Zach sits down with Rah Thomas, a managing director in Accenture's Infrastructure Operations practice with over 15 years of experience. They discuss his role with the company and what it looks like for him to create access for other black and brown folks that are coming behind him. Rah also shares a few points of advice for today’s young leaders.




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TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, again, y'all know what it is. Y'all should know by now, okay? We've been doing this thing for a few weeks, but again, if you don't know, you're about to know. Living Corporate has partnered with Accenture to feature some of their most black and brown--senior black and brown managing directors to share their journeys. My hope is you listen to these, check 'em out, and you peep the links in the show notes to learn more about each of them, including our interview for the day, today, Rah Thomas. Rahnold, Rah, Thomas is a managing director in Accenture's infrastructure operations practice with over 15--that's right, 15--years of experience. His primary focus is digital workforce transformation and infrastructure transformation to the cloud. Okay, that sounds, like, super fancy, I recognize, you know what I'm saying? But just come on. Vibe with me. Rah is also the national co-lead for the African-American employee resource group. He works across all inclusion and diversity workstreams, meeting with senior executives to improve recruitment, progression, and retention of top talent, okay? So this interview is gonna be dope. Listen, okay? He got the insight. He got the juice. He has the technical know-how, the background, and he's plugged into these spaces to have the real conversations, okay? That's why I'm really excited to talk to Rah today. The core to both of these positions is seeing past the optics and standard view of people, process, technology, and then streamlining that into maximizing the real underlying value, okay? With that being said, let's get to it. 




[pause] 




Zach: Rah, welcome to the show. How are you doing?




Rah: Man, I'm feeling great out here, man. Feeling blessed, feeling blessed.




Zach: Amen, amen. So look, for those of us who don't know you, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?




Rah: Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. I'm from the Bronx. New York.




Zach: Okay, okay. Yerp. Let's go. [both laugh]




Rah: I think by day I'm a managing director or partner for Accenture. I lead some of our diamond clients in technology and innovation, and then I also run the national African-American employee resource group for Accenture. So I'm helping shape our major diversity initiatives.




Zach: That's incredible. So look, can we talk a little--can you unpack that a bit? Like, you have--you just said that you're one of the major partners for your diamond clients, and then you said you're the national lead for the African-American ERG. So those are two huge roles. Can you talk a little bit about both of those and what those actually mean?




Rah: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely, man. I think--I think that being--on the technical side, I think that's sort of my craft, right? So I do cloud, right? I do service management, digital workplace automation, sort of helping do innovation for our clients. I have about four or five diamond clients that I help sort of push the line of innovation, which is a great segue into what I do from a diversity and inclusion perspective because I help our people of color--I mean, I'm the African-American lead, but I work with the Latinos, I work with our Pride, I work with all of our diversity and inclusion folks, and I help sort of shape that. You know, like, what is it from our targeted's perspective? You know, how do we handle things like escalations [and] things of that nature? So I go across the gamut nationally for all of that.




Zach: That's incredible. You know, I love that because--when you talk about the fact that you're working across, because I think while every experience, every non-white experience, is unique, there's commonality in the fact that--and there's commonality in being some type of--just having a non-white experience, a non-majority experience, and so the fact that you're working across there is beautiful. And in fact, what I also think is interesting--and I'm late to the game, Rah. I didn't really learn until I was, like, in high school and college that the black diaspora is spread so far. So, like, when you talk about partnership across the Latinx spaces, so many Latinx folks are also black, right?




Rah: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Well, so my wife is Ecuadorian, and my kids--so, like, trying to sort of help my children grow up and stuff like that, it's fierce out here.




Zach: It is. It is. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So let's talk about a panel you were on last September for Black Enterprise. You participated in--what they called it was "a real conversation about succeeding while black and the dangers of truth and perception in corporate America." So, again, you keep dropping bombs, and that's kind of been a--that's been really, frankly, a theme across all of these leadership interviews, but can you talk about what brought that discussion and what that discussion was really about? Can you unpack that a bit?




Rah: Yeah. I mean, I think--so I know you can't really see me out here, you know, but, I mean, I am a black man with dreadlocks.




Zach: Yes, sir.




Rah: And I am a partner at the #1 consulting firm in America. Globally actually, right? So the challenges that I had to sort of come against--you know, I got kicked out of board rooms. I've had some real real experiences, and I had to talk about sort of some of the authenticity that I had to bring to the table. Being unapologetically black, however still giving way for comfortability for people to understand my point of view and helping them innovate and move their bottom line. So it was really a dialogue about, you know, how do you do that while trying to break the glass ceiling? Which keeps changing. Glass ceiling, rubber ceiling, concrete ceiling. You know, it keeps changing on you, right? So you're trying to unpack all of that. So it was--it was a good discussion with a lot of successful black men where we delved into that.




Zach: Now, wait a minute. Now, you know, Rah, I can't let you just slide that by. You said you got kicked out of a board room?




Rah: [laughs] Yeah, man.




Zach: You gotta--I need to hear that. I gotta hear that.




Rah: Oh, you're [?]? [laughs]




Zach: I mean, you--you opened the door. I'm trying to understand how you got kicked--I want to hear that story.




Rah: Well, I mean, it was just--you know, I think I'm one of the best at what I do, and I'm confident, and I walked in with my client and I was like, "Listen, this is what we got," and, you know, my client's boss, who was a C-level executive, was like, "What are you doing in the board room here with dreadlocks?" And I'm like, "Well, you know times are changing," you know? And then I started my presentation and he was like, "Listen, you sit down." He was like, "Actually, don't say another word or you'll never work for this company again," and I was like, "What?" And my client was like, "Yo, Rah. Hey, back down a little bit. Back down." So I let it ride, but--and that experience, which was crazy, wasn't the crux of [?]--I mean, it had an experience on me, but it was how my company responded to it that really pushed me to be like, "Yeah, this is what I need to do," because what happened was after that, then my company then came to me and said, "Hey, Rah. If you don't ever want to work in this space again, we don't have to do that. We know you're good at what you do. We know that you can change the world and innovation, so if you don't want to work with this client anymore, we don't have to." And I was like, "Wow, man, that's powerful."




Zach: Dang, that's crazy. So the client was talking to you crazy, and then Accenture was looking back at the client like [haha sfx].




Rah: Yeah, just like that. Exactly like that. [laughs]




Zach: "Haha." [both laugh] That's wild. So okay, okay. Well, look, I know that was--well, it really wasn't a non-sequitur, because you opened the door, and I wanted to hear about how that happened. Okay. So in my experience, in the instances where there are black and brown folks who make it to senior executive roles, they're often leading in, like, a technical specialty, right? So they solve--this is from what I've seen, Rah. I'm not saying this is the way of life. I'm saying this is something I have observed. So they observe a particular problem, and they solve a particular problem in a particular way. So I believe your role is a little bit different in that you're having to lead strategic conversations and work to connect the dots across a variety of specialties to deliver the most effective solutions. Can we talk a little bit about your experiences in such a connected and integrated role and what you've learned in navigating these spaces?




Rah: Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing about it is--right now I think folks can't see the future. Folks cannot see the future right now, and if you look at it, 50% of the Fortune 500 companies over the past 15 years have gone bankrupt. So right now they're all scrambling, right? Normally they'd like to look around 5, 10, 15, 20 years in advance, and they can't see that. At any given time, a Google or an Uber can pop up and change the game. So right now all of these senior executives are really looking and saying, "Hey, we need to absolutely tap the best of people. We need to tap the best talent period. We don't care if it is white talent. We don't care if it is blac