She started her career as a political organizer, launching Mass VOTE, a state-wide voter engagement campaign, then parlayed those skills into economic development. As the EVP and Regional President at Berkshire Bank, Malia evolved the bank’s strategic focus to prioritize community impact. Malia shares how her theory of change evolved, how she identifies gaps between organizations’ intentions and their impact, and the very personal question she is constantly circling back to in therapy.
Follow Malia and her work on Instagram @theurbanlabz, and find her book From Intention to Impact here. If you loved this episode listen to Why Cristina Tzintún Ramirez Wants Latinas to Be Less Humble and More Demanding and Code for America’s Amanda Renteria Lost Some Battles, but Is Winning the Political War.
Alicia Menendez : How do you move from being well intentioned to actually doing the work and making a change? That question is at the heart of Malia Lazu's life. Both her early work as a political organizer and founding executive director of Mass VOTE, to her time as the EVP and regional president of Berkshire Bank, she evolved to the $13 million bank's focus to prioritize community impact. It's also the driving force behind Malia's new book From Intention to Impact: A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Malia and I talk about what happens when your theory of change evolves, and how a person who isn't 100% bought in on the idea of capitalism ends up creating change inside the financial sector.
Malia, thank you so much for being here.
Malia Lazu : Thank you so much for having me.
Menendez: Malia, when I read profiles of you, it often begins talking about this childhood in Hawaii, which was a perfect place to be multiracial. And I have to wonder if there is ever truly a perfect place to be multiracial.
Lazu: As perfect as you can get, I think Hawaii comes close because so many people are multiracial, right? So I went to school with people who were Tongan, French, Filipino, Japanese Cambodian. And you would just have that mix and no one would question it and no one would be like, "Where'd you come from?" And so race isn't brought up in that same way. And then I moved to Boston and someone asked me, stopped me in the street and was like, "What are you mixed with?" And I was like-
Menendez: What did you say?
Lazu: Well, I said, "I'm Black Puerto Rican Italian." And he laughed. I was like, "Well, that's not even a strange combo."
Menendez: So where in this journey do you start asserting you're Latinidad?
Lazu: I was raised by a white mother who tried really hard, who understood. Growing up in Hawaii, actually we have a history of Puerto Ricans being there and being brought over. And once I got into high school and I started being attracted to movements and I started being attracted to this revolutionary spirit, Pedro Albizu Campos was an easy attraction for me. Understanding that I was Puerto Rican, and similar to Hawaii, there is a history of liberation here. And it was around high school and college that I started really appreciating the value of what it meant to be Latina.
Menendez: You go to college, you study political science, you spend the early part of your career as a political organizer. At that point in your life, what is your theory of change?
Lazu: Blow it up. When I was young, my theory of change, and I think still remains, the essence, right? The essence of theory of change is that, "Empower people and we will fix it, we will make it better, right? Give us our liberation and we will feed people." That was my theory of change then, I think I was younger and a lot more radical about it. But it's something that I still believe is that we have a lot of problems, but they get fixed when we're allowed to come together and fix them. And we're not allowed to do that a lot, and that's where the organizing sort of came in.
Menendez: But how does, then, a revolutionary end up in banking?
Lazu: So what happened? How did I become a bank president? I think when you're following power, you end up in either real estate or banking, right? The two industries that hold an overwhelming amount of power in American capitalism. Quick view, I become this burnt out organizer as one does. And I need to figure out what to do, and so I realized that I have a set of skills that companies need. That there are companies that don't just check a box, right? That actually want to figure out how to empower people. And I have a set of tools that can help them do that. And the best place for me to start is banking because they're doing a lot of harm. That was the thought process, and so I ended up consulting with banks. And then the CEO said, "I want to bring you in." And I told him in the interview, I said, "You know that I'm unconvinced on American capitalism." And he just started laughing. And he was like, "That's fine, we have a lot of capitalists in this bank. I think we'll be okay."
Menendez: Part of the reason why I wanted to talk to Malia is I think a lot of us have the experience of having a theory of change that evolves over time or steps along our journey that force us to give up biases that we may have had in the earlier part of our journey. And there is a change not only in the theory of change, but in the theory of self, right? In the story of self that evolves with that. So what was the story you had to then begin telling yourself about yourself in order not to judge the fact that you were going from being an outside agitator to being an inside changemaker?
Lazu: This is a journey that I'm still on and I talk about it to my therapist at least once a month. This idea of selling out, that is the worst thing you could do for your people. It's the kiss of death of legitimacy and authenticity. And to this day, I'm still like, "How am I not selling out? How am I not selling out?" And I think for me, understanding that there are different seasons and different experiences that allow you to fight liberation in other theaters. So the streets are games for the young. They have that energy, they're in it, and we should give them everything they need to do direct organizing, right? Now, do I need to be organizing a street protest right now? That's not my best skill set right now as a, you know, auntie, right? My best skill set is making sure that the young people have what they need, right? That I can support it in a different way.
But what I did was when I came to the bank, I wrote an op-ed in The Globe. I was really nervous, I was a bank president, I had a billion dollar P&L. And so I wrote this op-ed saying, "I'm going into the bank to do these things. And if you don't see me doing them, you tell me." And then I went into the bank and got $30 million out into the streets, right? Created this debt, stayed that organizer. And I think part of it was me making that public commitment.
Menendez: I want to talk about some of the things you did at Berkshire because it all sounds so neat and tidy. So diversifying the board of directors, developing a suite of financial products and programs to support entrepreneurs of color, launching a collaborative workspace and innovation hub for the startup community. When we read the successes, it makes it sound like you had no resistance and it just got it done. So can you tell me about a time when either your political organizing background helped you really organize for some of those efforts inside the bank? Or tell me about a time where you were met with resistance and managed to break through.
Lazu: Absolutely. So I like to say that being an organizer allowed me to be open to regulators. I think banking regulation is important, and I came to it respecting that. When we wanted to develop things like bringing Runway in and having this zero consideration loan. That, you know how when you normally go through the loan process, you have to go through the five Cs, which is credit, collateral, character. And all of these things are really shortcuts to building a relationship. And so for us, a lot of times we don't have the credit, we don't have the collateral because of institutional wealth removal in our communities. So then you ask us for that in a loan and then you say, "Oh, sorry, can't give you the loan because you don't have the thing we've been taking from you." So a zero consideration loan says that, "We're not going to consider those five Cs, we're going to ask you another set of questions. Those questions are going to help us determine whether you should be pre-approved or not."
So it allowed us to determine... And we were working with a program called Runway, which other banks should look at, I was really thrilled to bring them to Boston, that allowed us to look at risk in other ways besides these credit considerations. And the first question, right? Was, "Well, this is just for Black and Brown businesses, that has to be against fair lending." And so I called the FDIC, right? Because they were the ones who tell us what fair lending is and isn't, right? And they were thrilled about this product. And so that became very helpful, right? And this was something that helped our examination. Obviously, nothing's perfect, right? And I joke around, I say, "The CEO that hired me was an NRA member, and yet he allowed me to do more than a lot of progressive bank CEOs that I work with do." And the hardest part that I felt was helping people understand that they could do this.
And it's getting through that initial, "Well, this isn't how we do things, and to change things could be scary." But you do have to educate people. Maybe because I was an organizer, I knew pushback was... I just knew this is the dance, right? Because if it wasn't, you would be doing it already. And Berkshire really was open to letting us play. And you can't do change trying to uphold the corporate hierarchy. And so being able to look at A CEO that is in charge of billions of dollars, and I literally said to a CEO, "All this was, was white privilege, just know this. And now let's talk about how we're going to clean up." And what I find is, "Listen, if you don't want to dance with me, then I'll go somewhere else." And again, being an organizer, I have that chip on my shoulder that allows me to do that. And that's what really lets us get through the pushback because there's always pushback. And I think being an organizer, I'm like, "Mm-hmm. Yep, you're uncomfortable? Okay, are you done now? Great. So now onto the work, right?"
Menendez: Well, that leads me perfectly to where I wanted to go next, which was, I have to tell you, you've sort of hit a nerve for me on this idea of moving from intention to impact, because I think that is the liminal space that a lot of us find ourselves in. Where we know what the intention is, and maybe we have even been doing things that we hoped would have impact, but the dots just aren't connecting. Tell me about the concept of moving from intention to impact, and what that requires.
Lazu: The concept of “from Intention to impact” is to understand that an intention is a start. It is an important start, but it is the start. And so how you actually move from intention to getting to impact, I talk about it in seven stages, and three of the stages are about pushback, right? The first three stages are very honeymoon. "Oh my God, our CEO just signed a pledge, he wants us to do a training." And then there's low hanging fruit. "Ooh, we're doing a hire.” “Now we're going to ensure we have diverse candidates." And all of a sudden HR starts saying, "We can't afford that. The people we work with, they don't have those networks. We can't do it with this short of a time period. We're looking for a chief accountant, they don't come in lady form, right?" All the excuses start coming.
And at first the pushback is seen as legitimate. "I'm just playing devil's advocate." "Well, I'm just worried about compliance." "Well, I'm just worried about what general counsel is going to say." And you actually have to push through that pushback and eventually call it out right after you've answered all the questions. You eventually have to call it out for what it is, which is bias, right? And you're slowing down the process because you don't want to have impact. And then you have to push through that, right? And that's a cultural shift, right? That's your middle manager's actually understanding, "I will reach my bonus quicker if I have a diverse team because they're 34% more profitable." Actually believing that stat is where the culture has to go. And then you see the impact. When you see these stats, and I have a bunch of them, women-led teams, 21% more patent rights in Silicon Valley, right? Diverse teams, 34% more profitable.
That's material. I don't care what business you're in, 34% is material. But you must not believe it because if we're in corporations, you're supposed to be greedy. And so are you greedy or are you sexist? Are you greedy or are you racist? Those are the conversations that actually get us to seeing that impact, right? Because you can have women in a space who don't feel empowered to share their lived experience, right? You can have a Latina in the space that decides to not speak up about the differences and why you can't use Mexicans to sell Cubans things, right? The reason why diversity is profitable is because it allows us to talk to the world, and that's the impact.
Menendez: When do you know that it's time to leave? When do you know that an organization is not capable of moving from intention to impact?
Lazu: So, funny story. I was working with a group in the financial space. And we were doing a training, and this is an intro training that we do, it's literally the beginning. We talk about what is diversity? What is equity? What is inclusion? And in doing that training, the pushback started immediately, right? Straight white men saying things like, "Well, Malia made me feel uncomfortable." Right? And, "This is reverse racism." And we start the training by saying, "Generosity of interpretation, listen to be changed, right? And challenge your norms, challenge your story." Obviously, none of that was done, right? With this feedback I was getting. And so I said that. What I said was, "I guess it must've been a great training because it sounds like the white boys had a problem." And they were like, "Yeah, it kind of was." So we just think we need to slow down. And so I push, I always say, "I'm going to be the lighthouse. You're not going to get here, but someone here has to show you where it is, right?"
And then you see how close you get it. And I was like, "Well, it sounds like you're centering white fragility, dah, dah, dah." And the head of HR said, "Malia, we're actually really nice people, and we just have to figure out how to understand this." And there was this defensive tone in it. And I had three more months, we were actually in the middle of talking about renewing a contract. And I was just like, "No." And in this work, it is really hard... I'm not your typical... If all you want is a training to reaffirm that you're a good white person or you're a good able-bodied person or a good straight person, I'm not your consultant. In my worst days, I talk about it with judgment, right? And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, they're just not ready." And all of that stuff is true.
But I also think it's important to understand that people start with intention and they start from where they are, and the true believers will work that out. And then everyone will have to play catch up because the facts are the facts, we know we're valuable. And the people who know that will allow you to lead because they know you're just going to help them make money and you're going to help them look good.
Menendez: I could talk to you literally all day, so I hope that we find a time and a place to do that. In the meantime, this is always my final question, which is, what did I miss?
Lazu: We have value, right? This fight around DEI, this fight around banning books, these fights to remove our humanity and our value from corporate spaces, from education spaces can be triggering for all of us. And I think it's so important for us to remember our own value and that we are part of America's impact, right? America's intention to be a global power only gets succeeded if we are allowed to help America do that. And so I just want all of my Latinas, all of my sisters, to remember our power. And whether it's a bath or it's five minutes or it's a prayer, give yourself the time for the value and for what you're worth, because we will be saving this planet and we need the love to do it.
Menendez: Malia, thank you so much for taking the time.
Lazu: Thank you so much.
Menendez: Thanks for listening. Latina to Latina is executive produced and owned by Juleyka Lantigua and me, Alicia Menendez. Virginia Lora is our producer. Kojin Tashiro is our lead producer. Tren Lightburn mixed this episode. We love hearing from you, email us at hola@latinatolatina.com. Slide into our DMs on Instagram or on Threads and TikTok @latinatolatina. Check out our merchandise at latinatolatina.com/shop. And remember to subscribe or follow us on RadioPublic, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Goodpods, wherever you're listening right now. Every time you share this podcast, every time you leave a review, you help us to grow as a community.
CITATION:
Menendez, Alicia, host. “How Malia Lazu Moved from Intention to Impact” Latina to Latina, LWC Studios, April 1, 2024. LatinaToLatina.com.