Operationalizing DE&I to Shape the Next Generation of Inclusive Brands
Sheryl Daija, Founder of BRIDGE, reflects on her extensive marketing career and shares how the organization’s research-backed framework is helping companies reshape the narrative around DEI, foster meaningful change, and drive sustainable growth.
Sheryl Daija is a business, marketing, and creative leader who is fiercely focused on social justice and making the world a better place in the present and for future generations. She recently launched BRIDGE, the first-ever purpose-driven DEI trade group for the global media, marketing, and advertising industry. With an impressive board that brings together CDOs, CMOs, and business leaders, BRIDGE helps companies rethink the structures that contribute to the inequities in the workplace and marketplace. BRIDGE’s mission is to move the narrative from DEI as a philosophy to helping companies operationalize inclusion as a business practice for growth.
Sheryl started her career in brand marketing and product management in CPG and technology with roles at Epilady, Fred Hayman, Kensington, and CMGI. Prior to founding BRIDGE, she held executive roles at both the MMA and the IAB, which placed her at the forefront of innovation and development across the interactive media industry.
The Continuum sat down with Sheryl to discuss the mission of BRIDGE, how the industry should handle DEI amid what feels like a backlash, and how her own experience growing up in South Africa under apartheid fuels her commitment to equity.
You moved from South Africa to LA as a young graduate. What were your first marketing roles?
I met the CEO of the company that made Epilady. Many people who were around in the late 1980s will remember it as a hair removal product that people used to call a torture device. She was probably one of the smartest women I knew then. Working for her was really good training.
The company was really a start-up before we used that word. They had some good backing, but there were only four or five of us when I started. And we all know what happens in start-ups—you take a piece and just run with it. I actually started my career in package development, believe it or not, where I was responsible for the purchasing, the design, and the development of the packaging that we had for all of our products. The role expanded from there, and at a very early age, I was responsible for a pretty significant budget and department.
From there, I was recruited into the cosmetic and fragrance industry. I worked for Fred Hayman, the original creator of Giorgio perfume, which was the biggest brand in fragrance at the time. Again, I was lucky to be exposed to some pretty brilliant and creative minds.
I was then recruited into the technology industry. Their goal was that I would bring the design and marketing sensibility I’d learned working in the higher-end health and beauty aid industry and apply it to more mainstream technology products like mice, mouse pads, and surge protectors, which we did successfully in influencing product and package design as well as marketing.
You also have a lot of experience with trade groups before founding BRIDGE. Can you tell us about your work with the IAB and MMA?
I was at the IAB first and essentially served as their Chief Operating Officer, where I was responsible for building the events business and running all kinds of industry initiatives, whether developing ad sizes for digital or releasing other types of best practices standards and guidelines.
I took a break after leaving the IAB and then was asked to join the MMA, the Mobile Marketing Association, and helped turn it around from a trade group that was in pretty significant debt to one of the more powerful and profitable groups in the global marketing industry. When I joined, mobile was nascent as a marketing platform, and we were instrumental in building it as a viable platform—for marketers to reach consumers. I was the Chief Strategy Officer and GM of our events.
“Chief Diversity Officers were kind of put in a corner and told to fix things, which is kind of like telling the Black community to fix racism. It’s not for them to fix.”
What inspired you to go out on your own and start BRIDGE? Had you focused on DEI work in the past?
I really hadn’t specifically practiced DEI. I was at MMA when George Floyd was murdered, and DEI became somewhat of a buzzword. Having been born and raised in South Africa under the apartheid regime, which spurred my passion for social justice at a very young age, and being part of a multicultural family, I wanted to dig into the practice and really understand it and how it contributed to business as well as building opportunity and equity. It’s very personal to me.
I decided to program a session at MMA’s CEO and CMO Summit on DEI because I thought it was integral to building successful brands. Through the invitation process, I was fortunate to meet several brilliant DEI leaders. We ended up connecting on a deeper level outside of the event programming, and I spent a lot of time with them, learning about the practice. It was at the heart of the pandemic, and we would get together every few weeks and expand our circle to other experts.
As I talked to them, I realized that working in DEI in corporate America was a lonely job. Chief Diversity Officers were kind of put in a corner and told to fix things, which is kind of like telling the Black community to fix racism. It’s not for them to fix.
I also realized that many businesses were missing the point. There was a huge opportunity for businesses to understand the impact of inclusion across the organization instead of thinking of it as a siloed philosophy primarily focused on talent. I spoke to over 80 people to understand the opportunity; BRIDGE was born out of these conversations. There was no other industry trade group solely focused on DEI, and I wanted to raise the voice and visibility of DEI leaders.
“There was a huge opportunity for businesses to understand the impact of inclusion across the organization instead of thinking of it as a siloed philosophy primarily focused on talent.”
Let’s start with the name. What does BRIDGE stand for?
BRIDGE is an acronym for belonging, representation, inclusion, and diversity. The G is the growth that we believe comes from all of that. And then E is equity, which is ultimately our goal, but we're far from that goal.
You didn’t announce BRIDGE until you had a board in place and had started research. Why was that?
I wanted to create some milestones before we went public. First, I wanted to ensure that I had ten committed board members because if you know anything about industry trade groups, the power comes from the board. Having a powerful governing body gives credibility to the organization and its mission.
I'm humbled by the people and the companies that have raised their hands to participate. We have a combination of advertising agencies, Fortune 500 brands, technology companies, and media companies. It’s a pretty unbelievable roster of companies represented, including the Gap, General Motors, Campbells, Saucony, iHeart Radio, Sephora, and Indeed, to name a few. One of the things that you'll notice about the board is that it's not just Chief Diversity Officers who are on the board; it’s an intersection of DEI, marketing, and business leaders because we believe that the change has to happen at the intersection between DEI and marketing.
I also wanted to be ready with a framework, a narrative, and some data before we launched. So, our second milestone was research that could help us justify the mission of moving DEI away from a philosophy toward actionable steps of how to help companies build inclusive brands. When DEI became a buzzword in 2020, most of the focus was on talent—hiring and retaining a diverse group of people. That’s hugely important as a foundation, but I wanted to make sure we expanded the focus from the workplace to the marketplace as well so that leaders would understand that this was a business growth issue.
I reached out to an academic team I had worked with at MMA, and they were eager to take on this project. Our research was called Voices of Inclusion, and our goal was to understand the best practices that go into building an inclusive brand.
“Our position on advocacy is that not every brand is ready for advocacy or should do it, but those who are interested really need to make sure their own house is in order with the other pillars before they even think about advocacy.”
Can you tell us a little more about the research and what you found?
We interviewed over 50 people and asked them about the business practices that—from both a workplace perspective and a marketplace perspective—contributed most to the building of inclusion or inclusive brands. The research revealed over 80 business practices across five pillars of the organization.
The first pillar is Organizational Practices, which are really foundational. That's where your talent acquisition, retention, and management live. It’s incredibly important, but it's the beginning, not the end. The second pillar is Marketing Practices. How do you see your market? How are you segmenting your market? How are you understanding what your growth markets are? Third is Commercial Practices, which is about whether/how you put inclusion at the center of your product development efforts. The fourth pillar is Communications Practices, which is the media, marketing, and advertising side. It looks at how you show up in the marketplace and whether you use inclusive media practices. The last pillar is Advocacy Practices. Our position on advocacy is that not every brand is ready for advocacy or should do it, but those who are interested really need to make sure their own house is in order with the other pillars before they even think about advocacy.
Those are the five initial pillars, and we’re working on a sixth for the retail industry, which is about the in-store experience. There are several retailers, including Sephora, H&M, and others, that are trying to understand racial bias in the retail environment and have done a lot of work to mitigate it. We want to build on that for retailers.
You’ve now turned this research into a framework that brands and companies can use to evaluate their DEI efforts and status. Can you explain how it works?
We call it the IMAX framework - Inclusion Maturity Assessment and Capability Building. We've already conducted pilot programs with several marketers, including Sephora, Campbell’s, and a few others. We’ve worked to make it affordable, accessible, and easily executable. We just finished automating it, and we'll launch it in the marketplace in 2025. This is the very first time that a framework of practices for building inclusive brands exists as well as the ability to measure your inclusion maturity against these practices.
We consult with the business at the start to ensure that all assessment questions are relevant to their business. Sometimes, you're going to have questions that are relevant to a CPG that might not be relevant to a retailer, even though the principles are fundamentally the same. So that's the first step.
Then, we identify about 30 to 45 people within the organization who should take the assessment. We want a group of people that represent the different kinds of pillars because not everyone is going to be able to answer all the questions. You want to make sure there are a few people running commercial practices and some who run marketing, etc. You also want to ensure you have representation across race, gender, and sexual orientation. And you have to look at seniority because executives might have a different perspective than middle managers and others.
Once we have that all set, they complete the assessment online, and our automated system generates a report based on the data they provided. Then, we review the analysis with them to help identify and prioritize where their gaps are and where their biggest potential impact will come from.
“In fact, our position is that an attack on DEI is fundamentally an attack on innovation and business growth. We hope to help companies understand this and intend to take back the narrative.”
It feels to many like there’s been a backlash against DEI efforts in the last year or so. Do you think this is true? What can we do about it?
There is certainly a political attack on DEI, which is ultimately irrelevant to its business potential. In fact, our position is that an attack on DEI is fundamentally an attack on innovation and business growth. We hope to help companies understand this and intend to take back the narrative.
I also have to say I don't think the press reports about the companies backing away from DEI commitments are entirely accurate. They may be calling it something else to avoid backlash, but seasoned executives understand they can't just get rid of their DEI practices altogether, or they’d be giving up on growth markets.
I also think that DEI suffers from a lack of structure, common language, and best practices. I remember when I was at the IAB at the beginning of digital advertising. Every website had different specs for sizes, so you had agencies going crazy creating multiple sizes of the same ad. We realized that standard sizes would make the buying and selling of digital advertising more effective or more efficient. So, we created ad sizes, and it changed everything. We gave it structure. That’s what BRIDGE will do with DEI for our industry—arm it with a standard language and best practices steeped in data and business impact that can not only withstand the backlash but triumph over it.
December 10, 2024
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