With Pride Month coming to a close this week, we chatted with our CEO & Co-Founder Carrie and got to know not just her wonderful queer self, but her thoughts on bringing Pride into the workplace all year long.
It’s amazing how having kiddos changes my answer! What I would have said 6 years ago would've been a bit more fun and spicy 😜. Today, I celebrate Pride by supporting my LGBTQ+ local businesses in the month of June (and all year, really), making a point to wear my Loud and Proud gear (very colorful month), donating to local LGBTQ+ nonprofits, attending Pride, heading to a Thorns game, and gathering with my community to love and celebrate each other.
“Caribbean Queen” by Billy Ocean—every time I hear it, sunglasses appear on my face, the windows automatically start rolling down, and strangers give me those ’80s dancing shoulders we all know…you know the ones, right?!
🧘📿🚴♂️👶🎶💡🚙☕️🧑💻📧📞🗓🧮👂+🗣✅💦🌵🤝👩🚒🥗🔮📈 🚪🏃♀️💨 👶 🌚🥂🌝
It’s a toss-up between new client discovery and creating company culture and direction. Working with prospective clients in the discovery phase is a lot of fun—I love learning the ins and outs of all kinds of businesses, finding opportunities, and making connections. But on the other hand, defining a company’s evolving culture and direction is exciting and rewarding. We have been so lucky to work with talented people who are curious, intelligent, and engaged, so working to create opportunities for our team while expanding Good & Gold has been an unexpected joy.
I think the best way to create inclusion is to create a safe place for everyone. We start our weekly department meeting with sharing two emotions—this allows us to really “see” each other and understand what our peers are feeling and going through. While this may not be specific to LGBTQ+, it’s about relationships, being safe and human, and respecting each other. This is a great baseline for diversity and inclusion to grow.
Most importantly, we make sure that everyone feels safe, welcomed, supported, and seen here at Good & Gold. We make sure our onboarding process and approach to culture supports all different people, backgrounds, and experience. We also list pronouns in our email signatures, which helps signal that everyone here is encouraged to be authentically who they are. Our policies and benefits are inclusive, and I make an effort to be open and proud in our recruitment to signal this is a safe place for Queer folx.
As a Red-Tailed Hawk, I’m both free-spirited and loyal—I try to make things better, big or small. I’m courageous and upbeat, with mental and spiritual awareness and a thirst for higher knowledge.
Keanu Reeves, hands down. It’s the equivalent of bringing the messiah, a poet, and a genius all wrapped up into one!
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If you are about to sign a contract with a client or a new employee (or basically anything you are excited about),never—I repeat, never say a thing about the "signed deal” until it is actually signed. Something will most certainly go wrong if you do!
Oof! Don't play along with jokes or comments at your expense. This is something I faced and did not navigate well because when I entered the workforce, being gay was still not widely accepted. Try to be yourself and if you feel comfortable, open up about who you are so folks know and can honor you. Be safe but bold…time’s up!
Times are feeling pretty tough right now for lots of marginalized communities. With Roe v. Wade overturned, I’m feeling devastated about women’s fundamental rights overall, and thinking a lot about what this ruling means for marriage equality and other established freedoms. As a mother of two young children, it’s all feeling pretty heavy. I’m in a moment where I’m navigating through some sadness and grief—but let me tell you, I’m planning to emerge on the other side ready to fight like hell for what I believe in.
I’d first check with a physicist on the velocity impact with the idea of flying over music festivals and schools to unload on folks that would love/appreciate a dose of jelly beans and joy.
If it came back that doing this would be extremely dangerous, I would probably fill up a pool and allow people to jump in for the ol “swim and chew." 🤪
