Melissa Bosch

Episode: Melissa Bosch, Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, EY Ireland
Melissa speaks with Hogai about growing up in South Africa, her formative experiences and how she found herself in Ireland, forging a new path. They discuss challenges faced in the workplace and the importance of embedding diversity, equity and inclusion at the core of business, rather than an afterthought that can be discarded in challenging times. Visit EY Ireland and Melissa on LinkedIn

Open Mic is a new podcast presented by the Open Doors Initiative which explores the challenges and opportunities of the working world from the perspectives of marginalised communities. The podcast takes the form of short interview segments with individuals who will share their lived experiences and insights.

Guest Host
Introducing Hogai asefi Wardak. Born in Kabul Afghanistan in 2001, the youngest of her family, with 4 sisters and 2 brothers. A family where she could see her older sisters not getting what they wanted in their lives, not reaching their wishes and goals, because her father had never allowed or permitted, and never had an open mind for women to engage, work and participate in community, at that time in their country. 

In 2016, she graduated from high school and was enrolled in Kabul University. She started working with Zan TV, which is a specialized tv network for women. She started to host programmes dealing with Women’s empowerment, Women and sports and various social programmes. 

She also established an educational community for children, to help women and youngsters to get jobs, by joining POOHA NGO and worked with NATO. She’s still working with Zan TV on screen.

Open Doors Initiative

• ODI’s key mission is to enable equitable access to employment for marginalised people
• We create pathways to work through training, education, employment and entrepreneurship.
• Collaborative network of over 125 partner organisations
• Together we carry out training, work experience, mentoring, research and reduce barriers for people who are marginalised
• We helped nearly 74,000 people on pathways to work in five years

Visit https://opendoorsinitiative.ie for more information and follow us on social media including Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube

Transcript

Hello everyone welcome to Open Mic podcast presented by the Open Doors Initiative which explores the challenge and opportunities of the Working World from the perspectives of marginalised communities the podcast will take the form of short interview segments with individuals who will share their life experiences and insights my name is Hogai asefi Wardak hosting the Open Mic podcast the podcast will be available from the Open Doors website and from different podcast streaming providers it will be promoted online through social media and our member companies and supporting partners hello everyone welcome to the another episode of Open Mic from Open Doors I'm hosting this Open Mic so today guest again uh very talented special and uh the example for the all women around the world so Melissa Bosch equality diversity and inclusion country leader in EY Ireland welcome Melissa hi there thank you so much for having me Hogai thanks a million so I will start my questions and always I'm asking my guest from the journey that where they start and what was the journey so that's a that's a really interesting question and and it really does go back to my Heritage everything is seeded in where I where I'm from um and how I've grown up so I'm originally from South Africa and um I am a very proud South African um and uh the lessons learned through growing up through post-apartheid and understanding all the indignities that my family would have faced mostly um that really shaped me as a human being yeah I also think that one of the key um milestones in my life was by accident meeting Nelson Mandela really so that was a big a big moment for meh um I was I was in the Waterfront in in South Africa and he um came for a visit and I ran to my mom I asked her to um to give me some money please I want to go get Nelson Mandela some flowers so I ran off got some flowers got them de thorned and everything made my way past his bodyguards I don't know how I did that all of about 13 years old and he took me by my hands and I it was such an amazing moment and he looked at me um and he said you're a very brave young lady wow and those words are really important to me yeah because I take that with me wherever I go I can't I can't even explain to you what that moment was like like when you're young and someone motivated you in the way you are and you want to be so it's so good Melissa uh tell me that what brought you into the world of DEI and makes you so passionate about the area of business so I suppose it's building on that interaction building on my heritage I come from a mixed heritage background um and um it's influenced me in in various ways my parents as well they um they worked really hard they put me through private school in in South Africa and it was one of the first mixed race private schools in South Africa and that was a really important thing I don't think they I think they knew what they were doing but I didn't don't think they they actually uh imagine the impact of it because it drove home why do we separate why do we segregate why do we create difference um cause I just didn't experience that in at school um not in that way anyway it's obviously it permeates through households because of the the history of South Africa um but what what I really wanted to do is make an impact in this world a positive impact and bring people together and I wanted to do it in a constructive way so my my career has been a bit of a journey um it started with uh wanting to um become a solicitor a lawyer wow oh I hated it why are you too much paperwork really I wanted to be close to the ground I wanted to be you know really making that tangible difference and um ended up opening up a restaurant with my mom wow South Africa in South Africa Simply Delicious which my mom still my mom still it was traditional restaurant yeah traditional home uh homecooked food South African homecooked foods um and then I went on to do a marketing um uh marketing yeah so I I realized through that oh I actually love marketing and communication so followed that path ended up becoming a marketing manager uh for an investment company in South Africa and travelled throughout Africa and the and um the Middle East as well um and it was wonderful cause there I started realizing the the differences but also the similarities and what um really came to bear for me is and how how I started shaping my ethos you what's to me um really developed around that stage um there's a there's a philosophy in South Africa called Ubuntu and Ubuntu talks about the social connection between each each other I am because you are yeah and I recognize that in everything that I do so when I came to Ireland I had to take a few steps back in my career um and I'm fast forwarding a little bit I'm sure you're going to ask me about why I came to Ireland um why even why you choose Ireland uh Ireland chose me I think really I met my husband in South Africa and my my husband is Irish oh my God how it happened that you face the Irish oh my goodness let's just say it was a girls night out and I met him on the dance floor not the way I thought I'd marry my meet my future husband but hey we were here now and um ended up getting married and decided hey let's get some uh International experience so let's go let let me go over to Ireland for a couple of years and I never thought I'd immigrate to another country I like I'm proudly South African and um we moved yeah yeah yeah so your were husband brought you to the island yeah he brought me uh brought me here uh but I got transferred with the organization that I was working with in in South Africa as well and that was a the the few first few years yeah was a little bit of a challenge um it was a bit of a challenge because you come over uh you have rose tinted glasses at first yeah it's going to be wonderful it's going to be amazing if I ask you how you would describe yourself at the first year of uh your I would say career in Island yeah first year was um the first couple of months was fine I um everything's new you you're kind of putting yourself out there but then the reality hits that you don't have the infrastructure you don't have um friends or close relations that are near you yeah um my husband's family is amazing but they live a little bit further away um and it was the beginning of our marriage so you you've got all these little barriers that you create for yourself as well so I threw myself in that first two years I threw myself into education so I could start broadening my my network that was one of the best things I did for myself wow let's back to the business Melissa like I'm going to ask you that how can gender equality will be a good answer to creating the uh value for future generation what do you think absolutely gender equality is is the North Star equality is the North Star that's what we're what we're working towards that's I'm I'm trying to work myself out of a job here that's  what I do you work if I ask you to compare the worth of equality with equity exactly that so how you will compare these two words so that's exactly where I wanted to go with it equality is the North Star how we get there is through Equity yeah it's through recognizing that people have different starting points that their challenges are different so this um one size fits all approach is not going to work to unlock potential I agree to truly unlock the value that diversity brings means that we have to start with valuing difference so like which one you will prefer equality for your own self for others or equity in the in the in the world that we're living in now right now Equity in the in the utopia world that I'd like to create really equality equality why you will choose equality um I think that's that's what we're striving towards um that we um we have equal equal rights equal opportunities um for everyone but in terms of getting there we have to work through um the behaviours that drive bias the behaviours that drive difference um that marginalize groups and Equity is going to get us there I agree uh let me ask you Melissa that uh the way you're working have you ever faced the challenge and problems in this way absolutely I mean like uh personally um how you handle it oh uh so personally of course you're going to face um challenges around um uh uh equity in the workplace um I think there's there's a few like for me there's a few things there just around how you get treated differently as a woman when you walk into a meeting um and that's happened to me in in in uh past roles past um uh organizations uh where you're just uh treated like um someone that's there to do the minutes or uh make the coffee m um it's it's very different you also might not necessarily have access to the same networks um and that is a real challenge uh as you as you navigate your career if you want to to get ahead particularly in Ireland you have to have a rich network of people that um uh you can learn from and you can understand um so you can understand how the market works this is where sponsorship and mentorship become paramount and it's not about someone tapping your shoulder and going hey I want to sponsor you I agree it's about you going hey I want to be sponsored this is these are my gaps I understand what these gaps are and I need your help with it m in life things don't happen to you yeah you make things happen I agree yeah and even in challenging situations and I know I'm talking from a place of privilege um but in challenging sit situations you have to use your voice that's what you have you have to keep your eyes open and you have to be able to put yourself out there and that was for me in the first two years of being here a real challenge because I have to tell everyone who I am from the beginning I have to I'm almost recreating who Melissa who Melissa is and it can be it can be really um it can be really challenging I mean I used to tell my husband particularly when the in the first two years of being here is the sense that I've I've lost my compass I've lost who I am and the direction that I'm going in and the only way not the only way one of the ways that you can get that back is by putting yourself back out into the world leaning into that discomfort and being willing to learn more and to unlearn things that you've learned before because I've got my cultural nuances as well yeah um so it's it's fascinating how you can evolve as a human being got it but it's a choice yeah Melissa in this that you said that no one will come to say that I will sponsor you should say that uh like sponsor Melissa in this point I want to ask you or your message for specially special especially for the woman that they are migrants in Ireland like how they can move and what should they do to achieve their goals absolutely especially for women especially for women yeah sure so the the migrant women uh in Ireland what I've learned first of all what I've learned through a program that we run in EY called the refugee access program yeah is that there is a massive source of untapped talent and that untapped talent is uh disguised by lack of confidence and that kind absolutely you're going to lose your confidence when you move to another country and you you feel completely displaced in so many ways what I'm what I'm going to say is go go back to to what I did previously put yourself out into the world make sure you reach out to get educated and to build that Network there's so many programs out there programs that that Open Doors run programmes that um organizations run put yourself out back out into the world rebuild that confidence again and make a take a step because whatever step you take you're going to create opportunities which can lead to more opportunities so for migrant women in particular I would say build that confidence and put yourself out into the world you'll be so surprised at the reaction of people that really want you to be part of Ireland be part of the community on on a side note 13 years on from living in Ireland I now identify as Afro Irish wow the this island changes you but you need to be willing to actually bring that into yourself it changes you but you also change Ireland change Ireland for the better I agree Melissa as a last question uh other companies face cutbacks on tougher financial times how do we convince them for when times are good but need to be at the core of their operating producers so for for and that's such a good question because often diversity equity and inclusion is one of those things that gets pushed to the side because uh organizations are chasing margins yeah my my answer to that or my response to that is who's driving those margins who's driving who's driving it it's the people that are driving it in your organization it's the people that are um are creating better outcomes for your clients and more and more Ireland is becoming diverse we just have to look at the census results to see that and therefore our organizations are becoming more diverse and when I talk about diversity I talk that full talk about that full spectrum of diversity so much that we can bring into our organizations but it's understanding that as a business lead as a diversity equity and inclusion lead I need to be able to talk about not just the right thing to do but also the commercial impact of diversity equity and inclusion and an organization that it unlocks better decisions it unlocks um better margins um it unlocks better outcomes for um or organizations and the clients that they serve so if organizations want to remain relevant they wouldn't cut back on their diversity equity inclusion they wouldn't cut back on their talent practices talent should be at the core of what organizations do to drive better outcomes for their clients and it's people that they're arriving people it's all about people and it was an an amazing answer for this question thank you Melissa thanks a million for joining us oh it's a pleasure it's been so great thank you so much if you have any uh message at the end just feel free my message I suppose to to everyone listening is make space for the other look at your circle around you think about how homogeneous that circle is and bring some difference in you're going to get so much from it make space for others that's nice thank you Melissa it was a great conversation thanks everyone for listening at home see you on the next episode we hope you found the series helpful please follow us online at Open Doors work on Instagram LinkedIn and Twitter thanks a million