President & CEO, The Jackie Robinson Foundation
www.jackierobinson.org

Sixty years ago this month, Jackie Robinson stepped up to the plate as the first African-American player in Major League Baseball - but that was just the beginning of his quest for equal opportunities for minorities. It continues today through people like Della Britton Baeza, president and CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Della leads the foundation as it gives four-year scholarships to minority young people who achieve academic distinction, show leadership potential and have financial need. Since the foundation was started in 1973 by Jackie’s wife, Rachel Robinson, it has provided nearly 1200 scholarships, and now also offers mentoring, leadership training and networking opportunities.

Here Della shares advice for how high-achieving women can scale even greater heights, and tells the story behind the record label she launched with her husband that helped to propel R&B singer Ashanti to super stardom.

Dream Job

“(Leading the Jackie Robinson Foundation) is the culmination of all that I’ve done throughout my life… my experience as a small business owner, as a corporate executive and attorney, and extensive work as a volunteer as member of non-profit boards, prepared me for what I have to tell you now is a dream job. Every single day I come to work and feel like I’m making a difference in young eager people’s lives, and contributing to this country, and even the world, moving toward an authentic, diverse workforce.”

Moving Toward Meritocracy

“I believe that the best workforce is one where there is a true meritocracy - people really are hired promoted based on abilities, and not on any irrelevant basis such as the color of one’s skin or one’s background or gender or handicap situation, and that’s what makes this job even more exciting. I know the time and effort we put in with young people is helping America be a more diverse workforce.”

Helping Kids to Know What They Don’t Know

“We have nearly 300 Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholars this year, and every year of the students’ (four-year) involvement with our program, we bring them to New York City for a four-day networking program. A lot of young people don’t understand… what does an investment banker do, what does a lawyer do. This is the kind of information that students don’t have access to at home or even at their college campuses unless they know how to find it. We see the impact on students, who say, ‘Now I know what career to pursue.’

“We do seminars on everything from dining etiquette to personal financial management.
Our impact includes teaching our young scholars the importance of giving back. We require every one of the Jackie Robinson Scholars to participate in community service. If you’re required to do it for four years, when you graduate, it’s part of your life.”

The Ashanti Story

“The Ashanti story is that my husband (Mario L. Baeza) is a musician… he’s a renaissance man, a lawyer and an investment banker. Ten years ago as a hobby really, he decided to put in a state-of-the-art 48-track music studio into our house. As he put it in, it was with the idea that he and (our three) kids would have a place to play music. One of my cousin’s friends brought Ashanti to a picnic at our house.

“We volunteered to let her use the studio. My husband got more involved with her creatively. She cut a demo in our studio and then she signed on with Def Jam records. We were sponsoring her and we represented her. That’s how it started. The company is AJM Records (www.ajmrecords.com)… it’s bringing new artists into the fold and putting them onto CDs.”

Greatest Influence

“The first person who influenced me to be all I could be professionally was my mother, who had a masters’ degree in child development and became the Deputy Secretary of Welfare for the state of Pennsylvania. Both of my parents were in social service and worked with disadvantaged people, so there was always this tension when I decided to go to law school, whether I would work in the corporate world where I would make a more lucrative salary or go into public service.

“My first salary (as an attorney with law firm Covington and Burling) was not much less than what my mother earned working 30 years at the state of Pennsylvania. She said, ‘If you get an offer like that, you take it. You can do as much good if you have a great salary and give back, as you can if you’re working in the trenches.’ It drove me to always say, ‘I have my nice salary, but what am I doing to give back?’

Greatest Challenge

“The constant challenge is endless fundraising. You wish you could spend more time architecting the program, which is what we give to students. But the reality is that much of my time gets spent raising the next $10,000.

“When you help an organization like the Jackie Robinson Foundation, you help the greater good of society. It’s the lack of education that is at the root of our social problems. The key is education. Then you don’t have the schisms where people feel compelled to lash out at the power structure.”

Favorite Quote from Jackie Robinson

“A life is not important except in the impact that it has on other lives.”

Favorite Book at the Moment

“I just finished reading Barack Obama’s book, ‘The Audacity of Hope,’ and it’s tremendously inspirational to me. Taking off my Jackie Robinson Foundation president’s hat for a minute, I am personally inspired by Senator Barack Obama and the kind of dialogue he’s bringing into the political arena.”

Words of Advice - Figure Out What You Enjoy

“I recently gave a speech to a bunch of women seeking to break the glass ceiling… and I shared some insights from ‘The Tao of Warren Buffett.’ His ex-daughter in-law wrote the book, trying to sum up the tenets of his success. One of them was… at some point in your life, you have to do what really makes you happy and stop thinking of your next job as building your resume.

“Love what you do on a daily basis. That way, you’ll wake up every morning and be eager to go. Mondays won’t be a cloud as much as another week of opportunity. Is the process of what you do something you enjoy? Success flows from there. You have to hone in on a daily basis on what makes you tick.”

Words of Advice - Work Hard

“How do you want to spend your career day? Once you figure that out, it’s all about hard work. It sounds like a cliché, but it is so important to remember that people who are successful… if you look behind the curtain, they are really putting in the hours and crossing their ‘T’s and dotting their ‘I’s. If you start cutting corners, it shows.”

Words of Advice - Protect Your Reputation

“It can take you a lifetime to build a good reputation, but it can take you ten minutes to destroy that reputation. It really is the cover-up and not the crime. We all make mistakes… it’s when you try to cover it up in a dishonest way that you get into trouble. You want so badly to be successful… sometimes you can lose sight of those basic values. In your quest, in your zeal, to be successful, don’t lose sight of how important integrity is.”