Taking DEI Into the Future feat. Amanda Stewart ‘08

Owl Have You Know

These days, you don't often find someone who's been with their job for maybe 5 or 10 years. Well, Amanda Stewart has been at Constellation for 15 years now and is still committed to helping the company grow.

Amanda earned a BBA from UT Austin in 2002, with a concentration in marketing, and an MBA from Rice Business in 2008. She is the vice president of retail operations for Constellation, the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy and a leading competitive retail supplier of power and energy products and services for homes and businesses across the U.S.

She sits down with host Scott Gale ‘19 to chat about the benefits of getting an MBA at a smaller school, what has kept her working with passion at Constellation for 15 years, and how her Japanese-American background and the internment camps of WWII are a central part of her family’s history and her commitment to DEI work.

Episode Quotes:

The value of working together

18:19 - If we understand how to work together better, we will deliver better results for the organization. We can become a high-performing team that delivers for the organization because we've created an environment where everybody's voice matters. You have a totally different experience than mine. If I learn from your experiences and then use that when we sit around a table to solve a problem, we'll come up with a better answer.

How her grandparents played an essential role in her passion for DEI

16:16 - The real story behind my passion for DEI comes right back to my grandparents. They had very high and very hopeful expectations. They believe that freedom, basic human rights, happiness, and a little success for our families was not only possible but probable for generations to come. And so, really, when I think about my DEI work and the work we still have left to do, I'm really motivated to do right by them and everything that they did for us.

What does inclusion look like

23:46 - That's what inclusion looks like. We hear different perspectives, and we understand them. We might not agree with them, but we embrace them, and we listen.

Leading an organization by embracing DEI

13:41 - As a leader in a huge organization, I feel a strong sense of accountability for creating a culture that embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It’s impossible to not fall in love with the Rice community

03:12 - It's impossible not to fall in love with the Rice campus, the Rice community, and the business school. And that was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made in my career: to come back to Houston to do the full-time program at Rice. It was exactly what I needed at that point in my career. Where I wasn't really very specific about what I needed. I just knew it was something different, something original and unique, and I needed a little refresh at that point.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

• Amanda Stewart on LinkedIn

Check out this episode featuring Professor Anastasia Zavyalova here: https://business.rice.edu/owlhaveyouknow/season-3-episode-10