Keri Kubokawa Vogtmann

After nine years in the healthcare IT consulting business, with two of those years at Liberty IT Solutions, my manager approached me with a promotional opportunity to become a portfolio director.  I had turned down a similar offer before.  This time my manager applied more pressure, expressing encouragement from not only himself, but his manager who would become the Chief Operation Officer (COO) and colleagues who would become my peers. I asked, “Why me?” He responded with “Because you’re a minority and you’re a female.”  

My jaw dropped to the ground. I was speechless. Did he just say what I thought he said?  After the awkward pause, he quickly tried to rebound with compliments of how good and how smart I am.   

I knew I was walking into an isolating situation. No one above my level was a female or a minority, and no one at my level was a person of color. Still, I took the role.  I hoped my example would encourage others to rise in the organization, too. I also wanted to provide opportunities to people who may not otherwise be considered as potential management.

Within days of transitioning into my new role, I received the salary information of my staff.  The document contained the salary of my predecessor, a white male. I nearly fell over in my chair.  His salary was 35% higher than mine. That was the beginning of a very rough chapter in my life.  

I decided to prove my worth through hard work and dedication before saying anything about the pay disparity. There were periods of working seven days of week, 12 to 15 hours a day, even during the holidays. The portfolio nearly doubled as business steadily increased, and we landed a $1B deal with Veterans Affairs. I actively participated in candidate interviews and made sure we took an inclusive approach to diversity by including those, for example, who had taken time off from the working world and faced challenges getting back in. My staff worked towards a long-term vision I had created for the organization with many irons in the fire, streamlining operations and launching new projects that would benefit the company.

After about seven months in my new role, I shared with the COO my accomplishments and the fact that I knew I was underpaid in comparison to my predecessor. I had never been written up, never reprimanded, never warned. In fact, I received a 15% raise six months into my role and a 5-figure bonus along the way. The COO responded dismissively with “you make good money” — end of conversation.

That same month, I presented to leadership the vision for my portfolio and what we were doing to strengthen it. The president of Liberty thanked me for my excellent presentation. He requested a copy of my presentation and observed that I “thoughtfully broke down the activities that are required to build this practice.” In a follow-up meeting amongst his leadership team, the president expressed his appreciation for what I was doing, urging others to learn more about my strategies and leverage those ideas and practices across the company.

Shortly after, things quickly changed. I sensed my manager was much colder toward me. It wasn’t business as usual. On one occasion, when I was on vacation, despite having a resourcing plan for my staff to follow on various client projects in my absence, my manager shuffled people around. I chimed in on emails to attempt to quell the chaos and made calls to my staff who were equally baffled. My manager told me to enjoy my vacation and not worry about it.  

A month later, my manager booked a meeting with me on a Monday. He started off by admitting that neither he nor the COO ever provided me with support or coaching and that things weren’t working out. He told me that I would be moving over to some internal projects and that my replacement would be starting in a few weeks. What? My what? He wanted me to think about it and get back to him. What was there to think about? I interpreted it as take the role or get out. Never at work had I felt so betrayed. Sucker punched in the gut.

One month I was propped up on a pedestal; another month those legs of the pedestal were kicked out from under me, and down I tumbled. By Friday that same week I was fired on the grounds that I sent work email to my personal email — never mind that my manager had sent sensitive government documents to my personal email. In one fell swoop, I was gone.

I realized how many years of discrimination and bias had been pushed to the back of my mind throughout that time. Somewhere along the way, I had accepted the idea that it was my responsibility to manage others’ ignorance, bias and prejudice if I wanted to succeed in the workplace with the support of those in power. When I realized how alone I had become, and how betrayed by those who seemed to pave the way for me, I knew enough was enough.

My husband, children, and parents watched every move I made as I faced this difficult time alone.  I tried to shield as much as I could from my parents especially, who suffered their own trauma during their internment in the Japanese American and Japanese Canadian concentration camps during World War II. My father’s civil rights activism and my own desire to set an example for my children drove me to take legal action. I knew I must do what’s right for my family, my community, and myself.

We must hold people who undermine opportunities for people of color accountable for their behavior. If we don’t speak out, our silence will continue to be misinterpreted as compliance. We must step forward, share our stories, and build allyship to stop the cycle of injustice.