In this blog, we sit down with DaJuan L. and Ayesha B., two crew members who are on Vanguard’s Human Resources (HR) Inclusion and Engagement Team. They recently established a new friendship and working relationship in our virtual environment. This is their story:

How did you come to meet?

DaJuan: Ayesha and I met through the HR Inclusion and Engagement Team. In this group, we pitched the idea of scheduling coffee chats with someone in HR who you may not know well. The hope was for this concept to extend beyond our team, to all of HR.  Given that I am a newer member of the team, Ayesha and I thought it would be a great idea for us to connect to learn more about each other.

Ayesha: I have been leading HR’s Inclusion & Engagement team for just over a year. DaJuan was highly recommended as someone who is passionate about diversity, inclusion and belonging, so we invited him to join our initiative! Our team focuses on many elements of inclusion, including creating an environment for authenticity and fostering connections. Recently, we wanted to look for ways for people to connect in a virtual environment due to the pandemic. This led to the creation of the #coffeeconnect, #teatime or #nocaffeinerequired hashtags, which encouraged HR crew to connect with someone new. Given our shared passion for diversity and inclusion, I was excited to get to know DaJuan better.

What has made you a good pair? What have you learned from one another?

DaJuan: I would say our common passion for inclusion coupled with our different work and life experiences made us a great pair to connect. I greatly benefited from learning about Ayesha’s career prior to Vanguard, what brought her to Vanguard and what sets the company apart from other firms. I was also able to understand the role the team plays in reinforcing inclusion within HR. Ayesha was able to learn about my experiences at Vanguard as well given that I have grown up here at Vanguard. Candidly, thirty minutes was not enough time for us to chat. In my opinion, we were just scratching the surface on the range of topics that we could have expand upon. I look forward to connecting with Ayesha again in the near future.

Ayesha: Ditto to what DaJuan wrote. While I continued to learn additional Vanguard jargon from him, I also appreciated his genuine passion for emerging leaders at Vanguard and setting them up for success. I admire that.

What has the Inclusion and Engagement Team done to encourage new connections among crew?

DaJuan: It has socialized coffee chats through internal communications as well as creating other avenues for crew to engage with each other. Working remotely has impacted our natural methods of connecting. We believe by curating ways for people to connect, we can lessen the impact of not seeing each other in the workplace and foster networking.

Ayesha: We have encouraged #coffeeconnect chats for new people to meet one another HR events with HR Executive Team members on a quarterly basis for those new to the firm, a #HRfromhome campaign where people posted photos of their new offices during COVID, as well as fireside chats with topics including mental health, family responsibilities, and more.

More about the authors:

DaJuan is an Emerging Leader Development Program Manager in Charlotte, North Carolina and has been with Vanguard for five years. While in undergrad, he decided that he would pursue a career in Academia. With the goal of becoming a college professor, DaJuan wanted to experience Corporate America first to gain real world application and to identify what his domain of interest would be. After searching for opportunities, he came across VADP (Vanguard Accelerated Development Development, predecessor to ELDP) and applied. With little experience in investing, DaJuan was nervous about what to expect but he says once he arrived on the Charlotte campus, he was smitten by Vanguard’s culture. Although he envisioned staying with the company for a short period of time before pursuing a doctorate degree, he’s expressed he now has no desire to leave.

Ayesha is the Head of Workforce Planning in Malvern, Pennsylvania and has been with Vanguard for three years. After graduating from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, she spent roughly seventeen years in the hospitality industry working in Boston and New York City with a focus on finance and accounting, revenue analysis and sales, and marketing analytics. The latter half of Ayesha’s career in hospitality was spent working from her home office once she moved to Malvern after marrying her husband, who is a long-tenured Vanguard professional. Through her husband, she had heard positive things about the culture at Vanguard and specifically about the opportunities for rotations within various areas. Ayesha joined Vanguard as Finance Director, supporting the Office of the General Counsel, roughly three years ago, where she was able to bring her technical Financial Planning and Analysis skills into a new industry while learning the ropes of the Vanguard business. After almost 2 years, Ayesha accepted her current role on the Human Resources Strategic Workforce Planning team, where she enjoys a strong collaborative spirit.