Episode Details

In this episode, co-hosts Tim Cynova and Lauren Ruffin introduce a new 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," where Tim interviews white men in positions of leadership whose companies are engaged in understanding how racism and oppression are at play in their organizations and the work they do.

Download the accompanying series study guide.

Series guests include:

• David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
• John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
• Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
• Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
• Sydney Skybetter, Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
• Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
• Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
• David Reuter, Partner, LLR
• Kit Hughes, Co-Founder & CEO, Look Listen
• Ted Castle (Founder & President) & Rooney Castle (Vice President), Rhino Foods
• Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab

This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”

Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films. And find all the episodes here.

Co-Hosts

TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design, and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.

LAUREN RUFFIN (she/her) is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, an