Director of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, Crate and Barrel

So my name's Melanie Munoz, and I'm the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Crate and Barrel. So that means a lot of things. It's the people side, it's the customer side, and it's our commitment to creating an inclusive organization that helps us meet our vision and mission of helping our customers inspire home with purpose. It's really a strategic role. So you're thinking of how are we operating and living to our values internally, and how does potentially your consumer or customer experience that when they walk into one of your establishments. And so, literally my day-to-day could be anywhere from, you know, what training and education are we providing to our employees so they can show up inclusively and our diverse employees can be successful within our organization. But it can also be partnering with one of our collaborators or influencers, like celebrity partnerships as well to see, okay, who do we need to partner with in order for our customers to see themselves in the designs and in our product? So one of my biggest responsibilities is we have a commitment in partnership to specifically, it's called the 15% pledge to work with black designers, vendors, and also to make sure that we're representative of our communities. And so part of my role is more in the HR function where we're really looking at the people and processes side of things and making sure, again, with representation, do we have representation in our organization? Can people thrive within our organization? And what kind of environment are we creating? And then the other side is really looking at how are we showing up in the marketplace? Is diversity and inclusion in equity? Do all people have access to a Crate and Barrel? So you do travel because, you know, any organization has like a home base or a headquarters, Covid has changed a lot. So we do travel to our different locations and to conferences and things like that to be able to like really be a face for the brand. But also, you know, we do pop-ups in the stores and distribution centers, because if we're not with our employees or associates and really making sure that we hear their voices and they know who we are as well, there's a disconnect. So there does require some travel, but it's mostly a nine to five job, unless you know there's some special opportunities or events and things like that.