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While estimates of the percentage of neurodivergent people globally typically range from 1520%, new survey results from neurodiversity advocacy and support nonprofit Understood suggest that the true percentage of neurodivergent adults may be higher. For one, more people are being diagnosed with ADHD and autism and other conditions that fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence. But more people may also be self-identifying as neurodivergentespecially in younger generations. Deloittes 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey showed that 53% of Gen Z self-identify as neurodivergent. The people who identify or have symptoms of [neurodivergence], will far exceed the most conservative estimate of those who have been actually diagnosed, says Nathan Friedman, copresident and chief marketing officer of Understood. He suggests that barriers such as high psychiatry costs and the misdiagnosis of neurodivergent women might prevent individuals from pursuing (or acquiring) a formal diagnosis. In April, Understood conducted a weighted survey of over 2000 U.S. adults, 659 of whom identify as neurodivergent. Thirty-one percent of respondents had at least wondered if they were neurodivergent although only 11% had received an official diagnosis. Stigma around requesting accommodations In a recent ResumeGenius poll of 1000 hiring managers, 86% claim that disclosing neurodivergence in an application would have either a positive or neutral effect on their hiring decision. But Understoods research suggests that neurodivergent workers have real concerns. In the survey, 64% of employed U.S. adults agree that people speak about their neurodivergence at work more openly now, but 70% agree theres a stigma around asking for workplace accommodations. Thats a 10% increase from their results last year. Among those workers who have requested accommodations, only 56% received ones that actually improved their work experience. One in four got accommodations that werent helpful, one in five were outright denied, and nearly one in five later regretted asking. Asking for accommodations doesn’t necessarily mean you’re unable to perform or you’re unable to achieve the results of what’s expected, says Friedman. The accommodations that workers typically ask for are simple to implement, he says. Accommodations could be anything from a flexible work environment to changing desks . . . [These] are pretty simple things that can help somebody improve how they work, the output of their work, and their feeling about how they work. Despite this, 15% of respondents said they had lost a job, were demoted, or lost a job opportunity after asking for accommodations. Part of this increase in perceived stigma may be connected with the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI in the workplace. In fact, the survey results show that 64% of U.S. adults believe DEI program rollbacks will make it more difficult for people to access workplace accommodations. Difference right now is not seen as a good thingregardless of where you’re at, says Friedman. What can be done Reducing stigma and improving the efficacy of workplace accommodations starts with proper education about neurodivergence in the workplace. We hear so many stories about individuals who don’t have the right accommodations and are let go because they don’t have what’s needed to do their job, says Friedman. So providing the education, providing the pathway to get an accommodation, and delivering the accommodations are all required. This is especially crucial as Gen Z now outnumbers boomers in the workplace. Over 50% of Gen Z believes they are neurodivergent, says Friedman. If you’re a company of 10,000 people, that’s upwards of 5,000 people that you could get a better work product from. . . . So [offering accommodations] is a win for everyone.
Category:
E-Commerce
Youve made it past the recruiter and the first round of interviews. Now youre meeting with the hiring manager. They’ll likely ask you a series of behavioral questions to evaluate whether youre a good cultural fit for the team. They’ll also assess whether they believe you are up to the managerial and leadership challenges facing the role. Preparing for behavioral interviews can be nerve-wracking. The stakes are high, and its easy to feel overwhelmed by all the possible scenarios they could throw at you. I’ve spent over a dozen plus years of preparing folks for interviews and talking to people on the hiring side. As a result, Ive developed an approach to behavioral questions that will help you shine in the behavioral interview. Its all about ensuring that you start strong. The STAR framework and why it doesnt quite work Many people use the STAR framework to structure interview responses. This method helps candidates describe their experiences to illustrate desired competencies. Start with S the Situation they faced, T their Task, A what Action they took, and R the Result they achieved. Now, this framework does help you organize your thoughts and distill a story to illustrate your experience and competencies. Unfortunately, this approach fails rhetorically because it lacks a strong start. When you lead with situations or context before getting to the task, the interviewer has to wait too long for the payoff. You risk losing the interviewer before you get to the action and results. An interview is like any presentation, you have somewhere around 30 seconds to hook your audience. Starting strong means a clear, concise statement of value that captures what kind of leader or manager you are. It also provides the interviewer a blueprint of what to listen for in your response. How behavioral interviews work Behavioral interviews are based on the premise that past experience is a predictor of future performance. The questions are generally less about getting the right answer. It’s more about helping the interviewer understand your approach, how you think, how you relate to others, and your values. As one hiring manager told me, When a candidate explains how he or she thinks about solving a problem, I get a lot more insight into what it would be like to have them on my team than I do from them reciting the solution. In my view, the STAR formula focuses too much on the story and not enough on the meaning. To borrow language from Simon Sineks Golden Circle model for organizations, interview candidates who strictly adhere to the STAR approach focus too much on the what and not enough on the how or the why. When you start your answer by naming the principles or values that guided your action, you get to the heart of the matter quickly. You also cue the interviewer on what to listen for as the story unfolds. How to prepare for behavioral interviews The STAR method is a good start to help you distill the narratives that illustrate your experience and competence. But to ensure that you have a strong start for each STAR story. Reflect on the foundational values that guided your actions. That might be empathy, accountability, collaboration, customer focus, data-driven decision-making, fairness, relationships, trust, or transparency. Articulating these principles will help establish what kind of leader, manager, or contributor you are. Examples of strong answers Once you’ve identified a set of 58 principles or values, you can use them to frame almost any answer. For example: Behavioral question #1 Tell me about a time when you had to influence without authority. Influencing without authority was a key part of my role at ABC Company. There were three things I always tried to keep in mind: empathy for my cross-functional stakeholders, transparent communication, and relentless customer focus. On xyz project, as the product manager (situation) I needed to influence my engineering counterpart to commit to an aggressive timeline (task). I knew that her team was under a lot of pressure. I had a series of 1:1 conversations with her about the requirements. I made sure to listen with empathy so that I understood all her constraints (action). I also shared the potential customer impact of the feature. It turned out that her team had been expressing frustration about not feeling valued. So it was key that she could motivate her team to work on a more visible feature (action). We found some compromises and were able to land on a timeline that would be a stretch for her team but that she was excited about (result). Here are some other examples of strong starts: Behavioral question #2 What was a time when you failed? First, let me start by saying that in order for a goal to be meaningful, it needs to be beyond what youve done before, and so there is always a risk of falling short. The key is to communicate to stakeholders as soon as I know we are going to miss, take ownership of the failure, and use it as an opportunity for learning. An example of this is when I led a team in product marketing at xyz . . . Behavioral question #3 How have you managed conflict within your organization? Well, conflict is inevitable, and in my view, if it is handled with empathy for both participants while maintaining accountability for results, it can be an opportunity to learn more about each other and build trust and improve collaboration. The conflict I want to talk about was between someone who reported to me and someone on another team and was related to overlapping roles and responsibilities . . . The importance of principles Once you have a strong list of principles, you can plug them into almost any behavioral question and nail the response. And if your interview is on video, you can write each of your values on a post and attach them to your monitor. This will act as a reminder to cue you during the interview. Then you can kick off any response with an articulation of your values and priorities. This will ensure that your interviewer gets a true sense not just of what youve done, but of how you approach problem-solving and what you stand for.
Category:
E-Commerce
In order to power Metas massive AI data center being built in northeastern Louisiana, the local utility company has proposed building three new natural gas power plants. Its a move that flies in the face of Metas climate commitments, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, wrote in a letter sent to Meta on Wednesday and shared exclusively with Fast Company. The Senate committee is launching an inquiry into Facebook and Instagram’s parent company over this fossil fuel expansion, seeking information about how the move squares with Metas claims that it is currently net zero across its global operations, and its aim to reach net zero emissions across its value chain by 2030. “Metas decision to power its data centers with fossil fuels while claiming net zero status is deeply troubling. This isnt leadershipits greenwashing. Families are already paying the price for climate inaction through higher insurance costs,” Whitehouse said in a statement to Fast Company. “Metas backslide from its own climate pledges risks triggering broader economic harm at a time when we urgently need corporate responsibility. Metas mega AI data center Metas forthcoming data center will be the companys largest, a $10 billion, four million square foot facility in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Meta expects construction to be complete in 2030, and has said it will play a vital role in accelerating our AI progress. Meta is working on the project with the local utility provider, New Orleans-based Entergywhich has requested expedited state approval to build three combustion-turbine gas plants in order to generate 2,300 megawatts of electricity. In a statement to Fast Company, Entergy said natural gas is the lowest reasonable cost option available that can support the 24/7 electrical demands of a large data center like Meta, and that neither solar or wind would provide enough reliable, around-the-clock energy. The site is also near Haynesville Shale, one of the most abundant natural gas shale plays in the United States. The Louisiana Public Service Commission is still reviewing Entergys proposal for the new gas plants. Metas data center climate promises As part of Metas climate commitments, the company has invested in both carbon removal and clean energy projects. It says it will continue this work amid the Louisiana data center project and its need for three new natural gas plants. Entergys new natural gas generators are expected to come online between 2028 and 2029. Entergy says future upgrades to those generators could incorporate carbon capture. Meta says it’s exploring carbon capture technology at an Entergy power plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and that its working with Entergy to bring at least 1,500 megawatts of new renewables to the grid. In 2024, Meta announced a solar farm project in Louisiana with electricity company RWE that will provide 374 megawatts of power. The company says that since 2020, it has offset its global electricity use by buying renewable energy portfolios to “match” its own electricity consumption, and that it will do the same with the new Louisiana data center. The EPW Committees concerns The Environment and Public Works (EPW) committees inquiry says these moves are vague and offer little reassurance about the data centers climate impact. Meta has not shown that the planned generation from its solar plant will match its data center electricity load and displace equivalent fossil fuel generation. Neither Entergy nor Meta have disclosed details about the carbon capture project or the amount of Metas financial contribution, raising doubt as to whether Meta is meaningfully offsetting its emissions, Whitehouses letter reads. And Metas construction of new gas plants risks locking in future fossil fuel assets; a responsible corporate actor would show how these plants will be soon phased out or equipped with carbon capture. These gaps, he adds, raise concerns that Metas commitment to achieving net zero emissions is not genuine. Through its inquiry, the EPW is requesting various documents from Meta, including analyses and calculations about the data centers expected energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; Metas intended carbon capture funding (and whether it’s contributing to a new carbon capture project or an existing one); details on how much carbon the company will remove from the atmosphere; and if Meta will install carbon capture at these new gas-fired plants. Its also seeking data to support Entergys assertion that natural gas is the only power option, and justifications for why renewables with battery storage weren’t a feasible alternative. The inquiry also asks for analysis to show whether all of Metas actionsthe new gas plants, solar capacity, and carbon capturealign with the companys net zero goals. Whitehouse has requested responses by May 28, and though Meta is not legally required to reply, the inquiry puts added public pressure on the data center projectwhich has already received scrutiny from environmental and consumer protection advocates. The broad impact of AI data centers Though coal is considered the dirtiest fossil fuel, natural gas comes with its own environmental harms. Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide, and, when it leaks out of pipes before it’s burned, it emits methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas. In 2022, burning natural gas for energy accounted for 35% of the countrys total energy-related CO2 emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Scientists and environmental experts have urged the U.S. to reduce its reliance on natural gas, even as demand for it has grown in recent years. The increasing use of AI, which will require new energy sources, is only adding to that demand. The surge in AI also poses a risk to the energy grid, and could raise Americans’ energy bills. Entergys planned fossil fuel expansion for Meta’s Louisiana data center could put local utility customers at risk of absorbing hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, of additional costs, one energy consultant told Business Insider. AI requires massive amounts of energy to operate, and if those energy demands outstrip what the grid can provide, residents will likely see both higher energy costs and more risks of outages. Utility customers across the country have already seen these impacts, as well as increased demands on the grid. In Oregon, residential rates have increased 50% in the past five years in part because the state is the fifth largest market for data centers in the nation. Some say the lack of renewable energy exacerbates this issue. Entergy Louisiana has almost no renewable power in its system, per a recent Floodlight article; at the same time, financial consulting firms have projected a 90% increase on electricity prices for Entergy customers between 2018 and 2030. The Trump administration has also hampered renewable energy by slashing funding and shutting down projects under development, even though experts say wind and solar are the cheapest and fastest sources of new energy to deploy. (Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugurationpart of a wave of Big Tech companies appealing to the administrationand Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted an inauguration party for the president.) Senator Whitehouse recently introduced legislation, called the Clean Cloud Act, that would set emissions performance standards for data centers, and also use their revenue to help consumers save on utility bills.
Category:
E-Commerce
Back in the 1930s, Robert W. Woodruff, president of the Coca-Cola Co., would carry a red swatch in his wallet. Of course, it wasnt just any red. It was Coca-Cola red. And so anywhere he went and encountered his brandpainted on a wall, wrapping a refrigeratorhe would pull out the little swatch to check that it matched.Woodruff understood the importance of Coca-Colas brand equity as it expanded globallya challenge that has only grown since, now that Coca-Cola sells 2.2 billion servings a day across 200 countries, 150 languages, and 30 million points of sale.But where Woodruff used a swatch, Coca-Colas design team has spent the past four years dreaming up a modern operational upgrade to its 400 pages of brand guidelines. Teaming with Adobe, it developed Project Fizzion. Trained specifically on Coca-Colas design logic, its a brand-managing AI that lives inside Adobe platforms like Photoshop and Illustrator, generates designs, and, most of all, helps keep designers across the globe brand-compliant as they dream up the next big campaign.In a design world thats equally dependent upon and terrified of generative AI tools, Coca-Cola is clear that Fizzion is not about cost cutting via AI. As its integrating Fizzion globally, its doing so with no reduction in spending on brand campaigns. Instead, the company believes its charting a path forward thats sustainable for creatives to drive better work and eliminate headaches under deadline.Fizzion was never a design automation tool, says Rapha Abreu, global VP of design at Coca-Cola. Its a creative copilot that is powered by AI but guided by designers.Dreaming up a new AIWhen Abreu joined Coca-Cola in 2021, his design teamwho spent countless hours in meetings explaining to external agencies that their seemingly great ideas broke brand guidelinesbecame almost philosophical in imagining another way forward. Given that any Coca-Cola campaign can include up to 5,000 separate assets, it had become nearly impossible to manage.We had this kind of crazy idea, Abreu recalls. What if the Coca-Cola logo could learn what to do and what not to do? They imagined software built so a designer literally couldnt place the logo in the wrong context. And if that could work for the logo, maybe the same thing could be true for colors, typography, and imagery associated with Coca-Cola campaigns. It was an enticing thought that was ahead of its time, but only a little. Within two years, ChatGPT and other GenAI tools would drop upon the world to automate all sorts of tasks that never before seemed possible. [Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]Companies including Adobe and Canva quickly whipped up GenAI tools that could suck in brand guidelines via PDF, then apply them to design templates. Sometimes they worked. And sometimes they didnt. These sorts of guidelines can have trouble scaling to new, complex projects, and of course they do. Guidelines are just words trying to articulate visual relationships that are sometimes as instinctual as they are codified. Coca-Colas idea, led largely by its global head of AI design, Dom Heinrich, was to start with the images themselves, and to train a machine on Coca-Colas visual sensibility rather than a written rule set. Given that Coca-Cola and its partners were already working inside Adobe products, partnering with the company on building out such an AI system made a lot of sense.It happens inside the tools that creatives already use, says Abreu. For us, that was the most important thing.Together, the Adobe and Coca-Cola teams developed a different approach to training AI and deploying it at scale, which they call Project Fizzion (what seems like a most certain nod to Coca-Colas carbonated roots).[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]How does Fizzion learn?Many AIs are already trained on images, but Fizzion takes a slightly different approach. Its trained more on visual design systems, stuffed full of actual Coca-Cola assets. This means Fizzion isnt analyzing a century of soda campaigns in order to hallucinate a polar bear dressed as Santa Claus sharing a Coke. Its specifically not generating imagery like Adobes own Firefly or DALL-E, but it will create a new variation on an existing design, mixing and matching Coca-Cola assets to do so.[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]Fizzion lives like Microsoft Copilot right inside Adobe software, considering the interdependencies of things on the screen.[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]When youre designing a visual identity system, the model should beable to learn, not just from the images but from the relationships between all the components, how the text maps to the images other elements that need to be part of it, says Ash King, senior director of Firefly enterprise solutions at Adobe. That allows [the designer] to test various aspect ratios, free-form.Fizzion can see the canvas a designer is working on in real time, complete with the positioning of logos, imagery, and typefaces. The AI learns from Coca-Colas own designers only when a project is finalized. Once a designer has a product they likeand knows works with brand standardsthey save it as what they call a Style ID that adds to the AIs knowledge. Thats basically the visual logic of one Cola-Cola campaign. At this time Fizzion also collects all necessary brand assets for that campaign so that it can incorporate them perfectly whenever necessary. (In other words, Fizzion is pulling the Coca-Cola logo fresh every time, rather than dreaming up what its supposed to look like from old references.)[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]This is how Fizzion is trained to learn new styles. (It also incorporates background from Coca-Colas 400-page brand guidelines, via Adobe Firefly.) From there, Fizzion sits atop a global production pipeline that allows partners to tweak the visual formula without breaking it.[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]How teams across Coca-Cola use FizzionBuilding a marketing campaign in Fizzion can start with a prompt to generatesomething like Coca-Cola polar bears on the oceanor with a blank canvas as Fizzion watches along.At the very top of the stack, the Coca-Cola design team has full access to build or alter anything across the brand that it wants. Partner agencies that Coke hires to make ads have more limitations. They can generate a new aspect ratio for a campaign on demand, and the AI will piece it all together. But if they want to stretch the logoreal badFizzion wont let them. However, they can send that change as a request to Coca-Cola proper through the platform to get approval (saving a meeting). [Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]As design teams go down the chain from America to local markets, more and more of the design process becomes about localization. These teams have the least amount of access to tweak a campaigncertain assets and layers may be lockedthough they can still make requests up the chain. This might sound controlling (and of course to an extent Coca-Cola is very much controlling its brand). But the design team argues that having these brand guidelines integrated into design tools is ultimately more freeing for design partners.[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]One thing that we speak a lot internally about this global system is that we need to help designers and creatives downstream do the right thing, right. So it cannot be a burden for them to try to be compliant with the brand, Abreu says. We need to make this as easy as possible.However, with kerning off the table, Coca-Cola argues that it leaves time for creatives to focus on everything else about a campaign: storytelling, having ideas, making sure cultural nuance is applied, and [focusing on] emotional resonance, Abreu says. [Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]Indeed, despite all of the checks and balances in the system, Coca-Colas designers are hoping that their creative partners continue to push back. In fact, they are depending on it, as thats the only way they believe a brand can grow and evolve. If everybody builds on the same LLM, it just follows the same kind of way of interacting with an AI. We will just get a lot of the same, says Heinrich. We believe that designers need to be more in charge. . . . [They need to] be more creative in order to push the AI to the next level. The better you are at your job and the better you push, the better the outputs are and the more uniqueness comes from them.[Image: Adobe/Coca-Cola]For now, Coca-Cola is all-in with Fizzion. Since March of this year, every partner agency thats building a campaign is required to create it with a Fizzion Style ID. And the Coca-Cola team believes Fizzion is so efficient at handling design standards that its 400-page PDF guidelines will fall out of use. As for Adobe, its built a powerful design tool that, no doubt, many companies using its platform would benefit from. However, its also been designed to meet the gargantuan needs of Coca-Cola, meaning its probably too big and multitiered for many teams to adopt efficiently.Few companies are thinking on the scale as Coke is right now. So we need to take a future-forward look at this and figure out how its best applied, says King. We like to start with the use cases. We like to have something very concrete that a customer wants to do and then build backwards into what were [shipping].
Category:
E-Commerce
For years, global stars have traveled to West Africa as ambassadors of humanitarian and anti-corruption efforts: Rihanna in Senegal urging world leaders to donate aid, Bono in Ghana championing transparency as the best vaccine against corruption. All the while, Vincent Bolloré, the billionaire power broker who wields significant influence over the parent company behind their music labels, was busy building an industrial empire in those same countries. That empire is now at the center of corruption trials, sexual abuse allegations, and a sweeping criminal complaint filed by West African nonprofits. Vincent Bolloré stole money from our communities and used it to build an empire, Jean-Jacques Lumumba, the head of the anti-corruption watchdog group Restitution for Africa, alleges in a statement to Fast Company. For some UMG musicians, the accusations against Bolloré present a jarring contradiction: Artists are using their platforms to fight injustice, while a powerful figure profiting from their music built his fortune through actions that critics say undermined democracy. The Bolloré familys industrial empire traces back over two centuries to its origins in cigarette and Bible paper manufacturing. Over time, its global success allowed the family to pivot into West African industries like rubber, palm oil, and port operations. More recently, the family gained what French courts described in April as effective control of the media conglomerate Vivendi. Until 2021, Vivendi owned all of Universal Music Group (UMG), the worlds leading music company, and Bollorés fortunes were widely seen as tied to it. In 2021, Vivendi spun off UMG as a publicly traded company, unlocking $53 billion of value on its first day of trading, while allowing the Bolloré family to retain their position as UMGs largest shareholders. Worldwide, UMG manages five million titles across some of the industrys most iconic labels: Interscope, Capitol, Def Jam, Island, Republic, Virgin. Technically the Bollorés control just 28% of UMG10% directly and another 18% through Vivendi. But that gives the Bollorés outsized sway. (Kanye West once claimed he was going to bypass label execs with contract complaints and take his grievances straight to the top: Dont need the Arnaud meeting anymore, he tweeted in 2020, referring to Vivendis CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine. I will be meeting with Vincent Bolloré.) This complex web of corporate control casts a long shadow, even as UMG artists champion causes in regions where Bollorés other ventures have come under fire. In 2022, Usher and SZA, whose songs include UMG distribution deals, went to Ghana to headline the Global Citizen Festival benefiting West Africa. That same year, fellow UMG client The Weeknd also launched a UN humanitarian fund benefiting the same region. But those actions coincided with a wave of divestment from Bollorés businesses on the part of European investment funds: Switzerlands largest pension funds put his companies on their exclusion list, and Norways $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fundthe worlds largestpulled out entirely, citing human rights reports alleging abuses in Liberia, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, including land grabs and rape. That financial pressure mirrored growing legal scrutiny. Over the past decade, Bolloré has faced a series of corruption investigations in France tied to his business dealings in West Africaranging from election meddling to bribery and port monopolies. He was indicted in 2018, and French prosecutors continue to pursue charges related to those allegations. Critics of Bolloré contend that artists who remain silent risk inadvertently reinforcing the same exploitative systems many of them seek to challenge. “Dirty money off the backs of African communities” Last month, the French National Financial Prosecutors Office said it was still working on Bollorés corruption trial related to the Togo bribery claims. This came days after Bloomberg News ran a 4,000-word investigation into the sexual coercion of women working on Bollorés Liberian rubber plantations. Workers recently set fire to the office and managers home to protest the squalid conditions. Now, a coalition of 11 West African nonprofits known as Restitution for Africa (RAF) has filed a brand-new complaint with French authorities accusing Bolloré of using corruption, favoritism, and influence peddling to win port contracts in three additional countries: Ghana, Cameroon, Côte dIvoire. The complaint, also filed with the French National Financial Prosecutors Office and reviewed by Fast Company, accuses the Bolloré Group of a criminal graft where it conspired with corrupt politicians to build a massive port, rail, and logistics monopoly across West Africathen cashed out, selling that subsidiary (Bolloré Africa Logistics) for $6.2 billion, more than Sierra Leones annual GDP. The complaint argues the money earned should be given to citizens of those African nations. The coalition is calling the complaint unprecedented in its pan-African character. RAF followed that by launching a public petition on Thursday called Global Billionaire Accountability Project. Over the past month, it has worked to solicit support from 50 major artists under contract with UMG labelsthey include Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Sam Smith, The Weeknd, Usher, SZA, U2, Sting, Alicia Keys, and Billie Eilish. The group sent a letter asking them to demand that Bolloré divest from UMG, arguing that UMG artists are financially tethered to a corporate entity accused of profiting from illicit and exploitative activities. The letter concludes: We want to ensure youre aware that these ill-gotten gains have been funding Bollorés ownership of UMGdirty money off the backs of African communities. UMG declined to comment. A representative for Vincent Bolloré and the Bolloré Group did not respond to multiple inquiries by Fast Company. Restitution for Africa says so far none of the artists have responded to their letter. Fast Company also sent requests for comment to the publicists of more than a dozen UMG artists who prioritize social impact work. This includes all the artists mentioned above, other industry heavyweights like Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar, as well as Angélique Kidjo, the French-Beninese five-time Grammy winner who has served as a UNICEF oodwill Ambassador in Africa since the mid-2000s. Their representatives did not respond. Bonos ONE Campaignpublisher of 2014s widely read Trillion Dollar Scandal report warning that shady business practices in places like West Africa were siphoning up to a trillion dollars every year from developing countriesalso didnt respond to an inquiry. While many artists publicly support causes that would seem to pit them against Bollorés business pursuits, stars might fear speaking out could carry contractual and professional risks. In recent years, boldface entertainment names have publicly accused UMG of prioritizing profits over artist interests. Musicians from Drake and Iggy Azalea to Limp Bizkit have spoken outeven suedover unpaid royalties, licensing conflicts, and disputes over control of their work. And to be sure, pressuring UMG is not without risk, particularly for smaller artists who depend on the corporations support to stay afloat. Restitution for Africa is led by the anti-corruption watchdog group Transparency International and Jean-Jacques Lumumba, a former a former banker who in the mid-2010s exposed billions of dollars worth of embezzlements by Congolese President Joseph Kabilas government and now lives in exile in Europe. At Restitution for Africa, hes turned to different corruption occurring in his part of the world. This is not a man who global musicians at Universal Music Group should be OK with taking money from, Lumumba tells Fast Company. The French government has long grappled with its role in allowing political leaders in postcolonial Africa to steal from their own people, then park that stolen wealth back in France, or elsewhere. In 2021, President Emmanuel Macrons government enacted a new law strengthening the legal pathway to return such corrupt assets, once seized, to their countries of origin. This followed years of high-profile cases involving hundreds of millions of euros laundered by leaders of countries like Equatorial Guinea and Congo to fund lavish Parisian real estate, high-end art, and expensive cars, the types of corruption Bono protested while in Africa and his ONE Campaign called out in its Trillion Dollar Scandal. Past cases primarily targeted corrupt heads of state and their families. But more recently, nonprofits have sought restitution for ill-gotten corporate gains. The most prominent example involves French energy giant TotalEnergies operations in Congo. In 2019, two anti-corruption nonprofits filed a criminal complaint against Total alleging that it won oil exploration rights through bribery. The case is still being argued five years later, demonstrating the complexities of expanding the target to include companies. But if a whistleblower hadnt revealed a web of suspicious financial transactions tying Total and Congolese political elites to various bank accounts, it wouldnt have had legs. That person was RAFs Lumumba. In 2021, under mounting pressure, Bolloré Group parent company Bolloré SE paid 12 million to settle the Togo bribery charges brought against the corporation. Two years later, the Bollorés sold Bolloré Africa Logistics and started investing more heavily in the media industry, similar to a certain free speech absolutist tech billionaire in America. The African sale, combined with UMG artists profits, has helped breathe life into a rightwing French media juggernaut. Chanez Mensous, head of litigation and advocacy at the French corporate ethics watchdog Sherpa, calls this quite symptomatic of the Bolloré business approach. (Sherpa has joined previous criminal corruption cases against Bolloré, and will be a party to his individual trial next year, distinct from the 2021 corporate settlement, involving the Togo port bribery allegations.) They prey on countries with weak governance standards, Mensous says. They have the financial strength to consider sanctions and fines a reasonable economic risk they can absorb. Their relative impunity is made possible by the control they have over the media. They use SLAPPs [strategic lawsuits against public participation] to silence civil societies and journalists covering these cases. The family currently controls the telecom giant Canal+, Europe 1, various magazines, and Frances only Sunday newspaperalong with CNews, a free Canal+ channel that Harvards Nieman Reports recently criticized for its role in mainstreaming far-right ideas. That shift began accelerating after 2017, the year Bolloré took over the channel. Since then, CNews has added figures like Éric Zemmour, the far-right TV pundit turned politician repeatedly convicted of racial and religious hate speech. In the past few years, the network has been a place to find anti-vax histrionics, calls for Muslims to renounce their faith, interest in the Great Replacement Theory, suggestions that immigrants caused Pariss pre-Olympics bedbug infestation, and full-blown panic over le wokismethis as many UMG artists worldwide were busy promoting COVID vaccination efforts, calling out police brutality, and condemning white supremacy. Last summer, CNews rose (briefly) to the rank of Frances #1 news channel. Bolloré is also credited with empowering the far-right French leader Marine Le Penechoing her brand of nationalism, as well as her warm feelings toward Russia. Weeks ago when Donald Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, Bollorés outlets took cues, turning friendly fire on Ukraines European allies. The far-right broadcasters and newspapers owned by Vincent Bolloré are backing Vladimir Putin, Le Monde told readers. “The French Rupert Murdoch” Meanwhile, Bollorés outlets have undergone an ideological purge serious enough to inspire Reporters Without Borders to produce a documentary chronicling their repeated attacks on press freedom and the independence of editorial offices, then denouncing them as an unprecedented threat to democracy. During Frances latest elections in 2022, hundreds of journalists and activists formed Operation Stop Bolloré, a coalition that accused Bolloré media of breaking with all journalistic ethics, arguing it is no longer a matter of informing citizens, but of transforming minds. On top of that, Bolloré lawyers have done their best to silence critical reporters and nonprofits that dig into the companys business operations, like in 2016 when three newspapers (Mediapart, LObs, and Le Point) and two nonprofits (Sherpa and ReAct) reported that a Bolloré company bulldozed West African villagers land. In 15 years, the company has hit journalists and activists with at least 20 gag lawsuits. The Bolloré media arm is eyeing expansions back in Africa, too: If a deal awaiting approval closes, the Bollorés will own South African-based satellite TV provider MultiChoice, via the continents largest-ever media acquisition, giving them a subscriber base in sub-Saharan Africa of more than 20 million viewers. Of course, Bollorés right-wing crusade puts UMG artists in a bigger bindwhether they champion African causes or not, do they want their music profits to flow, in part, to a so-called French Rupert Murdoch who is bankrolling a political agenda many of them have publicly denounced? UMGs ownership structure already presents an ethical dilemma for its most socially conscious performers: Beyond the Bollorés 28% control, the next largest shareholder, with 20%, is Tencentthe Chinese tech giant the U.S. government labels a Communist military asset. Noted Trump booster Bill Ackman controls the third most, with 10%. Taylor Swift isnt active in Africa, but she has repeatedly condemned racism and the oppression of women, and has lamented the naiveté that we used to have about [bigotry]. The Imagine Dragons band members, signed to Interscope, are vocal official ambassadors of the Ukrainian state charity United24. Kendrick Lamars music criticizes racial injustice and systemic oppression, while Lady Gaga has used her platform to condemn far-right rhetoric as an attack on democracy and human rights. And thats just four of UMGs better-known artists. While Bolloré Group got blacklisted by Swiss funds in 2023 over human rights abuses, its harder to find examples of controversial investors caving to public pressure and divesting from publicly traded companies. That highlights the challenge of holding powerful billionaires accountable who can shield themselves from accountability. It also explains RAFs long-shot strategy of seeking to leverage the platforms of celebrities whose careers arent directly impacted by a French shipping mogul, and who have largely ignored outside requests to speak out against him. However, since RAFs letters went out, one artist has taken note of Bollorés business practices: Drake. The rapper is currently suing UMG over Kendrick Lamars Grammy-winning diss track Not Like Usa blistering takedown featuring the line Drake, I hear you like em young, with cover art showing a sex-offender map plastered with pins around Drakes Toronto home. Just days after receiving the petition, Drakes lawyers referenced Bollorés growing scandals in a legal filing, arguing that recent headlines involving UMGs largest stakeholder call for greater transparency from the label.
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