Erika Cospy Carr realizes she has big shoes to fill in taking over as the head of the Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance, an affiliate of the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation. She is the organization’s first leader outside of Gerry Fernandez, who founded the MFHA nearly 30 years ago to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion across the $1 trillion restaurant, foodservice, and hospitality industry.
Her transition also comes as activists push back on DEI policies, causing major companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Brown-Forman, and Boeing to adjust their strategies or drop their pledges altogether. It’s an interesting time to be sure, but Carr, who officially joined the MFHA in August, is up to the challenge, and driven by her own experience.
“My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father worked hard to provide opportunities for me,” Carr said during a recent interview. “As he climbed the ladder, he reached back, and I want to pay homage to his work by creating opportunities for others. And, I’m only in this position because someone was creating a pathway for me to get there, so I pay homage to those folks as well. This work is personally important to me.”
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Her first priority at MFHA has been a listening tour to understand how the environment is shifting and what exactly the industry needs from the organization, which provides best practices, research, partnerships, and solutions to improve DEI across organizations.
“What I’m hearing is there’s an opportunity to strengthen the talent pipeline – that we need to be showcasing career pathways,” she said.
The effort to improve messaging about the restaurant industry’s potential as a career versus a starter job has ramped up in the past several years since employees were deemed essential during the COVID pandemic. The opportunity is especially relevant for the MFHA, given the industry’s employee demographics. According to the National Restaurant Association, 50% of foodservice employees are minorities versus 41% of employees in the total U.S. employed labor force. But minorities are represented at much lower rates in leadership and board positions, and that gap is what motivates Carr to evolve the MFHA’s work, despite louder protests.
“We have to stay focused. The unique thing about our industry is we sit at a connection point for people and we’re also the second largest private sector employer,” she said. “We have to make sure people are walking through the front door and that they’re returning. That’s what people care about. To do that, we are keeping our focus and making sure we’re building future-ready leaders.”
Indeed, getting frontline employees to stick around, work their way up and become leaders presents a strong business case for employers, reducing costly training and turnover.
“We have an opportunity to tell our story differently to young professionals who don’t consider our industry for a career. But pathways are broad. There are 70-plus vocations within our industry, so one of the challenges is making sure people understand what is a valuable and that they see their path forward,” she said. “Showcasing individuals from underrepresented groups and how they’ve achieved success in the industry is a great place to start.”
Carr is also focused on bolstering leadership development programs and deepening MFHA’s existing partnerships with companies, as well as organizations like the Women’s Foodservice Forum. There are currently about 300 MFHA partners and Carr expects that number to grow this year.
MFHA will also continue to prioritize its educational resources, hosting webinars and roundtable discussions, for instance. Additionally, the organization recently developed a toolkit to help frontline operators create workplace civility and launched ELEVATE, a new framework to drive “positive change in DEI strategies” based on research conducted in partnership with the National Restaurant Association, the NRAEF, and Cornell University's Nolan School of Hotel Administration.
“What folks are asking is how do we create experiences that keep us sustainable, drive profitability, and keep our guests loyal. Our plan is to create resources to help leaders drive that experience – not just talk about it but arm the industry with leadership tools that help them bring this to life,” Carr said. “It requires a collective effort and bringing subject-matter experts into the conversation to solve large industry-related issues, make better decisions, drive revenue, and change representation numbers. It’s not a small feat, but one step at a time.”
Prior to joining the MFHA in early August, Carr served as chief impact and growth officer for the National Association of Black Accountants. She was also senior director of advisory services for Grads of Life, and senior manager, national community engagement for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. She has more than two decades of experience leading change initiatives at both nonprofits and in corporate environments.
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]
