Welcome back to Building Brand Gravity. In this episode, Anne interviews Dr. Osei Appiah, a renowned communication and race scholar who serves as a Professor in the School of Communication at The Ohio State University. Dr. Appiah explores critical questions on building meaningful diversity across the fields of marketing, communications and advertising - and supporting Black talent in particular. This includes: the importance of race in the field of communicationintentional approaches to cultivating and empowering Black professionalshistoric barriers to building and sustaining a strong talent pipelinethe roles of industry and academia in making change and building belonging Dr. Appiah shares his thoughts on the progress of diversity in the advertising and marcomms industry and provides insight into how we can work together to increase representation and empower Black talent by highlighting BASCA - the Black Advertising and Strategic Communications Association. Dr. Appiah Founded BASCA as a partnership between students, faculty, and professionals to develop and prepare Black students for careers in advertising, communications, marketing and more. More information about Dr. Appiah and today’s topics:LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osei-appiah-ph-d-3446472/ University Website: https://comm.osu.edu/people/appiah.2 Other Relevant Links: https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Persuasion-Perspectives-Research-Application/dp/1609277325 https://www.amazon.com/Biased-Uncovering-Hidden-Prejudice-Shapes-ebook/dp/B07DH89ZDY Make sure to subscribe to hear the follow-up episode in which Anne will interview three BASCA student leaders! To make sure you never miss an episode of Building Brand Gravity, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the website. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Building Brand Gravity in your favorite podcast player.