Analiza: Welcome to the Women of Color Rise Podcast. I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud Filipino American executive leadership coach, and former CEO of a nonprofit and Captain in the US Air Force, and also the author of The Myths of Success: A Woman of Color's Guide to Leadership. It's based on the lessons learned of many women of color leaders, including those on this podcast.

We talk with successful CEOs and C suite women leaders of color, and learn about their leadership journeys. I'm on a mission to support having more diverse leaders at the table. If you're a woman or woman of color who wants a seat at that table, you're in the right place. Now let's get into today's show.

Hi everyone. I'm excited to be with Dr. Maya Bugg Faison. She's the founder and CEO of Bugg Consulting Group, also an adjunct professor of public policy at the Doctor of Education program at Vanderbilt Maya's had many leadership roles, especially in education. She was the CEO of the Tennessee Charter School Center and the State Executive Director at education pioneers, she spent almost two decades advocating for really wonderful public schools for our students, and also providing consulting services to many different clients across the country. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Education from Harvard, and also Doctor of Education and Leadership, Policy and organizations from Vanderbilt, Maya, I'm so happy for you to be here. Thank you.

Maya: Thank you for having me.

Analiza: Maya, we always start a podcast talking about identity, so I want to ask you about identity. How has identity played a role in shaping your career?

Maya: Yeah, so I'm born and raised out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I grew up and hassled my mom and dad, my two sisters and my mom and dad have been together since they were 13 years old, and they just turned 66 this year, and they've always been really, really specific about the role of education. It was a kind of household where we got spelling words during the summertime, we listened to educational radio shows, and we studied black history, these little booklets that they would give us so we can learn about our culture and our contributions as black folks. And so I grew up and in a black neighborhood and known to all black elementary schools where I grew up feeling pretty confident about being black and what that meant and how we have contributed to history and to the present, but also grew up knowing that as a black young girl that there were certain expectations that I was supposed to thrive. I was supposed to go do something important, and so originally my plan was to be a doctor, a surgeon or something like that, because it was impressive, and I was considered a smart girl, you know, get straight A's. I would join all the clubs, sing in the choir, go to church. I just did all the things. And so at that time, you were a smart, black child, and you wanted to prove, like, I've done something impressive, or you had to be a lawyer or a doctor. And I think engineering was just coming into the scope. And so I decided I'll be a doctor. And I started along that track. You know, I'm fascinated with science and all that, until one day when I was in my high school, late middle school, early high school. I was volunteering, like I said, I did all the things I was volunteering, and I was a tutor for maybe young elementary school kids, first, second, third grade, and I went to the top public school in the tri state area. And I mean, everyone had to test into this school. We walked one block up the street where we did our tutoring. And they were black in Latino kids, mainly Puerto Rican, and the children were trying to read on the screen, the computer screen direction, and it said, press Enter to start. And the little girl I'm in second or third grade, she could not read the screen. Maya, can you help me? I don't understand. And so at that moment, I'm looking at this little girl who looks like she could be my cousin, you know, another black young lady in Philadelphia, one block from one of the top public schools in the nation, really. And how is it that I'm at this top public school and we're doing algebra, let's say in sixth grade, and we're reading these novels. It's like, and this young lady, or young girl, is one block up the street from me in the same public school system, and she cannot read, right? And so that moment kind of thinking about, what does it mean to be a black young lady in Philadelphia and in the school system, something just she. Shifted. So I changed my plans from being a doctor, I decided I'm going to go into the education system. I want to figure out why is this a thing. I want to know, how does this system work, and then, how do we disrupt it? How do we make it so that everyone is receiving the type of education that I was receiving one block up the street from where this young lady was, and so race was very prevalent for me and gender.

Analiza: A lot of what you shared with Maya about the beliefs of your parents, belief in you and your siblings, your belief in yourself, being surrounded by books and literature and examples of incredible role models who look like you, and there was no question, what do I want to be? Okay? A surgeon, absolutely. And I'm curious, Maya talking about beliefs, because you had this beautiful, not to say, their own challenges, but supportive, loving, affirming structure beliefs, what were, if any, beliefs that were shared with you that, looking back, you're like, Damn, that was not was actually not quite correct. I'm curious if there were any that you believed around these myths that you believed early on, that you realized later were not true.

Maya: Yeah, yeah. You know, that's funny. You asked that. As I mentioned, I had a very supportive family. My mom and dad were teen parents. They had my oldest sister right out of high school. Eventually, my dad, he's an artist, and so he had to drop out of art college to take care of the family. And my mom ended up going back to school when she was mid 20s or so, and she was able to get her degree in accounting and eventually became a CPA and the first black person to hold one of the highest seats in the city comptroller's office of Philadelphia. I'm very proud of them anyway, so they had their struggles and being young parents and all the things so anyway, so super supportive family. But I remember when you talk about beliefs that turned out to be not so true, or myths that turned out to be not so true, I remember I ran track on track and cross country, and one day, I took the trolley home with a friend named Jake. Was a white boy, and we were friends. And I remember I came in a little late, and I forget why my dad was upset. I don't know if I was. I came home too late after track practice, something, something wasn't sitting right with him, and I remember him telling me, you know, who are you with? And I said, I was with my friend, Jake. He says, Well, Jake's your friend now, until y'all grow up and he becomes your boss. Yeah. And so I remember thinking like, Whoa. Where did this come from? Right? Because it was so antithetical to everything I had been trained to do. I wanted to be a surgeon. I remember us, my mom and dad giving me books to study. Folks like Dr Charles Drew the first transplants and things right. And so I remember that he's black. I'm black. I can do this, right? And so what I found was that as I became older, my parents became more worried about the realities of society and their own experiences and working hard and things not being there, and it's not the scales being tipped depending on race and gender and income. And so my dad expressed that frustration at that moment. He didn't give me a ton of detail, but I will never forget it.

Analiza: Let's go to that moment. Maya, yeah, because sadly, when these things were happening to me, I thought it was me, right? I didn't realize that actually it's, it's the system. And I'd love to go to you, Maya, and talk through a moment where you were realized, like, actually, it is unfair. What was one of those moments? Sadly, I'm like, I'm sure you have many. What was one of those? And how did you handle that?

Maya: You know, I have several, unfortunately, yeah, but several moments in my career, from being in school all the way through now, I'll give one example. I just ended my tenure as the president and CEO of the Tennessee Charter School Center. I was there almost a decade, but I remember when I was first interviewing, first off, I didn't apply for the job at partners and others kept reaching out to me, saying, we need you in this role, and recruiters and such. So eventually I feel out I'll have the conversation. So went from a conversation to it, and now you're a finalist. I'm like, Whoa. I wasn't planning to, you know, be the CEO of a charter school center, right? So that was not in my plan. But here I am. So now I'm a finalist, and they got me in this room at a hotel where there's multiple panels, and there's panels of school leaders and executives and community members. I remember going into these panel conversations and feeling like, I think I kind of nailed it. I remember leaving one of the sessions thinking, oh my gosh, I think I'm gonna be the CEO of the Charter School Center. And that was not my plan, because I felt like I had done so well, right? And I. And that was just wasn't my plan. Anyway, everything goes well. And what I thought was true. I get some feedback from some folks who were in that, in those different sessions, I mean, three big sessions of all these people, and they said, You rocked it, my you nailed it. And every like almost everybody, 97% of people voted for you. Said you should be the next CEO. Well, the board at the time, certain board members at the time, had already wanted the other candidate. They had already told the other candidates that they were shoeing white male.

Analiza: Okay, that's what I was gonna ask you.

Maya: You already know white male, and so their plan was getting off the rails, because here I am. They probably had me in the mix, because a lot of people were pushing for me to be in the mix, and because they could say they had diversity in their candidate pool, they would be able to say one of our top two finalists was a black female. They could check both boxes. But I kind of came from behind and surprised this board at the time, and everybody voted for me. And so what should have been then an offer to come turned into an extended interview process. They started adding steps to the interview process to try to try to weed me out, because everyone kept voting for me. They were trying to get back around to the original guide that they wanted to have the feet. And so it was supposed to be the final interview. I mean, we're at a hotel. We're rotating rooms, there's panels, and then they added another interview day with this, another panel and a different location, and then another conversation, and finally, yeah, they added multiple new steps to this process because I kept everybody kept voting for me, right? And I was coming in with a few years of state level executive leadership experience, I'd have tons of education experience, that's my role, that's my sector, that's my expertise. But they just were surprised that I kept coming up to the top. And so eventually I go to the board, I say, Listen, y'all called me, you know, I didn't come looking for this job. I've got other opportunities. I'm doing great in my current position. I've got multiple other organizations that are tapping me on my shoulder, trying to recruit me to work for them. I'm not thirsty for this job. If you're not confident, but I'm the one or you already have other plans, unless in this process here, because I'm not going to keep jumping through these extra hoops. Wow. And so I think what happened was, when I was on a plane, actually going to talk to one of those other organizations that was flying me out to, like, whine and dine me down in Louisiana, one of the wives of the school leaders who was close to the board, told the board, I saw Maya. My wife saw Maya on the plane, and she's going down to talk to such and such organization. She's not bluffing you all. And then apparently several school leaders and their community members started calling the board like, if y'all fumble this ball with Maya, we will not be supportive of this organization, because we know what you're doing isn't right. I was so shocked to see people step up and step in like that. I wasn't used to that. You're used to folks just kind of minding their own business. And so it was definitely a moment where I realized, you know, if those people hadn't had the courage to try to disrupt the flow of what was happening, I probably wouldn't have gotten a job offer, either because I would have removed myself from the process, because of the foolery that was happening, or because they would have eventually found a way to say, Oh, actually, offering it to this other guy, but if those folks hadn't spoken up, and if, probably, if I hadn't said, Hey, I'm not thirsty for this job, I got other options. You know, I'm not sure where things landed. And you know, I'm glad I ended up taking the position. And I remember I had to negotiate hard for my salary, right? And because I looked up at 990 says, I don't know how much you're paying this other guy, and I'm coming in with more experience that he's leaving with, yeah, right. And they said, Oh, you're really leaning in. Remember that book, people that that book Lean In or something? They said, Oh, you're really leaning in. So we ended up coming to some type of compromise and all that. But if I hadn't had the courage to speak up and name that, that was an inequity that Why are you trying to pay me? Give me an offer maybe $50,000 or so lower than what I saw in the 990 if I hadn't checked it, if I hadn't spoken up, they would have felt perfectly fine to give me such a low ball. Offer. So, yeah, there's multiple, multiple examples of you know, if this hadn't been in place, if I hadn't spoken up, if I didn't have champions, the system would have swallowed me up, and I wouldn't have had access to certain opportunities and positions that I moved into.

Analiza: Maya, I want to talk through your moves, because the moves that you made were critical to you being in this important position where students and communities really benefited to have you, specifically, Maya bug facing, and your identity in the seat. So I want to talk about what I heard. One is you had the guts to call it, and that took a lot of strength. Then just that alone to say, I'm not thirsty for this job. Really important to speak your truth. So you did that second you had alternatives, and often in negotiation, you're only as strong as your best alternative. And so you had other wonderful alternatives, and people were seeking. So you stated that, and you went after that. And third, you mentioned it earlier, champions, people who are willing to also speak up instead of just right, grumble, what the hell is going on? They actually made the calls and said, We are not going to stand by this. So I want to name those three things, because the first move Maya has the guts to say something. Can we talk through that? Have you always been the kind of person who just was like, I'm going to call it. You say that the hard truth. Where did you get that? What kind of things can you give like, some skills, some ways of building the oomph to speak hard things with powerful people.

Maya: Yeah, that is an excellent question. I think the other factors that you named and that summary had an influence on that as well, right? So, knowing that I had options, knowing that I, you know, I was working, I had a job already, like I had a position that I was in, I was thriving in, so I didn't have to leave that job. Knowing that I could be exploring these other opportunities, that gave me a bit more courage as well. But I think about, I think about in my younger days, and now that you say that, I I think I have been speaking up throughout that time, and I'm guessing it's just, it goes back to my, my upbringing with my parents, you know, and they didn't raise us to be kind of Meek or mild, necessarily. They wanted us to be able to speak up. They wanted us to be able to name things if we saw that were not right. And so I think also, once I was in undergrad, and I did my undergrad at University of Penn, and the types of programs and activities that I involved myself in were very many of them, and they were very black centered. And I got a lot of encouragement from the other black students, some of them upperclassmen, seeing these black professors, it was pretty empowering. And so we were involved in different things that were more like, for example, we were doing like a Saturday Academy with Afrocentric curriculum, right? Where we're working with kids across the city, and we're encouraging them and teaching them about our culture and about our strength, right? And so I think we were teaching the kids, but I'm teaching myself too, and I think it just kind of absorbed, like in our conversations and our experience. And so I think just in the activities that I chose and the volunteer activities that I did, the people I surrounded myself with, my major or my minor in undergrad was African American studies, so I was very aware of racism, and reading things like The Souls of Black folks, Dr W Dubois and other material, right? So I was aware, I think growing up with some of the conversations with my parents, but then studying things in undergrad made me very aware. I remember I did my master's program at Harvard in urban education. Well, I remember having to speak up there as well. It's interesting to reflect back and say, What was I doing, speaking up, saying all these things. I remember we had a professor who was a retired school teacher she had taught for decades to an older white woman, and she was teaching us one of our methods classes. And she had a co teacher who was a younger black male, a young white woman who was one of my cohort members. Come back, we're in class. She said, She's crying. She's upset. She says, You know what, one of these kids stole my purse today, and we were working at a school with mainly black, Latino Kurdish. It was just a very multicultural, international type place. The professor tells us, well, it's just the nature of these kids. Essentially, the nature of these kids was to steal, and this is what the professor stares in front of our entire class of future teachers who are majority white. So I'm waiting for this CO teacher, mentally, this black co teacher, to speak up. He does not. He does not look around the class. No, everyone's just taking notes. They're writing it down. This is going to be true. I've got two friends in that class. One's black, one's Mexican and Chinese, and we're just looking at each other and we're exhausted. Okay, which one of us is going to take this one this time? Because we would take turns having to speak up about these things. And so we raise our hand and we have a spiral into a whole conversation. They had a special weekend that they hosted because they said we were making people feel unsafe because we called out these inequities and the error and the bias and the racism and that comment. It just, I have we can. That's a whole other conversation we can have about my experience in that teacher ed program. But it was just another example of, I feel like we've always it's kind of, you don't speak up. Who will?

Analiza: Maya, and I want to ask you about that, because there's a piece of the work you're doing where it's not just Maya, it's Maya with others, yeah, with students, with classmates, with your community. And I want to go back to that. You know, the three things you need. One is that you called and you spoke and you called it out. You spoke the truth. Second is that you were having the other alternatives, that there are other options so that you didn't need them or need this job. And third is you had champions. Yeah, this piece I want to talk about because Maya, they're these people. I imagine they're powerful. I imagine they had to know what was going on. And I'm wondering, how did you make that happen? I'm, you know, I'm on full credit, right? But I imagine that you built the relationships. I imagine that you kept them up to date. Can you give us more insight into how that, how you enable that to happen, for them to champion you?

Maya: Yeah, that's exactly right, building relationships. So I moved from North Carolina to Tennessee almost, almost 12 years or so ago to launch at pioneers Tennessee, right? And so when I got to Tennessee, I only knew one person's name. I didn't know anybody, and part of my job was to help build and grow our partnership base and to build a name for Ed pioneers. So you're thinking, okay, that's going to be a heavy lift, because I don't know anybody in this whole state. And so what I did was I became very intentional about building relationships and building my network. And so as I mentioned, when I get there that summer, I know one person's name. By the end of that year, I had met with probably every education entity between Memphis and Nashville and an all in between. And so the way I did that was I would start with that one person I know, and I go meet with her, and I say, we have coffee, we build a rapport. I say, Who else should I be speaking to? And I said, Give me three names of people I should be speaking to. Do you mind giving me an introduction? She makes the introduction. Now I meet with those three people. I ask them the same question, who are three people I should be speaking with? And I should get to know I'm new in town. Then they give me three names and they make an introduction. So this spirals, and I'm tracking all this, but I like to track, I like to keep data. I'm setting goals each week. I'm going to have, you know, 60 meetings this week. That's my target, right? And then keeping it in the database and saying, all right, I met with this person in September. Let me make sure I send a follow up, checking in on them and this other month, and let me make sure I do another coffee date or happy hour meeting or whatever, and a few months after so I did that between Memphis and Nashville. And what I realized I was making strong relationships, but I didn't realize I was also building champions just in how I was and how I was moving and how I was supporting these partners, I didn't know, to be quite honest, I didn't know I was creating these champions. I thought that I had a good reputation. Thought that people trusted me. They thought I operated with integrity. But I hadn't been in a situation where I needed champions to step up, and so when they did step up. I was pleasantly surprised, and I realized the value of these relationships. These were people, the people who were stepping up were partners that I had developed over those couple of years. And so there was a contingency of black leaders who kind of got together that we're not going to have. We're going to put it into this. They collaborated and they coordinated, and they said, We're going to call this board and we're going to tell them that if they don't do the right thing, we can't support them, so I was very impressed. They put their names on the line for me without me asking,

Analiza: Wow, andMaya speaking to you. You made that happen. Deliberate, intentional values, aligned, tracking data aligned. I mean, it's while we're very grateful for the support, I want to make sure I'm also raising a sign of a model right of how we can potentially build those relationships so that they can be there to champion when we particularly eat it with that. Maya, are you ready? Ready for lightning round questions?

Maya: Yeah, let's go.

Analiza: Okay, chocolate or vanilla?

Maya: Vanilla.

Analiza: Cooking or takeout?

Maya: Neither. I prefer going to restaurants. I love to go to a new restaurant and get appetizers and samples and all the things.

Analiza: Would you rather climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Maya: You will never see me jumping out of anybody's plane. It's just not going to happen. But I have climbed a mountain before, and I was very proud of myself.

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Maya: That is so unacceptable? Why would you put on socks with your sandals? You gotta let your toes breathe. They do a lot of Philly work. The guys in Philly don't want to show their toes. It's weird, but, um, yeah, no, unacceptable.

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of one to 10,10 being Mariah Carey.

Maya: I've only done karaoke once, and that was my first time. Was maybe three months ago, at my bachelorette party, and we sang Lauren Hill. So I think we did pretty good. I think we were a good steller seven and a half we hit the notes and everything was nice.

Analiza: What's a recent book you read?

Maya: You know what? I haven't read any books this year - wedding planning. I guess I've been reading books on wedding planning and all of those things. But one of my favorite books is actually, it's called the Chance for Change, and it's the story of the pre K programs that the federal government was supporting, the Early Start, Head Start program. And it's not a very it's inspirational and sad all the same time, and it talks about how a community of black folks, low income folks down in the south were able to rally together and hire and train themselves and each other to be the teachers for their own kids, to make sure that their curriculum represented their values and their culture and still make sure that it was integrated into their you know, math and reading and science and all that, and they will be funded. People were able to then earn a living wage, earn certificates and degrees, buy homes, buy land. It was an amazing start for the program, but just like many other things, once people saw the government and others saw the progress that was being made by these communities of black folks, they ended up shutting down the program, taking the funding away. So it's a very telling book, and it's one of my favorites. She's well written, and although it's heartbreaking, it's just a very well written text.

Analiza: What's your favorite way Maya to practice self care?

Maya: Oh, I love, of course, everybody said this blah, but I love going out with my friends or with my husband and just laughing. And like I said, I love to try new restaurants, going to rooftops. That's my favorite thing to laugh and go and not talk about work. We talk about everything else but work, I mean, and sometimes we're just being so silly, I will literally laugh until I cry. Tears are running down my face. That is my favorite thing to do. It's just to be in good company with my man or with my buddies, and laugh and eat and just enjoy.

Analiza: What's a good professional development you've done?

Maya: You know what? I really enjoyed that women of color's retreat that we met, where we met for th Pahara Institute. I think it was less about professional development and more about reflection. And with that reflection, you're able to take it back to where you live and to implement it. I think that's the best. Type of professional development is something that is accessible and useful outside of the training session.

Analiza: What advice would you give your younger self?

Maya: I would tell my younger self, don't tell yourself, no, we have the tendency to see an opportunity or hear about something that is that we want, and then we tell ourselves, Well, I can't get that. Well, I don't check all the boxes, or they're probably going to hire that other person instead of me. Or, you know, do I belong in this room? And so I would do executive coaching as well. And so one thing I tell some of the folks I work with is, don't, don't say no to yourself before you even give yourself a chance. Right? They might be the person you're interviewing with or trying to connect with, they may tell you no, but they might tell you Yes, don't shut yourself down before you even try it. Right? And, and I know, as people of color and black women, we tend to tell ourselves, no, a lot. I know they have data around, like, when you look at a job description, and it has like, you know, you know those job descriptions, they have 30 different qualifications listed. Certain research says that as black women or just women, period, will go through the list and we don't meet. Almost all of them don't apply. We tell ourselves No. Versus white men, they'll check, you know, a third and they're like, I'm gonna nail this. You know, they put in their resume, and then they get going, right? And they probably get hired. Yes. So I would just tell myself, don't. Don't tell yourself, no, go for it. You belong in every room, even if you're the only one that looks like you there. You belong there. You're an expert at what you do. Don't let anybody make you feel like you're not or that what you have to say is not worthwhile and that valuable. So that's what I would tell my younger self.

Analiza: So powerful. Where can we find you? Maya like LinkedIn? Your website?

Maya: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn under Maya Bugg Faison. I'm on Instagram at Mayabugg and I have a website for my consulting firm, thebugconsultantinggroup.com. We do a ton of strategic planning. We do a lot of equity audits, where we evaluate your policies, processes and procedures, and see what the gap is between where you aspire to be in terms of being a more inclusive organization versus where you actually are. And then we help you reconcile that gap and give you clear recommendations on how to close it and to be who you want to be as an organization, values aligned. We do executive coaching. We do a lot of data analysis, focus groups, interviews, things like that. We've worked with groups from lots of National Center for Youth Law. We've worked with multiple foundations. I've done speaking engagements for Tory Burch for coach for FedEx and Progressive Insurance. Work with the US Congress. We work with dozens and dozens of organizations, and it's been a great feeling to know that we are impacting millions of folks through our work, in helping organizations to go from intention to action to being a more inclusive organization.

Analiza: Love that intention to action stopped with being just in our head. So it's like, make it happen. Love it, love it.

Maya: That's right.

Analiza: And then last question, Maya, do you have a final ask recommendation? Parting thoughts to share?

Maya: Oh, I just want to thank you for doing these interviews. I think it's very important that we share our stories as women in space. I think it's great that you are collecting these stories about how to move into leadership roles and hopefully taking away little nuggets to share with everyone doesn't that's great. And so I wish you the best. I'm excited for what you have ahead of you as well and the work that you're doing, and so I am a fan, so just let me know in a way I can help and champion you at any point.

Analiza: Thanks, Maya, so appreciate you.

Maya: Thank you so much.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time to hear today's podcast, three things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, you can get a free chapter of my book, The Myths of Success: A Woman of Color’s Guide to Leadership at analizawolf.com/freechapter. And lastly, if you're interested in executive coaching, please reach out to me at analiza@analizawolf.com. Thank you so very much.