Inside the DEI journey of Black-owned business Uncle Nearest, the fastest-growing whiskey brand in the United States.
True DEI progress requires both types of diversity. Diversity of thought isn’t always found where you expect it to be found.Fawn Weaver was deliberate about bringing diversity — and diversity of thought — to Uncle Nearest. Some may assume that because her distillery is owned run a Black woman, DEI is less of a concern to Weaver. Not so.
To be clear, Weaver would seek demographic diversity on her team; she was not foregoing that part of her DEI journey. She was only saying that she was not interested in that alone. Diversity of thought, which would come from multiple types of people, and often unexpected people, would be what would make Uncle Nearest a brand beyond its diverse roots, competing with august incumbents.
Leaders must acknowledge these disparities and realize it will take and time and sacrifices to fix it. If an organization is committed to increasing their diversity of leadership, they may have to keep a position open longer than expected to identify a diverse slate of candidates. They may have to recruit outside of their typical top schools. They may have to reevaluate if the requirements they have always had for the job are actually indicators of success.
“We regularly have diversity training to educate our team on topics such as the Tulsa massacre and Juneteenth,” Weaver says. “We’ve done skills building to have everyone walk through their journey together and identify their own implicit biases. Every time we do training, team members share that one of their favorite parts of our culture is that we create space for everyone to learn about these topics together.