Michael Smith, the Chief Information Officer of Estee Lauder, brought together a group of technology executives for a conference the day following George Floyd’s death. Given the terrible circumstances of his demise and the subsequent protests in the wake of the tragedy, the technology topics that the group planned to discuss did not seem so meaningful. Ralph Lauren’s CIO Janet Sherlock decided this was a good time to talk about how the gathered executives could be agents for change. Inspired by Sherlock’s comments, Smith decided to activate the ideas, reaching out to his network, fleshing out the ideas further. Earl Newsome, the CIO for the Americas at Linde Inc. was a member of the original group and a primary architect defining the approach.
