For Your Team - Leona Thomas

06/09/21 • 36 min

Leona Thomas is a diverse tech leader who’s leveraged her technical foundations to expand into business transformation and strategy over the 15 years I’ve known her. Leona has a rich history of serving as a COO, a CTO and CIO, a Board member for various organizations as well as President & Founder of an investment advisory firm. She was doing innovation and transformation on a global scale before it was trendy. Leona is also a mentor, a philanthropist, a former rugby player, a fantastic dancer. I can honestly say, she’s one of the few people I’d wake up for at 5am to go do yoga and dancing at sunrise in downtown Philly.

In this episode, Leona highlights how she diversifies a room by walking into it. She shares how being half black and half white as well as a lesbian that has been out for decades makes her not just “feel” other, but truly “be” other from whatever group she’s meeting. The beautiful aspect of thinking through how to leverage her “other” to enlighten others to ways they can be more inclusive and the importance of acceptance.

Her parents’ marriage was before the Loving Decision and therefore illegal in 17 states (but not the states they lived in). Her birth certificate had read “White” and was crossed out with “Negro” handwritten in when a nurse saw who her father was. Leona talks about how that dictated where she went to school back in the days of “bussing” students based on race. She talks about how others learning she’s half black sometimes changes their behaviors and their relationships despite that she’s still the same professional, fundraiser, philanthropist, or friend.

Leona also stresses the importance of diversity on teams and how different approaches of technologists and business strategists make for the best teams. We discussed labels and how not to blanket categorize people. “Labels are for boxes” is a t-shirt Leona has!

At Diverse Tech Leaders we discuss how to help organizations be better and build more inclusive workplaces, and Leona shared with our listeners some of the highs and lows of her employers. The examples she shared included mentoring, advocacy, masking, and the tension between divisional actions and large corporate policies, systemic challenges, and the bottom-line money companies lost by not being inclusive. We discuss how remote work can be leveraged to augment your diversity by bringing roles to the talent instead of demanding talent work “in your office.”

Leona also dedicated years toward non-profit board service with the William Way LGBTQ Community Center of Philadelphia. She also shared how Diverse Force was a fantastic board training program that she pursued despite having been a board member for over 7 years. Give the episode a listen!

To learn more:

Favorite Song: Leona doesn’t have a favorite song, but she gave a great reason why!

Leona Thomas via Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonathomas/

The Loving Decision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

William Way LGBTQ Community Center of Philadelphia: www.waygay.org

Diverse Force: www.DiverseForceonBoards.com

Reminder Days: https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/reminder-days/

Diverse Tech Leaders Podcast:

Podcast “Show Notes” at: www.DiverseTechLeaders.com

Twitter: @DiverseTechLdrs

Connect with Kristen Lamoreaux:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenlamoreaux/