Thankful Thursday: Ben Reuler
This week’s Thankful Thursday gratitude is for my new friend, Ben Reuler! Ben is the CEO of In the Area Productions in Seattle, Washington and is leading some powerful anti-racism conversations with white leaders.
A former licensed social worker and nonprofit executive director, Ben experienced a need to transform an organization he led to be less white-centered. The goal was to create a culture and structure that was considerably more attuned to the needs, cultural instincts and the significant marginalization of the BIPOC community who intersected the work of his organization from top to bottom. His keen awareness that white leaders and white-led companies need to adapt and evolve led him to create processing sessions and take the podium at important conferences and events to create space and demand accountability. This is why he founded In the Area Productions.
Ben understands that when intentional transformation anchored in achieving appropriate levels of representation and power gains traction, morale and performance improve. Ben shares his story willingly and authentically and his joy for this work is evident when you spend even a little time with him.
Today, I send gratitude to Ben for stepping up and stepping into this work. Ultimately, the dismantling of systems designed to hold people down and back requires folx representative of the entire system to participate and hold themselves responsible to and accountable for the change they are seeking. If you have a team of white folx who recognize their attitudes and behavior must change in order to achieve a world that works for everyone, reach out to Ben. He’s got some good talk for you.
And thank you, Racquel Russell, for the introduction to Ben! It is true that good people know good people.