Tariq Meyers ’14 graduated from Ithaca College with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and government as a Martin Luther King Scholar. The MLK Scholarship is awarded to students of color with demonstrated leadership within academic or home communities, providing them with resources to develop their personal and academic skills. Meyers attributed much of who he is and where he is today to the program and said he believes it served as the entry point into his career.
Meyers is the chief careers officer for Podium Education and co-founder and co-CEO of Untapped, a career talent platform designed to close the opportunity gap for college students. Untapped helps young people transition from college to the workforce through a global career accelerator that teaches students in-demand skills and provides them with real-world experiences that will connect them to a network of employers. In addition to Untapped, Meyers was previously head of inclusion and diversity for Lyft and Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform.
Contributing writer Matthew Telyczka spoke with Meyers about his college experiences as a student, leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Matthew Telyczka: What were some specific experiences at Ithaca College that served as a foundation for your career now?
Tariq Meyers: When I joined IC, I entered as an MLK Scholar, and that became the foundation for pretty much everything that I would do for the rest of my life. [It was] a scholarship program that wasn’t just a scholarship, but an experience that enabled you to explore the things you cared most about. And the way that the MLK program, I think, helped shape my worldview in my lens was this idea that people shouldn’t be defined by their life circumstances but empowered to defy them. That the zip code you’re born in or who you love or who you pray to or where you might live or have grown up shouldn’t be a barrier to opportunity, but actually should be seen as part of your greatest gifts.
MT: Could you tell me more about Untapped and how you developed the concept?
TM: What I found in 2020 was that there’s a lot going on in our world. We were just coming out of a pandemic. We were seeing the underbelly of the health care system where certain communities were able to access health care and lifesaving technology and others weren’t. … Across sectors, $50 billion were pledged toward closing the opportunity gap and bringing more equity to our world and to me that was a wake-up call because I was doing this work for just one individual company. And when I looked around at the industry, I realized pretty quickly that there weren’t too many solutions out there to deliver on this promise of opportunity. There was a lot of cash available. There was a lot of resources available. But where were the solutions? … So that was the birth of Untapped: this idea that people are more than just pedigree and previous experience and that they’re more than just a couple of lines on their resume.
MT: Did you ever envision yourself working in this field when you were a college student?
TM: I think that if you asked me when I was a young Bomber graduating in 2014 if this is what I’d be doing, the answer would be no. But I think what I did and what Ithaca helped me do was really discover my “why.” I quickly realized that career paths are not linear. For some they are, but for most they’re not. The first job you get out of college is likely not the last job you’re going to have for the rest of your life. But I can say that what has connected all of my experiences is the understanding of the type of impact that I want to have on the world. And so, if you follow my career from that young guy who had just graduated from school in that nonprofit fellowship to the role that I have now as chief careers officer at Podium, I think you’ll find that the consistent thread is just my dying passion for wanting to broaden the opportunity landscape for folks who have been left out.
MT: How do you balance staying true to your identity while being a good leader?
TM: Oh, it’s hard. My number one leadership trait is my ability to be authentic and I build incredible relationships with the folks that I lead. It wasn’t always like that, but I think what I realized when I became a leader with some positional authority is that my ability to be authentic gives other people across the board the ability to also be themselves. And I never wanted to be the leader that was one way at home or at church and another way in the office because that’s just draining and it’s not who I am. The Tariq Meyers that’s chatting with you today is the same brother that shows up to work. It’s the same brother that shows up to students. I know that part of the way in which I restore humanity back in the workplace is by, again, being myself. We spend more time often with each other at work than we do with our own families. And so, in order to engender a sense of trust, in order to be able to achieve the missions of the different companies that I work for, Tariq showing up as himself was incredibly important.
MT: How do you respond to challenges against DEI initiatives? As somebody who is impacted by these efforts, what are you doing to take care of yourself while also dealing with those challenges?
TM: At every presidential election or midterm election, I’ve seen the pendulum toward inclusion swing back and forth. The 2016 election was extremely divisive and the level of rhetoric that was out in the world was extremely hurtful. … The fact that we weren’t even able to have a conversation was a scary thing as a DEI leader to hold. After 2016, we started to see some progress. You know we started to see some policy changes and some workplace policy changes and boom. We’re back to the same divisive place. 2020 happens. Again, an incredibly tough time. Extremely divisive rhetoric, protests in the street, people not able to have civilized conversations, injustice pretty much everywhere. The business case for diversity to me is falling flat. To me, it just means that the only way that we can justify creating an inclusive world is because we’re going to make some money off of it. That’s ridiculous. We have to be able to evolve that conversation. … I’m now no longer phased, necessarily, by attacks on DEI because I’ve seen this movie before. What I am excited about is each and every time that pendulum swings back it comes that much harder right at being able to evolve its tactics. And if I’m being honest, it brings a few more experiences with it. We’re no longer talking about just a racial justice, solidarity movement, we’re talking about a cross-section of society. No matter who you are [or] where you come from, you can get on this boat towards justice. And we’re seeing that evolution.
