Corry Joe Biddle: Helping Diverse Talent Navigate the Business World

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I’ve been interested in how minorities and women are doing in the Milwaukee business world. I had heard there is a “brain drain” of young professionals leaving Milwaukee for jobs in other cities that offer more diversity and opportunities for advancement. I contacted Corry Joe Biddle, vice president of community affairs for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) and also executive director of FUEL Milwaukee, an adjunct of MMAC.

Corry suggested we meet at HoneyBee Sage Wellness & Apothecary on Martin Luther King Drive. No wonder. Most everyone who walked inside knew her. They could have been family. We sat by the window and talked. If you could combine intelligence, common sense and a positive attitude, then sprinkle in humor, you would make Corry Joe Biddle.

Tell me about your background, family ties and where you grew up. 

I’m a Milwaukee native. Grew up in a neighborhood near Sherman and Douglas. I was raised by a single mom and have an older brother. She held many jobs, including a Jenny Craig weight loss counselor in Glendale, but she often held a second job. For elementary school, I went to Golda Meir for the gifted and talented, and for high school, I went to Rufus King.

At Rufus King, did you have ambitions for a certain career?

Well, I knew I was going to college. I had a waitress job at Brynwood Country Club. A member once asked me what I was going to do after high school. I said I was going to college and major in business. ‘What kind of business?’ he asked. I was thinking, ‘There are different kinds of business majors?’ I had no clue.

Where did you end up going to college?

For my first two years, I went to Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, a religious school. But it wasn’t a good fit for me—too big, 600-person classes in a huge lecture hall. It made me realize that I thrive in more intimate learning environments. For my last two years, I ended up at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, small school and all girls. I liked the diversity, different ethnic groups and the wide range of ages. I was very active on campus, ended up being president of student government. I majored in English professional writing, learned all different kinds of writing, web copy, advertising, creative, journalism. I graduated in 2004.

You are the vice president of community affairs for MMAC, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and you are also executive director of FUEL Milwaukee, a division of MMAC. How did these two jobs come about?

In college, I was an intern at Manpower as a proposal writer for North American sales. That led to a full-time job at Manpower. Meanwhile, I was a board member at America’s Black Holocaust Museum when the founder, Dr. James Cameron, was still living. Eventually, I ended up working there full time as the grant writer. Within months, I became the executive director of the museum. I was honored to speak at Dr. Cameron’s funeral and more honored to carry his message.

How did you end up at the Chamber of Commerce?

I knew I wanted to work in marketing. In 2008, I met an MMAC vice-president, Shelley Jurewicz, and she hired me as marketing director for FUEL Milwaukee. The FUEL members tended to work corporate jobs, and the group was largely white. I realized that people of color either didn’t know about FUEL or didn’t feel it was for them, so I spent a lot of time reworking our visual and written messaging to be more inclusive.  It worked. Today, FUEL is much more diverse. 30% of our members identify as people of color. Eventually, I was promoted to VP of community affairs.

I read that one of the goals of FUEL Milwaukee is to “Provide oversight for strategy and tactics to partner with and serve underrepresented populations through resource sharing, networking, and inclusion.” That seems a big challenge. How do you go about that?

The primary goal of FUEL Milwaukee is to retain business talent and keep them in Milwaukee. We try to make lifestyle and business opportunities exciting to our full membership. We do this through events, professional development, and networking that helps people connect with each other and our city. Making personal and business connections and also being tourists in our own town, so to speak.

I think the concept of diversity has changed in the last generation. It now includes women, Black and brown people, Asians, ethnic groups, older employees and the handicapped.

Yes, diverse talent means everybody regardless of gender, age, nationality, ability. The world is changing, and we are still learning how to interact with each other. 

I understand you are frustrated by what you see as a lack of equity in Milwaukee’s business environment. You said you are seeing people of color—and also young white people who value diversity and inclusion—leaving Milwaukee for bigger cities with better opportunities. You call this a “brain drain.” Why is this happening?

There are vibrant cities attracting talent from everywhere—including Milwaukee. These cities tend to feel a little faster-moving, more innovative, welcoming new ideas, and offering opportunities to diverse young professionals. Compared to cities like Austin, Atlanta and Charlotte, Milwaukee feels slower moving, more traditional. 

I wonder if Milwaukee’s business culture is kind of a hangover from the old industrial and manufacturing days. The factory town reputation. 

I think you are right. That factory town hangover affects a lot of our business culture. Young professionals and educated employees don’t seem to advance as fast here. That’s another reason for brain drain of diverse talent. Segregation prevents people of color from networking with the decision makers who often don’t look like or relate to them.

A recent study by financial analytics company SmartAsset ranks Milwaukee as the fourth worst place for African-Americans to live. SmartAsset focused on three categories: median income for a Black family, percentage of African-Americans in the workforce, and those who have a bachelor's degree. Out of 133 cities, Milwaukee finished nearly at the bottom, number 130. How do you and FUEL Milwaukee try to overcome that stigma?

MMAC’s Region of Choice program is a workplace inclusion initiative that encourages companies to hire more Black and brown managers. Our research looked at seven wealth indicators and compared Milwaukee to 20 of our peer metro cities in the U.S. Milwaukee ranked the least attractive city for Black and Brown people, using that measurement. 

For whites, though, Milwaukee was the sixth best out of the 21 cities. In 2018, we asked local businesses to sign a pledge to hire more Black and brown managers and employees-at-large. Around 130 local companies, representing 127,000 employees, signed the pledge. As of 2023, those companies have collectively increased Black and brown management by 26%. Each month, we get together and discuss how to increase equity. For example, one employer started a program that encourages Black and brown managers to get face time with executives and that includes activities like golf, lunches or business discussions. Executives tend to promote people they know. This is a part of networking that people of color have missed out on. Milwaukee is segregated. White people seldom know or socialize with Black people.

From my experience in talking with and doing stories on Milwaukee’s Black influencers, it seems that, other than real estate developers, most educated Blacks go into government or nonprofit work. Not many of them own stores and small businesses. As examples, there is only one Black-owned bank in Wisconsin, and it’s located on North Avenue and Fond du Lac. There is also the Sherman Phoenix on 36th Street owned by Joanne Sabir. And there is David Bowles and his marketing agency, CMRIgnite. What ideas do you have to get more people of color into the business world?

We try to get Black and brown kids exposed earlier to the business culture. We get them interacting with different businesses and professionals before college. We have an MMAC program called Be the Spark. We bring in high school kids who want to learn business, and they get to interact with business owners, CEOs and professionals in small groups. Our next meeting will be on technology careers, tech experts explaining their jobs and businesses.

You’ve talked about the “authentic self” that sometimes women and people of color sublimate their opinions in meetings dominated by whites or white men. Can you explain?

When interacting with the dominant group, if you edit what you say or change the tone of your voice, you are avoiding expressing your authentic self. This is called “code switching.” When I was little, I’d tease my mom about “talking white” on the phone when she was handling business. It was not her words, but the tone of her voice. Black people sometimes do this around white people, and studies show that women will do the same in a room full of men. Their voices would get softer or higher—they remove the bass from their tone. This is mostly subconscious. I think it’s important to be your authentic self and not a reflection of the dominant group. That way, a business becomes more dynamic and reflective of the customer. When you design and sell a product or concept, you need to be aware of all different cultural tastes.

There have been times that I have been at a party or gathering of Black people having fun, joking and teasing each other. One time, I said, “What are you talking about? I don’t understand some of your language.” They thought that was funny. That is the beauty of different cultures, how we talk and behave.

One time I was with a group of white women around Thanksgiving time. One asked me what I was cooking for Thanksgiving dinner. I told her that Black folks ate pretty much the same food as white folks for Thanksgiving—just prepared differently. Greens instead of spinach, sweet potato pie instead of pumpkin, dressing instead of stuffing, and everybody eats turkey. She said, “You mean you aren’t having fried chicken?” She had a preconceived idea about a Black person and was confirming her assumptions. Blacks and Latinos tend to hide their real selves when around a bunch of white people because they often don’t feel seen for who they are. Instead, they feel they are being observed to confirm an assumption.

Racism continues to be a controversial topic in the news and among American citizens. From my standpoint, I think that racism is a sinister and insidious human behavior problem not only in America but in the world. We are all Americans despite cultural and ethnic differences. Why can’t we get past this problem?  

George Floyd’s murder exposed racism and inequity in a way that made it hard for white people to look away. Segregation and lack of intermingling make it easy for white people to be in a sort of denial about realities that aren’t their own. George Floyd’s suffering brought the world to a place of humanness—and that’s what brought us all together.  It’s funny, but when business went virtual during the pandemic, I interacted with my fellow workers through Zoom video. I could see inside their homes, meet their kids, baby-talk their pets. When we returned to work, there was a new level of closeness because we’d gotten to know each other on a personal level. This is what bridges differences.

In writing about a number of large nonprofits and government organizations, I keep hearing that they want to have “conversations.” I sometimes find that there are too many “conversations” in these many silo groups. I wish I would see more “action,” in other words, actual results. Do you agree?

Conversations are good to foster understanding and education. Businesses, nonprofits, government organizations that have boots on the ground need to be doing something, taking action.

If you want to find out more about the Milwaukee Area Chamber of Commerce, visit the MMAC website at mmac.org, and access Fuel Milwaukee at  fuelmilwaukee.org.