Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Wade Hinton has launched a business, Hinton & Company, and will work as a chief inclusion partner for clients across sectors.Former city attorney and mayoral candidate Wade Hinton's new company focuses on advancing work he has spent his entire career pursuing, he said.
"If you ask organizations how they're doing on diversity and inclusion, I think all of them will say they can do better," he said. "As well-intended as they are, there still are some that are stuck. We can assess where they are, and create a strategy to get them where they want to go."
One of Hinton & Company's first clients will be U.S. Xpress, which has launched work to make inclusion and diversity a core element of its culture, CEO Eric Fuller said.
"We've had those discussions internally that we need to get more intentional about diversity and inclusion, but we didn't know if we were ready to have a chief diversity and inclusion officer," Fuller said. "We have good intentions, but we honestly don't know what we're doing, and Wade mentioned exactly what we were struggling with."
Hinton will work as a chief inclusion partner for companies that feel "stuck," helping them understand where to focus their efforts to build inclusive cultures, he said.
"It is a contractual relationship, but it's a partnership," he said. "We think it's important they see us as part of the team, and we are, to ensure they can operate in a way that's inclusive, whether with employees or in the community."
Hinton, who came in third among 15 candidates in Chattanooga's mayoral election in March, most recently worked as vice president of inclusion and diversity for Unum. From 2013 to 2018, he served as Chattanooga's first Black city attorney.
He previously was deputy general counsel for Volkswagen Group of America's Chattanooga operations after working in private practice at the local law firms of Miller & Martin; Snipes Roberson and Hinton; and Shumacker & Thompson. He also was a former director of the Hamilton County Title 6 Civil Rights program and served as a consultant to Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey on issues related to diversity and minority business programs.
The combination of his broad background and his plans to work with companies across sectors makes Hinton a valuable partner, Fuller said.
"I've become a big believer in the last year in all of the benefits of benchmarking and understanding best practices," he said. "As Wade works with these multiple organizations, that brings even more broad thinking to the table."
Hinton's team includes five contractors he has hired to focus on topics including data analysis and communications to support his work, he said. Demand is clear for expertise on how to make inclusion a core tenet of company culture, particularly after last summer's public calls for racial justice, he said.
"Leaders are grappling with how to get beyond the commitments and the pledges," Hinton said. "People will ask you what happened with the commitments and pledges. Shareholders will ask."
Contact Mary Fortune at mfortune@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maryfortune.