In the same way that President Trump in his first hour after his inauguration in the second term, rescinded some 80 executive orders from the prior Biden administration, and frankly that same thing could happen again in a few years' time, and the law, which is essentially to say that everybody should have a fair chance. It is still the law and it'll still guide the choices and the activities and, and it'll shape the way we manage and mitigate risk around talent. Yeah, so let's hear your, your thoughts as well. I think that too because I, I wonder, you know, after George Floyd, a lot of people were con uh accused of being maybe too performative with other DEI initiatives and not actually backing it up with substance. How, what do you recommend companies do? Do some companies take it too far? Part of the challenge is we are having a hyper dependency on this pendulum swing deeply rooted in a US construct. For the majority of us, we are likely managing and leading workforces that are global in nature that paired with Gen Z and Gen Alpha entering the workforce with a deeply entrenched view on what multiculturalism means to them, implies that this pendulum swing and this, this shift in name or nomenclature. Actually creates more risk downstream for our organizations as we're continuing to go on this rebranding effort. Take for example the climate change movement. What was initially dubbed in the creating of strategies and approaches to navigate global warming was later defined as climate change and then sustainability. Within every one of those approaches, it took years to rebrand and get greater understanding of that work. There's been a lot of. Academic scholarship around why we dub this work BEI. There's been a lot of translation and localization in global markets around why this has to be the nomenclature that we use and why this focus on systems has to be what we build. Positioning your strategy going with the wind of how the pendulum is swinging, undoubtedly creates more enhanced risk as in an attempt to. Solve the issues of today, we're not continuing things that are hypercritical like pay equity analysis and studies within our organizations, understanding the impact to the build and development of representation of all communities within our space, and of course those communities that are far too often viewed as fringe communities in this work, communities with disabilities, LGBTQ plus communities, end up either being silenced, hyped. For minoritized are left out of the conversation altogether and so I, I caution organizations that as you're looking to shift your strategy of today to comply with current policy, acknowledge it could be creating a lot more risk that opens yourself up for a lot over the next 3 to 5 years. Good point. I'm gonna turn to the audience, um, in just a second for, for questions, so start thinking of them if you have them, but first I want to ask both of you, you both held. Chief diversity officer titles, um, now it's, it's really hard to find those titles in corporate America and you know some sometimes it's rolled into the CHRO title sometimes they just don't exist whatsoever. Do you both think having that title on your resume, um, on your profile has, has impacted your, your career prospects in any way, pigeonholed you at all, or, or how, and how do you look at that role going forward? Yeah. In running my own practice these days, myself and my team, we, we interrogate this question all the time, and I think it's quite powerful, you know, for many of you, we know there's a litany of different DEI, B plus consulting firms that exist in the space. However, only someone who has truly held a chief diversity officer role understands the immense complexities that come with navigating both the legal landscape, sociopolitical complexities, socioeconomic complexities, and how we talk about, describe, and Understand the ways in which we truly create shareholder value within our workplace and role. The unfortunate reality is that as the title or the role disappears, it becomes unclear both to consumers, customers, clients, fans, and of course our employees and teammates where the center of gravity exists around our organizational commitment to this work. Now we recognize anybody who holds a CDIO title is largely influencing with. Out a lot of direct responsibility for the work they hold a lot of big A accountability in it, but they likely don't have a team large enough to do all of the work supported within the org. When these titles continue to disappear and it becomes unclear what organizational commitment looks like, it leads to a lot of questioning around where the future of this work exists and how do we have specific domain expertise within our organizations to support it. I will highlight to you though, when. Enter a space where the name and role comes back around in greater capacity or greater clarity. Avoid the tendency to simply put the highest ranking person of color or woman in our organizations into that job. We need to be as deliberate and intentional as we are in hiring CFOs, COOs, CFOs, and any other role as we are with this one, with a defined set of criteria, expectation of pedagogy or study to enter the role, and define accountability for what it is. And why it exists. Very good point. Ray. Anything you want to add? You, you heard them say that I was chief diversity Officer for BP America. It's true, but that that was not my last chief diversity officer role. I, I retired from BP after more than 30 years. I'm an engineer and an MBA by background. I've done all kinds of things, but I found mission and purpose when I was appointed as chief diversity officer there. And decided I wasn't happy to just wait until I was uh all done and I just lifted my head up a bit and Barclays came calling. I, I have a thing for big British companies. So I spent, I spent the last 3 years of my career as group chief diversity officer at Barclays. I retired about 2 years ago and so I, I retired out of conscious choice. I had a successor, she was the CHRO of the investment bank at Barclays at the time and it wasn't completely on fire, I have to tell you, it was, there was a little bit of smoke. And there were signs that things were shifting, but it hadn't completely gone ablaze. And so I left, you know, happy and proud of that title on my resume and, and frankly, I, I looked forward to the chance to, to go serve on some corporate boards. So the answer to your question, Kristen, is the consequence for me has been that the chief diversity officer title is not nearly. As valuable for corporate board nominees as it was just a few years ago and so I, I, I accept that. I acknowledge it. I'm, I'm, I'm serving on some nonprofit boards. I'm chairing the board at my alma mater and so I'm hoping that I'll just be able to leverage my network to get to where I hope to be, but does it make a difference? Yeah, it, it does interesting. Any questions from the room? Oh, I see one right over here. Thank you for a candid conversation. I feel like, uh, would love to hear your perspective on how this era is also, um, having challenges with data and being able to, you know, you talked about pay equity, the ability of the real legal risks right now of being able if you still wanna do the work, if you still have mission imperative, business imperative, tracking mechanisms are becoming extremely difficult around data and so I'm just curious about how are you advising clients. Right now. Yeah, I, I can take this first. There, there's a few things. One, the. Intentionality around how we both use our data and then splice our data is more critical now than ever because again going back to the global nature of our organizations, there are numerous countries around the world that still have requisite approaches for the need to collect and transparently distribute how we leverage our data within organizations. And so speaking about it specifically through a US lens, this is where some of the legal questions continue to come up that surfaced far before the current Trump administration and will continue to exist. Chapter what we collect, how we talk about it, how we utilize it has always had key parameters built in around it. The unfortunate reality that we have to acknowledge transparently is from 2020 to 2025 there was a lot of ineffective misuse of diversity related data in organizations or what has dubbed the branding of this construct of illegal DEI. What I'm advising clients on though is the collection of this data is still imperative for us to begin to see trends and. Understand as this pendulum swings, where are our investments continuing to pay off versus where it's being reduced. The unfortunate reality, there were billions of dollars committed to support community-related efforts impacting historically underrepresented populations that has gone unreported on since 2024. And if this trend continues by 2028, we will have a complete miss of very tangible data to understand the impact within our organizations. And so what I think the EEOC would likely. Advise on is the collection of data is one piece. How organizations are utilizing that data is where a lot of risk or what they believe tangible harm is being set up and how certain programs are being created, how approaches to things like succession planning or hiring are being measured or managed along the way. The big question though that I think we have to consider is to what end if the argument is true that the data was previously utilized to disenfranchise certain historically represented communities. We could argue that it substantively didn't work. Take a look at representation of C-suites right now, board representation, pay equity issues that continue to suffice with a significant negative impact on women in communities of color, and we have to then re-engineer how we think about. Effective utilization of data. Great question. Thank you. Can I, can I build really fast? I, I know we're gonna, we gotta move, but I, I love what you said, Jarvis. I, I agree completely. I'll add a slightly different angle to this point though, and it's, it's risk, legal risk mitigation. We, we hear a lot today about reverse discrimination. We, we might hear a little bit about that tomorrow, um, in conversation. But here's a, here's a simple practical truth. You add the sum total of all the legal judgments, verdicts, and awards that have come from. Reverse discrimination actions and you compare them to the sum total of all the discrimination actions and one bar is really, really high and the other bar is really, really, really low. It would be foolish for any enterprise to, to presume that they no longer have discrimination, legal risks, and the only way to be aware of and to mitigate those potential exposures is by having a real conscious understanding of the data. So I think the reliance on the data is still absolutely essential. There's no sacrifice or substitution for that awareness. Jarvis is right though. In much of Europe there are privacy laws that restrict the collection and use of that. Data. So organizations have to be creative and thoughtful in the ways that they develop their understanding of the workforce. Very well put, Ray. Now we're gonna end on a bit of a fire round for the two of you. 30 seconds or less, and I know this is going to be hard, but try your best. 5 years from now, what does it look like for a company who got this moment right versus one that simply survived it? Jarvis, let's start with you. There'll be a focus largely on the concept of cultural intelligence where we avoid this need to chase identities which can ultimately result in what we dub as oppressive Olympics and how we compare experiences. It will be organizations leveraging data more effectively to where they start to see congruence and experience between employee experience and consumer experience. Historically, when those two meet, that's how you maximize shareholder value. Right. I love that. The marketplace is going to decide winners and losers. Those organizations that are demonstrating an effectiveness in attracting, retaining, developing, promoting people of all dimensions of difference, of cultivating markets and customers that represent the increasingly diverse America and world are going to win in the marketplace, and those who have sent the signals that that's not important, it's not a priority, they are going to lose. And in 5 years, I believe there will be evidence of that distinction. That is fabulous. Thank you both so much for your insights here. Thank you for joining us. Yeah.

The Johor–Singapore initiative marks a bold step in cross-border economic cooperation. Designed to catalyze trade, innovation, and industrial growth, it could transform the causeway from a chokepoint into a fast-moving conduit for capital, talent, and ideas. Turning vision into value will require careful coordination on policy, regulation, infrastructure, and trust. For investors and businesses, the opportunity is real—but so is the complexity. How will this experiment in regional collaboration unfold, and what lessons can Southeast Asia draw for broader integration?

Straits Talk: Causeway to Collaboration

As climate regulations tighten and eco-savvy consumers demand more, addressing environmental risk is no longer optional—it’s a business imperative. In this panel, business leaders will explain how to make sustainability initiatives part of everyday operations—not just to help the planet, but to save money, meet regulations, and improve workflow. From cutting energy use in buildings to expanding electric vehicle fleets and finding cleaner manufacturing solutions, we’ll address what’s working, what’s not, and whether going green can lead to big payoffs. We’ll also discuss the importance of sharing corporate climate commitments and why transparency is key to building lasting trust in an era of growing greenhushing.

Initiative

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