Can the NBA’s first-ever diversity officer turn around the Hawks’ culture?

Not long after the NBA permanently banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for making racist remarks, Atlanta Hawks majority owner Bruce Levenson decided to sell his share of the team due to a disparaging email he penned about black fans. Then Hawks CEO Steve Koonin indefinitely suspended General Manager Danny Ferry for making racist remarks about forward Luol Deng.

Koonin promised to right the wrongs. Those changes included creating a new position of chief diversity and inclusion officer to craft a more diverse and accepting culture for employees and fans. The Hawks chose Nzinga Shaw, a veteran human resources professional who specializes in corporate diversity, this month for the job. No other NBA franchise has a similar position.

Shaw remembers feeling “disappointed and disheartened” when she first heard the derogatory remarks. But she doesn’t think the franchise has a systemic problem: most staffers refuse to tolerate harmful language and want more diversity. Her aim is to achieve that goal inside and outside the Hawks’ organization.

According to Shaw, her approach won’t just focus on racial differences, but also gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and education level, among other individual characteristics.
“Diversity means we’re celebrating everyone’s unique attributes,” Shaw says. “Inclusion means we’re going to figure out the best ways to leverage our differences so we see new people in the organization, recruit differently, build new community outreach programs, target fans very differently.”
Shaw has spent much of her 13-year professional career improving diversity standards at Essence, Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network, and the NFL. She most recently worked at public relations titan Edelman, where she created the 5,000-person firm’s diversity program. She says those experiences have set her up to take on her largest challenge yet.

Since joining the Hawks she’s met with employees and execs in an attempt to better understand the organization. She first plans to form an “advisory council” featuring Hawks leaders, clergy, academics, and former players. She hasn’t figured out her next course of action.

While some pundits have praised the hire, others have bluntly called the gig a reactionary PR stunt. Emory University marketing professor Michael Lewis is among the skeptics. He considers the CDIO position to be nothing more than window dressing.

“God bless her heart, but I don’t know what fences there are to mend,” he says.

When it comes to sports franchises, Lewis says team execs can better appeal themselves to a wider fan base by creating a better product (win more games) and looking at the data (understand your fans better). The Hawks’ hiring of a CDIO reflects a rather archaic approach to addressing the needs of its fan base, he says.

“Diversity is an important societal issue,” Lewis says. “This position almost trivializes a societal issue by using it as a band-aid for a marketing screwup.”

Shaw dismisses such criticisms, in part because she views her role as proactive rather than reactive. She says there’s plenty of work to be done. First, she must mend relations with the team’s current fans. In the long term, she wants to create an environment that’s inclusive of Atlantans who long before the uproar had written off sports culture.

If successful, Shaw says her efforts could lead other NBA teams to hire their own CDIOs. But first she must change the Hawks’ perception.

“Diversity and inclusion, when championed, can lead business, bring communities together, bring players together, inspire fans, create fans,” Shaw says.