Sarah Kaplan’s work on moving beyond the business case for inclusion is discussed in IN magazine.

“In Kaplan’s symposium keynote, she referenced her article in Rotman Management Magazine titled “Because it’s 2017: Gender Equality as an Innovation Challenge,” which reminds everyone of what systems are currently at play. She writes in the article: “We are all jointly producing and perpetuating a system that is biased and so, we are going to have to collaborate in order to solve the problem,” and she encourages companies to look at inclusion as an opportunity for innovation. She explains, “The demand for a business case perpetuates the existing ways of doing business, because we are being asked to make a case within the existing system – instead of thinking about how to change that system.”

After Kaplan spoke at the Government of Canada’s symposium, remarks were delivered by Patty Hajdu, the minister of employment, workforce development and labour. She reflected on her years before entering politics, when she was running a shelter that provides basic needs, dignity and comfort to those living in poverty in her hometown of Thunder Bay, Ont. She recounted that some of her matter-of-fact appeals for funding or government support went unanswered. Speaking to the crowd of business leaders attending the event, she openly wished that perhaps she had more powerfully emphasized the moral imperative that drove her work forward, and vowed to think differently moving forward.

The minister finished by thanking Kaplan for reminding her to look beyond dollars and cents to why the work of inclusion was so personally important to her. Silently, I did as well.”