Councilor Vargas Receives Nomination for Diversity Award

City Councilor Andy Vargas.

Formal congratulations presented to Haverhill City Councilor Andy Vargas.

Formal congratulations presented to Haverhill City Councilor Andy Vargas.

Haverhill City Councilor Andy Vargas was among the nominees Monday night when the Ad Club of Boston presented its Rosoff Awards, honoring “those in the business community who recognize that having a diverse workforce and operating in an inclusive environment is what creates true innovation and creativity.”

Vargas was nominated in the “20-Something” category, a new award for the 20th anniversary of the program. Nominees were honored for “shaking up the old notion of diversity,” according to the Ad Club.

“I was pleasantly surprised to receive the Ad Club’s Rosoff 20/20 nomination,” Vargas told WHAV. “I was humbled to stand beside the leaders that have championed diversity and inclusion in their respective sectors. Those in the public and private sector that have embraced diversity and inclusion are not only on the right side of history, but they also recognize that it is a smart business practice to have a diverse set of opinions and experiences at the table.”

The first-term Haverhill city councilor, and the first Latino to serve on the body, said he doesn’t know who nominated him. Others nominated in the category were Oliver Baez, Morrison Mahoney LLP; Kathryn Burgner, DigitasLBi; Anik Conley-Das, Level Up; Ankita Dasgupta, DigitasLBi; Melissa James, The Tech Connection; Janel Martinez, Ain’t I Latina?; Daquan Oliver, WeThrive; and Ian So, Chicken & Rice Guys. James, founder and chief executive officer, became the honoree.

Vargas acknowledged the change in corporate culture toward embracing the differences among people.

“We’ve got much further to go, but as I accepted the nomination, I could only think about how far we have come,” he said.

Besides serving on the Haverhill City Council, Vargas works as marketing manager for Lowell-based EforAll. He is a graduate of Boston University.

The Ad Club President Kathy Kiely kicked off the 20th Anniversary celebration by telling the crowd the night was “not a time to look back but an opportunity to look toward the future and to embrace diversity and inclusion as an innovation tool, a way to spark ideas, imagination and collaboration.”

In keeping with the new vision, Lee Pelton, president of Emerson College, and Bob Rivers, president and COO of Eastern Bank, were honored with 20/20 Visionary Awards. The new award was established to recognize individual leaders who embrace diversity not as a mandate but as a movement that will take them to the edge of innovation, inspiration and excellence.

Verna Myers, lawyer, entrepreneur, author and cultural innovator was keynote speaker. She has worked for more than two decades to eradicate barriers of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation at many institutions, from elite Wall Street powerhouses to the 10,000-member New York City Fire Department. She shared personal experiences about unconscious biases and spelled out the steps needed to disrupt the status quo and embrace difference.

The evening capped off with the presentation of awards, emceed by WBZ‐TV journalist Paul Burton. Companies honored for embracing diversity and “showing corporate America how it’s done” were Athenahealth, College Bound Dorchester, Digitas LBi, MassMutual Financial Group, Neighborhood Health Plan, Nixon Peabody, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and Radius Financial Group.

The award for the individual “driving the new vision for diversity from the top down” went to Stephen Neff, enterprise chief technology officer, at Fidelity Investments.

The Ad Club, trade association for the New England marketing and communications industry, was joined by more than 350 business professionals at the ceremony at InterContinental Hotel, Boston.

3 thoughts on “Councilor Vargas Receives Nomination for Diversity Award

  1. “Those in the public and private sector that have embraced diversity and inclusion are not only on the right side of history” –

    It would be better if this country could focus on being equal as Americans, not on what race, color or creed et al. we are. If successful, then maybe, just maybe, we could focus on the rest of humanity. Until that day, the word “diversity” will be synonymous with the word “divide”.

  2. How is this news?
    Acorn Andy, did you contact HAV to promote yourself ‘again’?

    “Vargas acknowledged the change in corporate culture toward embracing the differences among people.”
    How exactly can you make this statement Andy? You’ve never actually worked in a corporation have you?
    A 501C3 charity isn’t a corporation.

    People working in corporations are not “embracing” differences, they’re having them forced down their throats by out of control liberalism in this country. Just ask Kim Davis and Curt Schilling.