Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hudda Ibrahim. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hudda , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
From an early age, my parents instilled in me certain fundamental qualities that have become integral to both my professional and personal life. We are Muslim, so our main holiday is called Eid Al- Fitr. As a child we lived for a while in Ethiopia after the Somali Civil War of 1991. On Eid Day, my father made my siblings and I deliver food to our neighbors, almost 15 houses to our right, 15 houses to our left. This experience served as my initial introduction to the values of generosity and hospitality, which I carry with me every single day, extending them to my community and teammates. Whether it is within our office or during our training sessions, I strive to provide the same level of generosity and hospitality to anyone who visits.
In Ethiopia, my mother played a significant role as a women’s activist. As the director of a women’s rights organization affiliated with the Ethiopian government, she dedicated herself to educating and conducting workshops for women who had experienced abuse, those in vulnerable situations, and even men who exhibited abusive behavior or were at risk of perpetuating such harm. Witnessing my mother’s tireless efforts, I developed a profound admiration for activism and the power of education. Her passion instilled in me a love of activism and a deep appreciation for the transformative potential of advocating for important causes and spreading knowledge.
In a world where the news often portrays Islam in a negative light, my mother played a crucial role in teaching me how to counter those misconceptions and educate others from an early age. She helped me develop the ability to articulate myself effectively and encouraged me to seek knowledge. Within Islam, there is a strong emphasis on treating both family and community with the utmost compassion and care. Through my mother’s guidance, I became aware of the myths and misunderstandings that surround various topics we often take for granted. It gave me a wariness every time I heard something negative about another group of people. This type of self-awareness instilled in me a sense of caution whenever I encountered negative narratives about different groups of people. I channeled my curiosity for learning and dispelling myths into my work as an adult when I started my own Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion firm in America. This allowed me to address biases across various subjects and create positive change in society.
As a DEI consultant today, I try to build a bridge, step-by-step, to help dispel cultural and racial biases through logic, storytelling, an offer of friendship, and in my everyday interactions with the public. That builds bridges faster than anything. I have held community gatherings called “Dine and Dialogue” they were featured in CNN’s Great Big Story. People from both sides of the political and racial aisle have been present for “Dine and Dialogue,” and they walked out as friends. It’s a very rewarding job.
Hudda , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
After completing my Master’s Degree in Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation at the University of Notre Dame, I moved back to Central Minnesota to become a full time Social Justice instructor at my local community college. My course was required of everyone entering any program at a state university. In my classroom, I noticed many students who had no idea what they were doing in my class, or where they were going career-wise. I started talking to them after class and found that most students, especially the students of color, and foreign-born and first-generation immigrants and refugees, faced so many barriers. Theirs were the same barriers I had been up against. My hope had been that someone would have started guiding these kids so they wouldn’t go through what I did trying to integrate in American society. But there was no one really doing that job at the time. So, I started a mentorship program on campus where I connected students with resources, mentored them, and trained them on American work customs, soft skills, identifying career strengths, and how to navigate institutional barriers.
But after that, they faced the non-college environment, and a kind of xenophobia from employers who have never encountered jobseekers who looked like them. You have to understand that up until about 15 to 20 years ago, Central Minnesota was mostly a homogenous place. I started volunteering and joining boards, and I saw that disconnect between people of color and employers/leadership on the other side (sitting in board rooms). It was a gap I had to bridge. I brought these issues up every chance I could get. I met with leaders who started asking me, “Well how can I do better?” The youth were asking me, “How do I adapt and meet employers’ expectations? I didn’t learn any of this growing up.”
I knew I had to make an innovative impact. The Initiative Foundation saw what I was doing and encouraged me to apply for an Initiator’s Fellowship. I applied and was accepted. I received mentoring and startup funding to begin Filsan Talent Partners. My mentor from Granite Partners became our first investor and since then it has become a full-time job. We are incredibly grateful to them for believing in us and our mission.
Today, Filsan Talent Partners is a women owned, BIPOC led diversity, equity, and inclusion firm committed to transforming organizational cultures, no matter where they are on their diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging journey. Our focus is on delivering quality diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings, as well as facilitating the recruitment of diverse candidates, thus increasing the talent pool for organizations throughout Greater Minnesota.
Our team creates workshop and training materials for businesses and community organizations looking to invest in topics such as diversity and inclusion strategies, conflict resolution, recruitment and retention of diverse talent, performance management, leadership development, and the prevention of workplace harassment. Our trainings include the following topics:
1. Countering Unconscious Bias for the Workplace
2. Leading Across Cultures
3. Fair and Effective Recruiting and Interviewing
4. Understanding Somali Culture in the Workplace
5. Navigating Stigma: Somali Perceptions of Mental Health and Illness
6. Cultural and Linguistic Competency for Educators
7. Intercultural Conflict Management
8. Fostering an Inclusive Climate
9. Improving Engagement with a Diverse Workforce
Our Tagline is “Cultivating Equity Across Industries.”
Developing an inclusive culture is essential to achieving a competitive advantage. Our organizational culture consulting approach helps leaders understand how and why to cultivate an inclusive workplace culture. We start by assessing the current organizational culture and then develop a set of recommendations to embed inclusion into the workplace, permanently. After implementation, Filsan Talent Partners works alongside organizations for continuous refinement and monitoring.
Filsan Talent Partners also recruits qualified candidates who have the knowledge, skills, experience and ability, and are the best fit for a company’s working needs. We help everyone at no cost and take a special interest in underemployed young adults.
Filsan Talent Partners works individually with job seekers to hone their job seeking skills, and successfully prepare them to compete in today’s job market. We work with new graduates, those looking for the next step in their career, those looking for a career change, those who have been out of the workforce for an extended time, and those new to the country. We offer:
· Resume Building
· Coaching
· An Introduction to the Interview Process Through Mock Interviews
· Understanding American Work Customs
· Developing Soft Skills
· Career Guidance
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
Filsan Talent Partners was a kind of side hustle when I was a teacher, but unexpected and devastating events caused us to scale up fast. After the murder of George Floyd in my own home state where we work and live, schools, governments, everyone wanted to know how to stop biases from reaching that point we all watched together on global media. At this time in history, educating the public was emotionally taxing and many times depressing work. Biases became so salient that we knew we had to continue on this mission to one day eliminate racial, cultural, and all other biases from our communities.
In late 2021, we were approached by the Central Minnesota Community Foundation to lead and facilitate a racial equity initiative by engaging the movers and shakers of our community to become part of five key equity action groups. These action groups are tackling Housing, Health and Wellness, Education, Community Engagement, and Economy/Employment issues. Right now, we are helping them lead some amazing pilot projects in those areas to increase equity across Central Minnesota. We have a lot of brilliant and well-intentioned people here in this area, so we are leading the effort to infuse the DEIB approach and innovation into our pilot projects. We have already done such projects as a Diversity Housing Fair where language assistance was available, as well as introducing diverse Central Minnesotans to some new legislation that has been passed in our state that provides them with an alternative to interest-based down payment assistance (this is needed for our large refugee Muslim population with large families).
We are also currently taking the standard health fair model and adapting it to bring it directly to the neighborhoods in need, turning it into a cultural health festival instead. We are bringing singers and songwriters who reflect the communities of color to produce and perform new songs about health, giving new messages about health topics such as preventative health services which is often less known or avoided by people of color. Our health festival will have conversations led by the communities of color about what health means to them. This helps our health providers better connect. It’s not about the health providers coming in and telling people what they are doing wrong, it’s about coming to learn and having health providers adapt their approaches to better engage with the communities of color. We’ll have health booths run by those who come from the community. I think that is going to be very impactful. And of course, the health festival is an attempt to infuse family and fun into the topic of health!
All of these amazing projects have caused me to scale back my teaching job. It’s hard work to confront negative biases in people as a part of your job, but it’s so rewarding when something changes, be it a policy, a process, the implementation of a new innovative program, or even just an attitude that helps others feel more welcomed in their community or workplace.
We have work to do every day and we aren’t stopping any time soon!
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I think the first thing to do to manage a team well is to treat them like family. As I said, my father helped me understand that EVERYONE in your town is YOUR community, your community is a kind of extended family, and thus, your team is your community AND family. So, with my father’s example really ingrained in me, I treat my team like family. This isn’t like the lip service that some companies pay to their employees by offering detached, third party run employee wellness programs and holding employee family events, no. My team is my family now and they come from all walks of life and backgrounds. I bring them food when they are sick or having a hard time. Occasionally, we spend time with them and their families on the weekend or take days off where the team can relax together or apart. And it’s also about striking a balance with that. They say working with family is never a good idea, however me and my team have a very healthy dynamic. We work through problems and don’t take anything too personally. When we make mistakes, no one is singled out. It’s something that could have happened to any of us. So, having a good relationship both professionally and personally and balancing that dynamic is key. That’s what maintains high morale. I let them know we are all in this together, we are all in the same boat. We call on each other as if we were family, even me as the CEO.
Having a collaborative, open workspace where anyone can just kindly interrupt and ask a question (or even abruptly ask a question) is key for high morale. No one sits at their desk and wonders if they are doing something wrong, no, that is not tolerated at Filsan Talent Partners. They know they can come to me directly at ANY point and get clarification and I won’t ever be thinking “didn’t I tell you that before?” I understand my team has a lot on their plate. Things happen, so ask, ask, and ask again. It produces confidence and builds a troubleshooting mindset that they begin to internalize.
Also, to boost morale, give your team creative projects they may have voiced wanting to do in the past. Not only does it invigorate and excite them, it also builds their skills. They may have to take some time to figure it out, but you have just invested in the professional development of your team. Team loyalty means trusting them and thinking about them personally in a long-term sense. Too many times today, jobs are a revolving door. There’s a 100% way to stop that, and it comes from REAL workplace cultural development.
Boosting morale can also be done by taking an outdoor walk mid-day with your team. Give them some time to talk about their frustrations or the good things happening in their life. Give them attention when they have something funny to share. Sit down in an empty office and have a chat and a coffee. That makes a difference. Don’t sit in your fancy office away from your team if you’re the CEO. I pull my chair up to my team member’s desks everyday and work collaboratively with them. Not to put them under pressure or on the spot, but to put us on the same level. They get a chance to learn from you as well, and you learn from them. Sometimes it results in some amazing learning experiences you would have never had otherwise, even as the CEO.
With these approaches, my team has never failed me in producing results.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.filsantalentpartners.com
- Instagram: huddaibrahim
- Facebook: huddaibrahim
- Other: My author website: huddaibrahim.com