When We Are Seen: How to Come into Your Power—and Empower Others Along the Way

Young debuts with a stirring account of her 21-year career in human resources at Apple, during which she became the company’s first Black female senior executive. She recounts the loneliness she felt in the C-suite surrounded by “people who could not fathom my childhood rooted in a Jim Crow South,” and laments the foot-dragging she faced from white colleagues when she headed the company’s DEI program. Opining on how workplaces can better support employees, Young emphasizes the importance of flexibility and recalls how a team unfairly denied the request of their coworker, who was a single mom, to postpone a morning meeting so she would have time to drop off her children at school. Business leaders must take an active role in addressing inequities, Young contends, lauding Steve Jobs for spontaneously creating a position at Apple for Spelman College’s engineering dean to recruit Black engineers for the company after the dean, on a tour of the corporate campus, struck up a conversation with the CEO. Unlike many other DEI volumes, this book defends inclusivity as an end in itself, rather than a means to higher retention or profits. While Young’s harshest critiques of Apple sometimes shy away from specifics, what comes through is her resilience. This stands out in the crowded field of business memoirs. (May)