People & Culture
Philosophy
Initiatives
- Delivered "Cultural Competency vs Cultural Humility" Seminar at Conference 2025
- Next Early Career Meetup: May 13th & June 10th @ 12pm
- Student Engagement Program in Development
- AEP Storytelling Project — Coming Soon!
- AEP EJ Fellowship — Launching in 2025!
- Standing People & Culture Committee
- Our Most Recent Member Survey
If you are a current member interested in the history of People & Culture at AEP, contact us through our membership email address and we can share more.
An Update from the President
Conference 2025 was one for the books!
In 5 days in Oxnard, CA, 500 AEP members created new connections, strengthened others, and came together in purpose.
As I first promised in January’s People & Culture update, I want to make sure to keep you aware of our work, our progress, and share stories from across the AEP community. Here is a progress report on our journey:
Early Career Meetups
In March, we launched our first Affinity Meetup with 30 attendees in the debut of the Early Career Meetup. Each Meetup is structured with: music, introductions, sharing “What gives you joy?”, a selection of alignment exercises to promote engagement and connection, and open, unstructured conversation. These are intended as storytelling spaces, to encourage sharing of experiences, challenges, uncertainties, ideas, solutions, and support.
Connection is our goal, and we are proud to offer our members the opportunity to practice empathy, build connections, and “network out, not just up”. Each meetup happens on the second Tuesday of each month (stay tuned for registration for the May 13th and June 10th Early Career Meetups!).
Conference 2025 Summary
We literally touched grass all weekend on the beautiful beachfront property of Zachari Dunes. New members and first-time attendees enjoyed an afternoon mixer on the lawn overlooking the dunes, while all members came for the opening ceremony to eat, listen to the AEP house band, and share conversation over an amazing buffet of tacos, beans & rice, and more.
Integrating our in-person Conference into the environments and communities where we live and thrive is important to how we operate as an organization. These offline events give us a wonderful chance to work on those soft connections where innovation, education, and celebration happen organically. Chapter Summit conversations let us know more about our member and chapter needs; workshops and sessions expanded members’ capacities for navigating policy & process; and unstructured social spaces offered all of us the chance to relate as people in fun and joy.
Thank you to the 2025 Conference Committee, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Conference 2025 in San Diego!
People & Culture Committee Session
Cultural Competency vs. Cultural Humility — on Monday of the Conference, more than 60 attendees in the session room got to listen, share, and offer insights in this brilliant panel presentation on the new direction for People & Culture at AEP.
Attendees learned more about the pitfalls of the “competency” approach, the power of small talk, the importance of getting first-person perspectives, the Culture Iceberg, and how stories can tell us more about ourselves, help us nurture connections with others, and even function as qualitative data to create and analyze policies and built spaces.
We also practiced thematic storytelling in breakout groups with many attendees taking our question cards (with topics from Family to Style to Leadership to Work & Rest) home with them to help practice connection through storytelling in their firms and agencies. Thanks to everyone who came and participated!
Thank you for reading this far, and for continuing to practice authentic, meaningful connection.
Cheers!
Mindy Fogg
President
April 15, 2025
Previous blog updates from the President