‘With multicultural women, we see that most of the time they are like, I will be just like everyone else, I will be talented and work hard and my work will speak for myself. It’s not easy for these women to deal with these issues. Being intentional about getting the assistance you need, setting your goals and moving up .. How do you use your difference as an asset and leverage it as an advantage for your company?’  In Episode 30, I am joined by Bonnie St. John, CEO of Blue Circle Leadership Institute, to discuss the specific barriers and challenges that multicultural women face in climbing up the corporate ladder, building trust across multicultural differences, and engaging leaders to support them. Bonnie’s interest in DEI has been shaped by her life experiences as a Paralympic athlete, a Rhodes Scholar, a best-selling author, a White House Official and an entrepreneurial businesswoman. For over twenty years, Bonnie has led seminars, workshops and executive coaching, and has circled the globe as a keynote speaker and Fortune 500 leadership consultant. Her desire to lead with the sincere intention to make a difference is evident through her journey to find her strengths and overcome prejudices. She was the first African-American ever to win medals in Winter Olympic competition, taking home a silver and two bronze medals in downhill skiing. Through her work as the CEO of Blue Circle, she has worked to deeply understand the barriers faced by multicultural women, designing a powerful development program that gets to the heart of a much-needed conversation. We explore five core components of the Blue Circle Leadership program that support women to overcome these barriers:  - Trust and informal networking: navigating across differences to create a sense of trust and comfort that doesn’t come as naturally between a senior white male and junior multicultural woman. - Telling and selling your value: cultural differences for multicultural women mean that they don’t feel comfortable ‘bragging’. - Sponsorship: addressing the informal network issue, and ensuring multicultural women can equip others to speak out for them, making it easier for others to help them out. - Strategic networking: moving multicultural women to the next level by equipping them with mentors, sponsors, who can make an introduction and open the door for them. - Authentic Leadership: how multicultural women can understand what is unique about them and leverage it for their organisation.  We discuss her book and the importance of using science to help teams be more resilient. The focus here is on the little things that we do that makes us more resilient immediately. As Bonnie shares, discomfort doesn’t only occur for white leaders who want to sponsor multicultural women, it happens both ways, even those who are from similar cultures feel uncomfortable due to expectations to stand in line and to adhere to cultural norms, almost more than the white male. As such, leaders need to move beyond discomfort and be intentional about providing support for multicultural women and working towards building an inclusive environment.  Lastly, Bonnie speaks on the internal struggles she faced when she made the decision to specialise in helping multicultural women become leaders. This was primarily based on her desire as a businesswoman to succeed on a broader stage, and not on a small market that focuses on multicultural women. Despite this, her sincere determination to help those like her is evident through her work, helping forge the path for multicultural women who are stuck at the entry rungs in their career due to their ethnicity and gender. To hear Why Care? episodes, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find out more at Avenir via our LinkTree.