What Is BAMM?: An Inside Look at a New Program Built by Employees

July 20, 2018 | Filed in: Humans of MM

Here at MM, we take pride in telling stories about working women from all walks of life—and that’s the same spirit in which BAMM, a new group founded by MM employees, was created. BAMM stands for “Black at MM,” and was created to serve as an internal resource group for black employees, and a place to advocate for more stories about the experience of black working women. In the coming weeks, you’ll see more of BAMM’s influence across the M Dash—and to kick things off, MM stylist Pauline Odedina sat down to tell us more about the program. 

The idea for BAMM came out of an initial conversation with my team members Mary Adeogun and Audrey White about the importance of having a resource group for black employees at MM—a place where we could build connections and discuss topics that were relevant to our community. Since that discussion, we’ve added team member Chell Burke to the group and launched a number of initiatives within the company.

BAMM member Audrey White.

Within MM, BAMM’s goal is to bring black employees together to discuss subjects that might not otherwise come up in a typical work environment. The group offers a safe space for black employees to unwind and share their experiences, to network with one another, and to support each other. We also want to use it as a forum to bring attention to philanthropic causes that we feel strongly about—and then raise awareness of those causes within the whole MM team.

We believe that our unique perspective as black employees helps us to contribute new approaches to team and business challenges. One of those new approaches involves us working closely with the content team on stories that we believe are important. Through this partnership, we hope to be able to reach customers who don’t always feel represented in mass media by creating content that is relatable, useful, and offers a wide range of representation.

BAMM member Pauline Odedina.

In the future, we’d like to see BAMM take on a bigger presence at tech conferences, organizations focused on women in business, fashion events, and other spaces where black employees aren’t typically represented in large numbers. We also hope that this group will be a catalyst for other underserved communities to create their own employee resource groups within the MM community, and beyond. We want our customers to know how deeply MM values the diversity of its employees and wants to celebrate those differences. It’s always important to know how a company that you support feels about championing its employees, and I think BAMM is an example of what can happen when employees are given the opportunity to pursue projects they care deeply about. Ultimately, we want customers to know that as MM works to become the go-to brand for professional women, BAMM is doing its part to ensure that black women are well-represented within that vision.