028: (Part 1 of 2) Working in IT Sales while Black, How Inclusive Teams Can Get Better Results with Jasmine Morris

Listen to Episode 028 with Jasmine Morris here (YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts):


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About the episode:

Jasmine Morris is an Account Manager at CBTS, selling IT solutions to small and medium-sized businesses in Indiana. She’s also the Creative Director at Indy Black Millenials, and she’s getting her MBA in Information Technology and has worked on a handful of sales engineering certifications.

In Part 1 of 2, we talk about Jasmine’s work in the black and tech community outside of work and how it has made her a more human, grounded professional. We discuss her lived experience as a black woman in tech and how her company CBTS has done an amazing job having intentional conversations about race in the IT channel and corporate America.


Show highlights:

00m20s – Jasmine opening teaser of her being involved in her community, a bit about her personal story

02m00s – Brief opening from Aaron for Part 1 of 2

07m00s – Covering topics on being Black in Corporate America and the IT Channel, Jasmine’s work as Creative Director at Indy Black Millenials, plus Jasmine’s involvement in the black community in Indy. On Friday, August 28th, 2020 Jasmine got to overview Indy Black Millenials at InnoPower. Her work ranges from 2020 voting drives to community impact. She’s also helping Ivy Tech with their Tech entrepreneurship program, and she’s started a digital marketing agency helping Indy entrepreneurs get a headstart.

13m00s – Being involved with the community outside of work keeps you connected to people. Jasmine was raised on the far East side in Indianapolis, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods and the highest lack of resources in Indianapolis. Jasmine did grassroots work to help. Jasmine states that she was lucky that her mom moved them out, she got to a better school system and did engineering programs in high school which got her to Purdue.

Keeps her grounded and how much impact one person can have. We should always strive to make people better, fortunate enough to be in IT, and knows this industry can be that change for the better.

17m00s – Jasmine works in IT Sales at CBTS, and their “BOLD” program stood out to Jasmine. Employee resource groups (ERGs) and CBTS puts dollars and energy behind these groups. Jasmine is Black, a womxn, and identifies as Queer. Each of these mean different things about her lived experience. Produced 5 external videos and did an internal webinar about “Being Black in Corporate America”, which as a technology company it’s the people that bring a company success, and we should be informed about everyone’s “lived experiences”.

22m00s – Jasmine’s lived experience in Corporate America is that she’s sometimes afraid of having to field uneducated comments. This is especially true after major black events such as police brutality or major black culture events, not for her safety, but in having to defend race at work over and over again. Jasmine hopes no one says anything because she hasn’t wanted to be the spokesperson for her black culture.

CBTS has been excellent in making it much better and she feels 100% supported at her company. Jasmine believes it’s a blessing and knows other companies aren’t so good about it.

24m00s – closing remarks


Find Jasmine Morris online, plus the resources she mentioned on the show:

Personal
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasminemorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasmineDMorris
Indy Black Millenials: https://www.indyblackmillennials.com/about-us/

CBTS
Allies: https://youtu.be/PmRU112Y8Rg
Perserverance: https://youtu.be/SDtVBxfAl8U
Implicit Bias: https://youtu.be/q3LSxlH2VGk
Inclusion: https://youtu.be/c_2n2kHG_Ks