Meet Mandy Price: Kanarys' Co-Founder Committed to Building More Inclusive Workplaces

Watch WFAA's Shaping DFW featuring Mandy Price!

Talent is not to be found solely within one group of people; it does not reside in one race, religion or gender. Talent is universally distributed: it can be everywhere, and in everyone. But when a workplace’s demographics imply that talent can be found only in certain groups of people, the limits of their thinking become the limits of their talent. The main benefit of a diverse workforce—the ability to harness the best talent from the widest possible pool—is lost. 

But hiring a physically diverse workforce is not enough. Equity and inclusion are also important to make diversity stick. Yet true equity and inclusion cannot be achieved with one-time celebrations of Black History Month or the occasional unconscious bias training. For equity and inclusion, unequal systems need to be assessed and dismantled. 

Mandy Price is Kanarys’ CEO and Co-Founder. She grew up in Desoto, Texas, where she saw the effects of racism from a very early age. Along with her two younger brothers, Mandy’s loss of innocence came shortly after she started elementary school, when she had to discuss with their parents what it means to be Black in America. But despite being faced with the racial injustice as a young child, Mandy used these experiences to guide her path. 

She attended the University of Texas of Austin. It was there that Mandy began her work with diversity, equity and inclusion when she served as a student representative on the racial respect and fairness taskforce. Following her four years at UT, Mandy attended Harvard Law School, and later went on to practice law for 12 years, representing private equity firms and managing public company mergers and acquisitions. 

As an attorney, Mandy took time to work as a member of her firm’s diversity and hiring committees, where she worked to understand issues related to hiring and retaining both people of color and women. She witnessed first-hand the lack of female representation in partnerships even at entry-level positions, and quickly understood the need to address systemic inequities that were keeping minorities from the top. 

These systems—and the microaggressions underrepresented people endure every day as a result of them—cannot stay normalized. 

“You deal with so many microaggressions over time that you learn to brush it off and keep going… Even when I became a partner at another firm, I started to view it as a normal part as a woman of color working,” said Mandy in the piece "Shaping DFW". 

Mandy began thinking about her own children and how if she accepts the microaggressions and inequalities built into the workforce, her kids will face the same issues 20 years later. She could not accept that—so she did something about it. 

Alongside her husband, Bennie King and fellow UT and Harvard Law grad, Starlett Carter, Mandy started Kanarys in 2018 in an effort to help other companies find the source of their problems—and then help fix them. 

Kanarys is Your DEI Champion

At Kanarys, we are the diversity, equity, and inclusion people with the data-driven approach. Since 2018, Kanarys has aimed to change the world by creating equitable workplaces where everyone belongs. We guide your organization’s DEI path every step of the way with courage and collaboration. It starts with data, analytics and insights, and continues with recommendations and implementation. 

Our mission, as your partner and champion in the ever-evolving DEI journey: Help you understand what it takes to foster lasting, systemic change today and for tomorrow. Because when you succeed with DEI, your employees can thrive—and so can your organization.