A Mixed Executive Perspective
A Mixed Executive Perspective Podcast, hosted by Grace Fooden-Correy, explores identity, leadership, and belonging through the lived experience of a biracial woman navigating corporate America. Drawing from her personal life and career as a senior fashion executive, Grace shares honest stories and lessons about showing up authentically in spaces not built for you. This series offers visibility, validation, and real perspective for biracial professionals and anyone striving to lead, grow, and stay true to themselves.
Belonging Shouldn’t Cost You a Parent
When people tell someone of mixed heritage to “pick a side,” what are they really asking that person to give up?
Grace Fooden-Correy explores the emotional cost of having other people define your racial identity. Inspired by a young biracial woman who was told she was Black, not mixed, Grace examines how these labels can erase the love, culture, and influence of one parent.
This episode challenges the belief that mixed people must reject part of themselves to be accepted. Your identity is yours to define, and genuine belonging should never require you to disown your...
The Hidden Cost of Being the Only One
For years, Grace Fooden Correy navigated corporate culture as one of the few people of color in the room. What once made her feel distinctive eventually became emotionally exhausting.
Grace reveals how leaving corporate life helped her recognize the identity-related burnout she had been carrying. She shares how consulting, mentoring Black women, marrying another mixed person, and changing her daily environment allowed her to move from merely standing out to experiencing genuine belonging.
This episode explores mixed identity, workplace culture, racial hypervigilance, personal healing, and the importance of asking mixed people what support truly looks...
Who Decides What a Leader Looks Like?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy shares what happened when she entered her first vice president role wearing her natural hair and refusing to let corporate expectations completely define her.
Grace reflects on moving from the creative freedom of New York’s fashion industry into executive leadership, where race, appearance, professionalism, and belonging carried different assumptions. Through her experience, she reveals the power of personal agency: deciding who you will be before the room gets a vote.
She also challenges listeners to recognize where they may be softening their voices, wi...
Mixed, Black, and Done Explaining
Grace Fooden-Correy has heard two seemingly opposite judgments throughout her life: “She thinks she’s white” and “You don’t have to tell people you’re mixed. You look Black.”
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace explains how both comments placed the same burden on her: making her identity easier for other people to categorize.
She explores mixed identity, Black identity, belonging, code-switching, and the pressure to manage other people’s comfort in predominantly Black and white spaces. Grace also discusses how identifying herself as mixed became a workplace and social survival strategy, and wh...
Why I Chose Not to Have Children
Grace Fooden-Correy always knew she did not want children, but the real reason had little to do with career, freedom, or ambition.
In this deeply personal episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace reveals how growing up biracial shaped her decision not to become a parent. She reflects on learning how race, whiteness, wealth, and social status affected power and belonging, navigating dating across racial and cultural lines, and questioning whether she could bring a mixed child into a world that had made her feel like an outsider.
Mentoring eventually forced Grace to revisit the...
Who Decides If You’re Black Enough?
Can you be certain of your Black identity while still questioning where you culturally belong?
Grace Fooden-Correy delivers a deeply personal reflection on being a Black biracial woman raised largely within white, college-educated culture. She explores why her mother made that intentional choice, how it prepared her to navigate the world, and the emotional trade-offs that followed.
Grace discusses missing Black cultural references, feeling uncomfortable in Black spaces, and carrying the quiet shame of wondering whether she was “Black enough.” She also confronts the pressure to choose between culture and blood, privilege and marginalization, or the...
I Experienced Racism—but Never Learned Black History
How can someone experience racism throughout their life yet never fully learn the Black history behind it?
Grace Fooden-Correy shares the uncomfortable reality of growing up as a mixed woman immersed in white culture. Although she experienced racial bias personally, much of the history surrounding systemic racism, the crack epidemic, mass incarceration, and racial inequality was absent from her education and everyday conversations.
After giving a white friend an incomplete explanation for the homelessness and drug addiction outside his luxury condominium, Grace begins examining the gap between experiencing racism and understanding the systems that produce...
When does “cultural fit” become corporate code for race
Grace Fooden-Correy recounts helping a mostly white executive search firm recruit a leader for a Black-owned wellness brand. She immediately understood that “cultural fit” meant a Black candidate. But the deeper reckoning came when Grace caught herself repeating the same coded phrase.
In this candid episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace explores mixed identity, executive hiring, workplace bias, belonging, and the pressure to mirror corporate language that does not tell the truth. She also confronts what it means to participate in a system you recognize as flawed, especially when challenging it could threaten your professional reputation.
Why Pretending to Be Perfect Is Hurting Your Career
What does pretending to be perfect cost you professionally and personally?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden-Correy explores the pressure many mixed professionals, Black women, and women of color experience to appear more prepared, polished, and composed than everyone else.
After several things went wrong before an important client meeting, Grace made a different choice. Instead of pretending everything was fine, she told the truth. The meeting still went well, and she discovered that acknowledging an imperfect moment made her feel more human and connected.
Grace also reflects on...
The Burden of Seeing Both Sides
What does it cost emotionally to see multiple sides of a divided world?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden-Correy shares the complex reality of being a mixed woman raised in white culture yet perceived by the world as Black.
A photograph of a young Black woman surrounded by masked members of a white supremacist group forces Grace to confront two truths at once: the fear she feels as a Brown woman and her belief that even people whose views she rejects have the right to peacefully assemble.
Grace connects...
Changing Course Is Not Failure
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy reflects on the pressure many people feel when they need to change direction in life. Through a powerful mentoring story, Grace explores family expectations, cultural identity, shame, and the courage it takes to admit that the path you are on may no longer be the right one.
This conversation reminds listeners that changing schools, changing majors, or changing course does not mean failure. Sometimes it means growth. Sometimes it means self-awareness. And sometimes it means finally giving yourself permission to stop pretending that a path still...
Who Told You How to Belong?
Who taught us what it means to fit in?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy examines how collective expectations can shape identity, success, and belonging. Drawing on ideas from Dr. Todd Rose’s Collective Illusions and her own career in fashion, Grace explores how style, status, and professional image can become tools for navigating corporate culture, especially for mixed-race professionals.
This is a candid conversation about workplace belonging, identity at work, executive confidence, authenticity, and letting go of the pressure to perform for rooms that may never fully see you.
...Are You Being Seen for Your Work, or Just Your Identity?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy examines what it feels like when people begin to see identity before they see your career, experience, and body of work.
Grace shares a candid reflection on mixed identity, workplace perception, hair, fashion, authenticity, and the pressure professionals can face when moving between different cultural and professional spaces. This is not simply a conversation about appearance. It is about being recognized as a whole person, preserving your professional range, and refusing to let other people’s assumptions define the opportunities available to you.
A ne...
Can AI Help Mixed Leaders Be Heard?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden-Correy examines how AI can help leaders communicate with clarity without surrendering their voice, identity, or lived experience.
Through the lens of mixed identity, corporate culture, and belonging, Grace reflects on the pressure to translate yourself in professional spaces and how technology can support communication when used with intention.
What You’ll Learn:
• How AI can become a tool for communication, not a replacement for thought
• Why does corporate culture often force mixed leaders to adjust how they are heard
• How to p...
Why Are Mixed Executives Still Invisible at Work?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden-Correy explores why mixed-race celebrities, athletes, and politicians are often publicly recognized, while mixed-race executives and business professionals remain far less visible.
Grace reflects on corporate assimilation, workplace safety, leadership, belonging, and the pressure mixed professionals can feel hiding parts of their identity in order to advance. She also looks at how younger mixed-race communities are using social media to talk openly about hair, identity, culture, and the questions they still face.
This episode challenges corporate culture to make room for difference, not just tolerate sameness.<...
Why Does Leaving the Bubble Feel Different When You’re Mixed?
Grace Fooden-Correy shares a personal reflection on mixed identity, travel, visibility, hair, race, and belonging. What begins as a family trip becomes a powerful look at the emotional calculations mixed-race people often make when entering unfamiliar or predominantly white spaces.
This episode explores how leaving a familiar bubble can reshape how safe you feel, how visible you become, and how deeply identity follows you wherever you go.
What you will hear
• How mixed identity is experienced through travel
• Why visibility can create emotional pressure
• How hair, appearance, and belonging are co...
What Happens When Performing at Work Follows You Home?
Grace Fooden Correy reflects on mixed identity, Black womanhood, corporate culture, and the emotional cost of performing until it becomes automatic.
After a high-pressure trade show in New York, Grace realizes the performance she uses to navigate white corporate spaces has followed her home. Through a moment of shared recognition with another Black woman, and a quiet morning filled with music and pancakes, she begins to reconnect with the parts of herself she had been smoothing over.
What you will learn:
Why performance at work can become emotional survival
How mixed...
What Happens When Difference Isn’t Visible at Work?
In this audio episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden-Corry examines identity, belonging, and workplace equity through the story of a Black woman raised in white culture who now works in a predominantly white male profession.
Grace explores what happens when someone is seen one way, shaped another way, and forced to navigate corporate culture without easy answers. This is a conversation about invisible differences, assimilation, resistance, mentorship, and the courage to stand fully in who you are.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:41 Identity and belonging
1:22 Raised in white culture
<...When Do You Stop Managing Everyone Else’s Emotions?
On this audio episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy shares a personal reflection on mixed identity, emotional regulation, corporate culture, and the hidden emotional labor many professionals carry in racialized spaces.
From workplace politics to client conversations to a powerful moment inside a racially charged exhibit, Grace explores what happens when you realize you have spent years managing everyone else’s feelings before your own.
This episode speaks directly to mixed-race professionals, Brown women, Black women, parents raising mixed-race children, corporate leaders, and anyone seeking to understand belonging, boundaries, and emotional health in...
Where Do Mixed Professionals Find Safe Space at Work?
In this audio episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy reflects on identity, assimilation, safe spaces, and the first time she truly felt seen in corporate culture.
Grace shares what it was like to work as the only Black executive in a Southern office, where fitting in often meant hiding parts of herself. She explains how a daily fifteen-minute conversation with another woman of color became a place of honesty, relief, and real connection.
Grace also discusses attending her first Black funeral and discovering a deeper sense of cultural belonging. This episode speaks...
Were You Bad Or Just Different?
Today, Grace Fooden Correy reflects on a powerful realization about mixed identity, childhood belonging, workplace bias, and the stories we carry into adulthood.
Grace shares how, as a child, she interpreted being different as being “bad.” Years later, she sees that feeling differently. It was not a personal flaw. It was a cultural experience without language, support, or space.
This episode examines mixed identity, corporate culture, Black womanhood, mentorship, healing, resilience, and the pressure to navigate professional spaces carefully when bias is always present.
What You Will Learn
• Why mixed identity can cr...
What Happens When Mixed Identity Refuses a Box?
Today, Grace Fooden Correy, host of A Mixed Executive Perspective, explores mixed identity, interracial marriage, cultural belonging, and the future of raising mixed children in a world still shaped by bias.
In this episode, Grace shares the story of a mixed-race couple whose relationship brings together Black identity, immigrant identity, Jewish tradition, Christian faith, and a thoughtful vision for family. The conversation looks at what it means to raise children who understand the realities of race and bias, while still being free to choose how they define themselves.
This episode is about identity, belonging, parenting...
Why Do We Edit Ourselves Around Race?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy reflects on a brief parking lot confrontation that revealed a deeper truth about race, mixed identity, self-editing, and belonging. What looked like an ordinary moment became a powerful lens into how people manage discomfort, code-switch emotionally, and decide which parts of the truth feel safe to say out loud.
Grace explores how race changes the meaning of everyday interactions, why some conversations feel easier with certain people than others, and how mixed identity can sharpen your awareness of what is spoken and what is left unsaid...
"They Can’t Be Siblings” — Based on What?
Today, Grace Fooden Correy, host of A Mixed Executive Perspective, explores a real-life moment that exposes how mixed-race identity is still misunderstood in today’s society. When a school administrator questioned whether two children could be siblings based on appearance alone, it revealed a deeper issue around bias, identity, and how we define family.
This episode breaks down how assumptions rooted in race continue to shape experiences for mixed race families, even in spaces that claim to be inclusive. It also challenges the cultural discomfort that prevents honest conversations about race from happening in everyday life.
...
Who Did You Become to Belong?
Today, Grace Fooden Correy, executive and host of A Mixed Executive Perspective, breaks down a powerful truth about identity, belonging, and corporate culture.
In this episode, Grace shares her personal journey of navigating corporate environments as a mixed-race professional, where success often required adaptation, silence, and self-editing. From being “the only one in the room” to confronting the reality of systemic disparities, such as the 0.02% VC funding statistic, this conversation exposes the hidden cost of fitting in.
This is a raw and honest look at what it means to succeed while suppressing parts of who you...
Is Colorism Quietly Defining Where You Belong?
Today, Grace Fooden Correy, host of A Mixed Executive Perspective, takes on a powerful and often-avoided conversation: colorism and its impact on identity, belonging, and lived experience.
In this episode, Grace unpacks how skin tone, hair texture, and proximity to whiteness quietly shape how people are perceived, where they feel accepted, and how they learn to navigate the world. Through personal reflection and family examples, she explores how even children from the same household can be sorted into different experiences based on color and cultural cues.
This conversation goes beyond race alone. It is about...
Is “Post-Racial” America Just a Bubble?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, host Grace Fooden-Correy explores a powerful question shaping modern identity and leadership conversations: Are some Americans living in a “post-racial” bubble while others experience a very different reality?
As the United States becomes increasingly multiracial, many communities believe the country is moving toward a more inclusive future. But outside certain diverse cities and social circles, racial perception and hierarchy can still shape everyday interactions.
Grace shares personal experiences navigating mixed identity, belonging, and perception, examining how mixed-race professionals and families often move between two different realities. One wher...
Did I Misunderstand My Identity as a Mixed-Race Woman?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, host Grace Fooden Correy shares a powerful personal reflection on identity, belonging, and how mixed-race identity is often interpreted in American culture.
After discovering that her parents were likely featured in the book Love, Race and the Mixed Marriage Project, Grace uncovers new details about their interracial relationship and the cultural environment that shaped her childhood. What begins as a search for family history becomes a deeper realization about how society reads mixed identity versus how individuals experience it within their own families.
Grace explores how perception...
Before You Open Your Mouth, They’ve Already Decided
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective (Audio), Grace Fooden Correy explores what it means to navigate corporate culture as a mixed professional.
Long before intention is expressed, perception is formed. Grace reflects on growing up in a mixed family in Chicago and how those early lessons shaped her executive presence, negotiation style, and ability to read the room in professional environments.
From traveling the Heartland as a merchant to managing buyer relationships in spaces not designed for complexity, she unpacks the emotional intelligence, restraint, and strategy often required of mixed professionals.
...
What Happens When Prejudice Fractures Your Family Lineage?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy examines what happens when racial prejudice fractures a family system and reshapes identity across generations.
Disowned for marrying outside his race and faith, Grace’s father severed ties with his Jewish family. The silence that followed created a blank space in her lineage. No rituals. No stories. No cultural grounding. What unfolds is a powerful exploration of mixed identity, divided loyalties, accidental reconnection, emotional restraint, and the long-term structural impact of segregation within a family.
This is not simply a story about ancestry. It is...
The Cost of Being Palatable at Work
Today, Grace Fooden Correy, Host of A Mixed Executive Perspective, breaks down the hidden cost of being “palatable” in corporate America and how mixed identity is interpreted in leadership spaces.
In this audio episode, Grace explores executive presence, corporate culture, identity navigation, and perceptions of leadership. She shares personal experiences navigating perfectionism, bias, and being misread in moments of direct feedback. This conversation examines how mixed professionals manage tone, expression, and strategy in environments that were not designed for their complexity.
If you have ever felt pressure to soften your message, strategically package your ideas, or d...
What Does Corporate Culture See in Mixed Identity?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, host Grace Fooden Correy explores how mixed identity is read, interpreted, and often misread within corporate culture and broader society.
Through cultural analysis, storytelling, and lived experience, Grace examines how mixed women have historically been portrayed in film and television, and what those portrayals reveal about belonging, visibility, and power. From early narratives rooted in shame and assimilation to modern representations grounded in agency and self-authorship, this conversation traces both progress and the gaps that remain.
This episode connects popular culture to real workplace dynamics, including the...
The Cost of Editing Yourself at Work, Mixed Identity and Leadership Truth
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy explores the hidden cost of editing yourself at work and what mixed identity reveals about leadership, belonging, and authenticity in corporate culture.
Through personal storytelling and lived leadership experience, Grace examines how identity is often misread in professional environments, how code-switching becomes a survival strategy, and why suppressing parts of yourself carries long-term consequences for confidence, credibility, and connection. This conversation reframes authenticity not as a personal risk, but as a leadership necessity.
Designed for executives, professionals, creatives, and parents raising mixed-identity children, this...
Your Hair Gets Read Before Your Résumé
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Before you speak, before you perform, before your résumé even matters, your hair can be interpreted as a signal of credibility, professionalism, and belonging.
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy unpacks how hair and appearance function as workplace power, not personal preference. She breaks down the “risk range” professionals calculate in real time, how the same hair can be read as “bold” in one room and “unprofessional” in another, especially in conservative markets, commission environments...
Fashion Loves Mixed Identity, Until It’s in Charge
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Leave a review and tell us this: where have you seen “acceptable difference” show up at work, the version of diversity that is allowed to be visible, but not allowed to lead?
In this episode of A Mixed Executive Perspective, Grace Fooden Correy examines how mixed identity is read, interpreted, and often misunderstood in corporate culture, using the fashion industry as a case study in power, perception, and belonging. Grace breaks down how fashion's color systems prioritize white skin as the...
Welcome to A Mixed Executive Perspective
Welcome to A Mixed Executive Perspective, a podcast exploring identity, leadership, and belonging through the lens of lived experience.
In this inaugural episode, host Grace Fooden Correy outlines the show's purpose and shares her personal journey as a mixed-race executive navigating corporate America. From growing up in a biracial household to moving through professional spaces shaped by rigid norms and unspoken expectations, Grace reflects on what it means to lead while carrying multiple identities.
This episode lays the groundwork for future conversations by addressing the realities many professionals quietly experience but rarely discuss: fitting in...
