Amazon’s Inclusion Playbook: One Year Later, What Has Changed?

This time last year, she led the launch of its inclusion policy playbook, with content production guidelines that go right to the heart of the creative work done at Prime Video and Amazon Studios. It was a significant statement about d E and I expectations. One year in, Gillespie says there is measurable progress in hiring, especially in low profile areas like transportation and support services. The policy playbook is

open to all to view online. That's important, Gillespie says, to ensure access to the playbooks large and growing database of BIPOC owned businesses, vendors, and creative talent above and below the line. Gillespie has had a few frank conversations with producers as the company formalized. It's the E and I procedures around content for a company that prides itself on being customer obsessed. As Gillespie explains, it's crucial that the people behind Amazon shows have the right lived experience

to tell the stories that they do. Overall, she's been impressed at how many people she's encountered are committed to meaningful progress. Gillespie also shares her impressions about the entertainment business in general from the vantage point of a very different business. The Chicago native joined Amazon's corporate ranks in after a long career with machinery and equipment manufacturer at a Pillar. That's all coming up after this break, and

we're back with Amazon's Latasha Gillespie. Latasha Gillespie, head of Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Prime Video, Amazon Studios, and IMDb, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Cynthia for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm glad that we have the chance to talk today because right about now we're at the end

of May. Here, it has been just one year since Amazon unveiled it's very expansive what it calls its inclusive, what it calls its Inclusion Policy Playbook, and it was a very thoughtful, very comprehensive series of guidelines and objectives to guide what every company and entertainment, what every content company on the planet has been dealing with is making

sure that content looks like the audience it serves. And that can't be done without bringing in way opening up more pipelines, bringing in way more diversity of perspectives, backgrounds at all levels of the industry and as a lot of people, a lot of companies were grappling with this in the last couple of years. Amazon really put some things down in black and white on paper. It's the and we you know, we have covered that. We covered

that extensively. At the time it's been one year. Tell us what some of the biggest takeaways from this process have been in the short time that it's that it's that you've really been formalizing it. You know, I appreciate the question, because we have had some really interesting learnings in this first year. Um, you know, we expected, of course that we would see some uptick um, but we knew we weren't going to solve all the problems in

one year. I think we've been pleasantly surprised with what you can do with intentionality and and just by really being focused in giving people resources. I think is it s exceeded our expectation for year one. The second thing I think that we've learned, which was also a pleasant surprise, is, UM, you know how much diversity we have below the line,

particularly people with disabilities, UH, the lgbt Q community. I don't know that that community below the line community if if that's been captured UM in a way that really gives uh insight into the breath and depth of diversity that's happening below the line. And and I'm so pleased to see how many people from those communities are actually working on our sets every day, and like it's it's

so encouraging, UM and I'm so excited about that. But it's also making it smarter because we're thinking through things differently, specifically around accessibility. Right, how do you make sure that everyone has the necessary avery tools to be productive in their role every day? And there's so many disabilities that are unseen that you shouldn't assume someone doesn't have it.

And if you think about the impact COVID has had and people with long haul COVID like, I think we're going to see an increase in that over the next couple of years, and how we think through accessibility and productivity tools for people with hidden disabilities. We see the stats every year when the guilds and industry institutions put out their diversity numbers, and it's still staggering, and we know that a lot of it is a pipeline, the

pipeline to opportunity. The talent is there, but the pipeline. What have you done things? Have you taken steps to open those pipelines to bring more people into the mix, to even be considered for those below the line roles, the the very junior rung roles, the executive roles, all all of the support systems. Have you taken steps to

bring just to open that pipeline. Absolutely, And I think the one thing when I hear the word pipeline, I think people automatically think, um, you know, training programs and apprenticeships which are super important and relevant and we all should be engaged in doing those. But then there's also, you know, the shorter ramp pipeline. There are a lot of talented and trained people in the world today that

just don't have access and exposure to our industry. UM. You think about simple things like you know someone to lead transportation on is said to be the head of transportation. How often are we going into local communities and looking for our entrepreneurs have chauffeur companies right or car service companies and and helping them understand how to get into

our business. So I think there's when we talk about pipelines for us, it's about long term for sure, like Howard Entertainment, which is my pipeline program and its third year, where we are training HBCU students to be studio executives UM so that they understand the power of you know, the green light power from a creative development standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, a pr standpoint, finance standpoint, a legal standpoint, like helping them understand how you green light projects, how

you separate them through development to execution UM and making sure that you do it in in an authentic way. Right. But then there's shorter pipelines that were also working with with around identifying talented writers who we think have an amazing voice and they don't need to go through a diversity program, they just need to be high right. We

are seeing. I'm seeing in in in a lot of industry sectors, a lot of programs that a lot have been identified that filmmakers, for example, that you can sometimes get a lot of heat on that first film. You do everything, you max your credit cards, you make that first film, you get a festival splash, and you you

get that first wrong. But then your second film is just you just the phone doesn't ring, and you know every door is a no and you can't you know, every story is different, but when you look at the sweep of things, there's a consistency as to who gets that second chance, that that that that boost from the first movie gets you the second movie, and who and who is still struggling to get attention even after a

buzzy first movie. And so I've seen, I've seen a lot of things that are that are meant for that, you know, professional or even mid career professional. Have you how do you do that kind of stuff, especially when you mentioned vendors, that's another huge opportunity, vendors for everything from you know, this industry needs literally everything from elephants, elephants, you know, trained elephants, to lumber to water bottles. How do you do that? Kind of stuff with intention and

make sure that your vendors are represent diversity. Yeah, and that's the purpose of the playbooks. So the policy you know, really articulates. You know, here's what we based on the you know that's available to us in terms of market availability and you know, roles on television and film sets

um either above the line or below the line. Here's what we think good looks like right here here the ways in which we think we should be intentional about not causing harm through harmful stereotypes and tropes and right, So we talk about that in the policy, what good looks like. But the playbook is meant to be a living, breathing resource, so that as you're trying to accomplish the very um specific aspects of the policy, you have a resource in the playbook that helps walk you through how

do I do that intentionally? How do I do that without creating harm? You know what vendors and partners are out there that I can tap into if I don't know how to do this particular thing. Yes, I agree, I should be hitting this number or I should be doing this thing on my on my show or my film, but I don't know where to get started. So the playbook is meant to codify some of those resources, um and help people with that. And it's one of the reasons, you know, people were surprised that we put it up

on the website, you know, with no restrictions. So we put it out there. You don't have to put your email address into downloaded or anything like that. And the reason why we did that was because we understand that we one, we don't have all the answers right too. You know, we're not saying, you know that we're the we don't ever get it wrong and we're the best at it. Like, no, we made it public because it's

a it's a mechanism to hold ourselves accountable. And then three, we're asking not only our creative partners, but our industry, you know, like hold hands and do this with us. And oh yes, by the way, if you find a better way of doing you know, any aspect of this policy or playbook, will you please share it back with us so that we can continually update it, you know,

and we all can benefit from the learning. And so you know, that's one way in which we're trying to to do this and just by making it open, you know, and not just open but hopefully a little bit open source open source. And just to be clear, the playbook is is a true database with like individual company listings. This company provides this service. This is a black owned company, this is a woman owned company. This is a and that is available Scott free, no email at, no emails

or anything at at. Can you give the u r L where that is available? Absolutely, Both the policy and the playbook can be found at d e I. So it's Diversity Equity Inclusion d e I dot Amazon Studios dot com. Great, And that is and hasn't grown. I would imagine that that database probably has grown significantly in

the years since you've put it up. It has and and what's really exciting too is UM we launched this as a u S policy for wholly owned UM productions that we were doing, but our co pros are now you know, taking advantage of it and and following it as well and trying to hit you know, the goals and the policy, which super excited about. Our international locations.

UM have started adapting and adapting it locally. So that's gonna be a big push for us next year to to localize the policy and playbook in different regions around the world. Um, and they you know, shared that like, hey, I took what you did and then this is what I learned, and so then I created this other thing to make it even more robust. Here added to the to the playbook if you want. And I'm like, oh

my god, this is amazing. And so we're not just learning from our industry pears, we're learning from from all of our colleagues around the world. Do you have any anecdotal sense from some of these individual companies that now have been listed on on this document, in this data base, if you heard any stories of of you know, what it's been like to have people have the phone ringing.

Now you know, there was there's a Latino woman who owns a transportation company, and um, you know, she had expressed to our production team that typically she had only been called to be a driver. But she was so happy to say that She's like, you guys continue hiring me to be head of transportation. Which is great because she owns her own business, she has her own fleet apart,

she has her own drivers. Right. And so now that we have said, you know, we want at least at least of our department heads to be women of color, like she's getting those calls now, which is so great because it's not Yeah, she can drive, but but she also provides jobs and opportunities for other people in her community. It's a ripple effect. Let me ask you, is it hasn't been hard at all? You know, production producers, showrunners can be It's a very intense job. There's you know,

it's a very specialized job. Have you had any resistance or any hurdles on the purely creative side in the hiring of writers, directors, producers, cinematographers that those that kind of in the kind of that purely creative field. Our creative partners have been, you know, great allies and co conspirators in this work. So that's that's that's a great thing. I haven't run into anyone who who says, I don't think this is right, we shouldn't be doing this, you know,

I don't want any parts of it. However, the devil is in the nuance and the details, right, So I have run into creators who had good intentions right of telling a story a certain way without fully understanding the harm that they could have potentially been doing. Without understanding the harm that they could potentially be causing based on the way they wrote the story or the particular character. And so you know, a creation is someone's baby, right,

so you never call someone's baby ugly. You do have to help them understand that. Listen, I understand your intention because we all measure ourselves by our attend but others measure us by our impact. And so if you're gonna tell this story, and you're gonna tell this particular character art, we have to make sure we get it right. So if you're gonna tell a trans story, then you should either have that lived experience or somebody in your writer's

room needs to have it. If you're gonna tell a specific story centering a woman of color, then there needs to be women of color in your producing team and then your writing team. Right. You need to make sure that story is coming across authentically in a way that centers the story you're trying to tell the character, uh, and not from a point of view that doesn't have that authenticity, And so you could be doing more harm

than good that way. So I appreciate the attention of wanting to center those communities, but you have to do it right so that they come out as fully nuanced characters and not caricatures, right, and so giving people that hard feedback sometimes hasn't been easy. Um. And you know, because no one wants to No one starts off with bad intentions and no and no one wants to do

harm or thinks that they're doing harm. Uh. And they definitely don't want to be a scene as someone who um is not inclusive, right, And so there's this fear that because they didn't get it right, they're gonna be perceived that way. And and and my team is here to support you. We don't want you to be seen that way either, which is why we're here to help you. Latasha, I can tell you you definitely know how to talk to writers, because you're absolutely right. Everybody every the words

that every writer wants to hear. The first words out of anybody's mouth after reading a script is great script. So I think, I think you've got it, but I can but I can absolutely see where that is. You know, that's where the you said, the nuances and the details, and that is where the hard work. And I'm just thinking, like it is so significant that accompany the size and scale of Amazon is investing in this at that granular level of transportation heads. It's really it's significant. Are there

any in the in the things that you do? Obviously the voice that that you can speak with corporately is immense, but is there any aspects of Amazon And it's incredible you know, data gathering and analyzing capability that helps you in this work. Sure, um. And I'll say this, um, the success of our ability to get this granular um comes from one Jennifer Saki has been intentional in word

and action from day one the president of Amazon Studios. Yeah. Yes, uh, and she she has been amazing in terms of not just what she says, but what she does, and that has been a pleasure to work for her. So I think leadership matters. And then the second thing is my colleagues. I work with a group of people who are who we report up to Jennifer, who are just stop full

incredible leaders. People like Tim Claussen, who is the head of worldwide production and an extremely busy the man, especially when you're trying to do productions around the world during COVID, who is one of who has been one of my professors from the beginning in my Howard Entertainment program, Like he teaches Howard students every semester on the fundamentals of production, like like, this is incredible, right, So it's not surprising that we can get down to that level of detail

when you have those kind of leaders and the data piece is so critical, and I love that. Um there's two things about Amazon that make my job better or or somewhat easier is that one, we we absolutely are data driven company. And then to um, we are customer obsessed. Right. So for me, in in creating this inclusion policy and playbook and and the work that my team does in general, we started from the perspective of how are we equitably

obsessing over customers? Right? So it's not about you know, whether or not you know we think one particular show is good or bad, but it's asking ourselves, are we equitably obsessing over all customers in a way where they see their lived experience portrayed in an authentic way and or they get a window into someone else's um lived experience right through our through our content. And so that

customer obsession helps us frame it around um it. The customer obsession helps us frame it in a language that we have all bought into because customer obsession is our number one leadership principle. So everyone understands that there's there's no debate. It's not a more moral issue. It's not a right or wrong thing issue. It's a well, if you come to work for Amazon, you've signed up to

be customer obsessed, and so that helps. And then the second problem with the data then is we use the data to help us understand are we being customer obsessed? Like you look at the numbers, like is it showing up? Are we putting out enough content that's appealing to historically marginalized communities? Who are we empowering to tell those stories of historically marginalized communities, because I think that's also very important,

um right? And then who are we getting to work on those stories, whether it's above the line or below the line, to make those stories come to life? And so the data, you know, we men, men live, women live, data doesn't and are you able to see you know, if you if you make gains in an area of you know, representation or a different kind of storytelling, can

you see does the data follow the content? Can you see an audience come to a show that that represents people that maybe weren't as circulating on the Amazon on the Prime platform as they were before. Yeah, we do have data that tells us when people come to the

service for a show. We also have data that tells us like if people finish the show right and so you know, and and those kind of things are super and helpful because what we're finding is when the content is very good and specific and authentic, it resonates far

beyond that community. Marvelous Mrs Maisel is a very good example of that very Jewish show that a whole lot of people love and bene who are not Jewish, so right, but everybody can kind of see their own family in her story or see their struggle to break out and follow their dreams in her story. And I think the more that we lean into that authenticity, the more you see it resonate with global audiences. And I do mean global because I think some of our best shows are

shows that that weren't even created in the US. Right, we have some great shows coming out of India like Made in Heaven and Padda Loock that are doing extremely well. September Mornings, which is a black trans woman's story, but it's actually not about her being a black trans woman. It's about she finds out she has a kid who's ten years old that she never knew existed, that she fathered before her transition, right, and so like, it's just a compelling story that people, you know, get hooked on

and bite watch. And so I think it's it's those kind of things that actually, you know, make you so excited about how how that content is resonating with people around the world. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more insights from Amazon's D E and I playbook after this break, and we're back with more from Amazon executive Latasha Gillespie. Where do you think the sort of biggest opportunities and biggest need to advance the industry's larger

d E and I goals? Where do you think where are the biggest sort of roadblocks for advancement and greater diversity? Do you think is is it in production? Is it in the executive side? Do you have a Do you have a sense after you know, spending a lot of the last four or five years really digging into to

this for Amazon, Yeah, I do. I think, Um, I probably think the two things that stick out to me most are definitely executives, which is one reason why the Howard Entertainment Program was so important to us because there's a lot of talent, you know, that has come out of Howard University, specifically, whether it's Chadwick Boseman, you know, Felicioper Shod, Debbie Allen's roj p Henson did he like, there's been a lot of talent that's come out of

that university. Um, but there's not always people in the

room when you come to pitch. There's not always people in the room who who have your lived experience or a different lived experience to help understand whether a particular story is going to be you know, a culture mover and Jinski always talks about, you know, being on the forefront of culture and how do you how do you spot and since that story that's gonna be noisy and breakthrough culture and just become a part of the site guys, right, And so we haven't had enough people in the room

who could who could link credibility to that authenticity. So that's why it was really important for us to make sure that we had a pipeline for folks coming into the executive seats. So that was one uh and then the second thing, in my opinion, it's looking at the number of people, um who have overall deals. I think when when you look at people who have those big overall deals, there's still um I think it's still excused towards the usual suspects, right, the folks with the most

experience and the most the most success. It's definitely it's a it's a market based thing. But but but there there's there's a there's an imbalance in that market there right now that remains and the danger in that is by default, then unless those people, and there's some who are really great at it, unless those people are actively making space and making room at the table for others who don't have that opportunity. Uh, if that's not happening.

And when that's not happening, we are limiting whose story we are centering. So when we only give those opportunities to the usual suspects, then we are running the risk of limiting you know, the story and the perspective and the characters we are centering in the content we put out, or we run the risk of getting it wrong because we're allowing someone else to to tell a story that's not theirs. You joined Amazon in from a very different

business segment. Had been a senior executive at Caterpillar in hr tell Us, coming from a business of heavy equipment to a business of software entertainment. What what were some of the what were some of the funny transitions for you? What surprised you about working with Hollywood? How long it takes to get a show made. I had no idea, Like you thought the actors made it all up. I mean like was like, you know, you could have show in development for you know, three years between the time

you buy it and the time it comes out. I had no idea took that long to get things made and so um, and then the number of things that get made that never actually make it to air. I have to tell you it used to be a lot worse. The R and D level used to be, it used the ratio of things made not to get it used to be a lot worse. But it is. Yeah, it is. That could be daunting for people because it's because people put their soul, heart and heart and soul into things

and and they just don't go. Yeah, it's so funny too, because you know, the one great thing about my career is that it's been anything but linear. Um. I have a finance background, you know, then got into HR with Caterpillar. It was a six single black belt, UM, you know, it was chief diversity Officer for Caterpillary. Came into Amazon Corporate first actually in two thousand seventeen. UH, for seventeen and eighteen. I spent those two years UM leading d

e I for Amazac Corporate. UM that you know from an HR perspective, and UM worked closely with Jeff Besos and his directs to create an overall strategy for for Amazon Corporate and how we were going to scale our d I efforts and UH in a way that accrued to something that moved the needle across the enterprise, which was just daunting but exciting. UM. And then coming down

at Amazon Studios, you know. So it's it's a it's basically uh, the story of my life, which has been, UH, someone has asked me to do something that I don't know how to do, and I'm like sure, So I you know, I'm very honest about what I'm good at and what I'm not, what I know and what I don't, and then you know, and then lean into the yes because I'm always giving advice to other people. If you're not living life on the edge, then you're taking up

too much space. So I like that spirit. Yeah, that's awesome. UM, let me take and take a step back out even from that and tell us, tell us what was your path going into the business world. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Chicago area, so I'm a Midwest girl, grew up outside Chicago. Um, you know, I went to school in Illinois and then you know, and I remember,

like I was first generation college. So my dad was like, you know, go to school and get a degree that you know you can get actually get a job, because I probably would not have chosen finance, but I had one of those fathers. So and uh and I and I did a test finance partly because I felt like he gave me a science and the discipline, if you will, um, in all of the business. I think I started off as a management major and I was like, oh, this is too general. I need I need a I need

a I needed a science. And so then I moved to finance, which was great. And you know, I think about that. I was I was reflecting on that this week about how everything in life is preparation for the next and I had no idea that the days and finance would help me be this comfortable with numbers and understanding how they drive television and film consumption. Wouldn't be better training for the TV of today for sure, right exactly?

And then or how all of my HR days UM would come back to play, whether it was starting the first diversity recruiting function for Caterpillar or living in Singapore where I've led HR for Africa, Middle East, Russia and

Asia Pacific. So like just you know that natural curiosity I have around learning, around being around UM and just uh just immersing myself into other cultures, right, and how that has you know benefited me in this role as I go around the world and work with our local originals teams UM, you know, to help you know, roll out what we feel is, you know, our inclusion policy and standards in those parts of the world, and how we help UM the writers that we're doing business with

in territories where we're starting with understand the importance of diversity whatever that looks like on a local level, UM incorporating that into their writer's room. So like all of these things have just like come to us. Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcast, then go to Variety to sign up for the Strictly Business newsletter, and definitely don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business