The practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has come a long way during Helen Drexler's career. What started as some charitable donations and the occasional volunteer project has become a nonstop, comprehensive commitment to the community and its people—including a company's own employees. It's an expectation. Drexler, the CEO of Delta Dental of Colorado and managing director of Ensemble Innovation Ventures, joined the VEO Podcast to discuss the ways CSR is changing the corporate landscape and how the principle led to a pledge: Drexler vowed she would not lay off employees during COVID-19, nor profit off of the pandemic.
The VOE Podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Keep tuning in each month for more business insights from Daniels’ alumni voices of experience.
Transcript
Lorne Fultonberg:
Hello and welcome to the VOE Podcast,
Kristal Griffith:
An extension of Voices of Experience,
Nick Greenhalgh:
The signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business.
Lorne Fultonberg:
We’re your hosts, Lorne Fultonberg
Kristal Griffith:
Kristal Griffith
Nick Greenhalgh:
And I’m Nick Greenhalgh from the Daniels Office of Communications and Marketing.
Lorne Fultonberg:
We’ll be unpacking topics at the intersection of business and the public good with CEOs and other business leaders from the Daniels community.­ Let’s dive in.
Lorne Fultonberg:
When COVID-19 first shuttered and hampered businesses across the country, Helen Drexler made a bold statement. She vowed that her company—Delta Dental of Colorado—would not lay off a single employee during the throes of the pandemic. And, she pledged to return tens of millions of dollars to the insurance company’s stakeholders. We invited Drexler to join the VOE Podcast to tell us the thinking behind that decision and how these sorts of actions are redefining corporate social responsibility. Plus, we asked her how she’s practicing CSR as the managing director of a new venture capital platform, Ensemble Innovation Ventures.
Lorne Fultonberg:
Helen, thank you so much for joining us.
Helen Drexler:
Glad to be here.
Lorne Fultonberg:
I want to start by talking a little bit about how you see yourself and see your role at Delta Dental of Colorado. I've heard you call yourself a community champion and an advocate for oral health equity. So, what does that term mean, oral health equity, and why is it important?
Helen Drexler:
Yeah. So, the word equity has come into our dialogue a lot more often in the last few years, I think. And when I first got to Delta Dental Colorado, our foundation had a mission to eradicate caries in children. Caries is the clinical diagnosis for tooth decay.
Helen Drexler:
After about a year, we decided to shift our focus to oral health equity, and what that means is that we know there are certain populations and certain segments of our community that do not have the same or equal access to oral healthcare as others.
Helen Drexler:
So, for instance, there are more children of color who don't see a dentist at their first year of life or within their first couple of years of life than their counterparts. And so, oral health equity is really about making sure that everyone, regardless of background or life circumstances, or social demographics, that everyone has access to affordable and quality oral healthcare, so that everyone can have a healthy smile.
Lorne Fultonberg:
Yeah. What do strong healthy teeth have to do with strong local communities?
Helen Drexler:
Oh, that's a great question. Actually, I think strong, healthy teeth lead to healthy smiles, which lead to overall wellbeing. And it's a little bit of a two way street in my mind. We know that oral health and overall health are connected. There's a lot of systemic diseases that have a strong correlation to good oral health. So,