The story began back in 1992, when Rod Brown developed “Re-versity©,” a business model that combined cultural diversity and process re-engineering to create breakthrough innovation. The idea was that a diverse team would enrich the creative process and arrive at the best solution. Rod used the model successfully over the next 25 years, leading and working with teams, partners, customers and vendors as an executive at Fortune 500 companies.
Rod founded S/BES in 2012, and we’ve been delivering great business outcomes for our clients while reducing racial disparities and improving communities ever since. Our flagship offering is a workplace inclusion strategy led by nationally-known experts that takes participants from personal insights to organization-wide change.
Rod has over 30 years of executive experience creating strategies that blend process management and cultural diversity to drive breakthrough innovations and profits. Today, he is the founder and managing partner of S/BES (Societal & Business Enterprise Solutions), where he works with major organizations using a workplace engagement model that encompasses Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) and its intersection with the growing presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace in order to better equip employees to handle a continuously disruptive environment.
The S/BES approach is to create a dynamic, high-performing organization by focusing on the work itself versus an academic methodology. It’s been our experience and several studies have shown that the effects of an organizational system on the individual are greater than those of the individual on the system. So, changing a culture must be done through adjustments to the roles and responsibilities of a company’s employees, with deep levels of commitment from executive leadership.
S/BES’s workplace engagement model is designed to create an environment where all employees are prepared to deal with the volatility, uncertainty, and complexity of the current environment, while simultaneously thriving and participating in the wealth creation. In such an environment, employees can have transparent, candid discussions without fear of retaliation. It is an environment that is inclusive, especially to under-represented groups, and is humanely engaged with employees, customers, stakeholders and their communities.
S/BES clients range from global high-tech industrial firms to healthcare and government organizations.