Learning to fly: Millicent Rone is helping shape workplace culture at American Airlines

Plenty of times in her life, Millicent Rone (BSB/M and MBA) has been underestimated.

“I wasn’t supposed to be standing here in front of you being the influencer of today’s conversation,” Rone says, looking back on the events that brought her to the offices of American Airlines, where she now works as a senior specialist in the office of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Hers is a story full of doubters — people who looked at a teen mom from DeSoto, Texas, and didn’t see a future pageant winner, breadwinner, college graduate, IT specialist and diversity leader at one of the largest airlines in the world.

“People had written me off,” she says. Now she sits in a senior role, changing the internal culture of a major company to effect positive change in the world outside of it.

A multicultural upbringing

Many of the seeds for Rone’s future work in diversity and equity were sown in her upbringing. Though born in Corpus Christi, Rone moved to Colorado when she was 5 years old. Her parents were divorced, and her mother was her primary caregiver as well as her inspiration for both strength and personal confidence as she grew up.

“For me, all I saw was a hardworking mother,” Rone says. “All I saw was a mother laying before me a good work ethic.”

In Colorado, Rone experienced “diversity at its best.” Her best friend was white, another friend was from Holland, another was the child of a celebrity and another had an upbringing that modeled Rone’s: a Black girl raised by her mother and grandmother.

“I had all this in front of me,” Rone recalls, “and I had no idea what each of these experiences and relationships would do as part of cultivating who I would become. Each and every one laid an impression, from the foods I would eat to the languages I would be around, to the experiences I would encounter.”

Rone’s experiences in Colorado created a set of expectations about what she wanted out of life. The cultural diversity surrounding her exposed her to the wealth of possibilities that were out there. 

Finding her wings

Eventually, Rone arrived at the IT department of American Airlines, where she worked mostly as a project manager. During her last two years in IT, however, she took on a leadership role managing the company’s two largest enterprise portfolios, Microsoft and Adobe.

This work was another example of the influence of her mother, who worked in IT for major oil companies. “I started to mold myself to what I had seen my mother do,” she says.

In 2019, Rone had her first exposure to an employee resource group (ERG). She was invited to attend a meeting at American Airlines’ Black affinity group. Seeing the company express interest in the experience of Black employees was exciting for Rone.

“It was an amazing, liberating experience that a company would create that kind of space,” she says. She went from being a member to becoming the president of the headquarters chapter of that ERG. In that role, she set the vision of what the ERG could become, as well as the strategy for getting there. 

“I was able to become the kind of leader I always envisioned,” she says.

Working toward a better workplace and world

In 2020, in the midst of the national crises surrounding the death of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic, Rone was promoted to a senior position in the diversity, equity and inclusion office and tasked with helping start a conversation within the company about these events.

She crafted a strategy to define the types of cultural changes that the office wanted to see in the company. In this role, she went from managing one ERG to 20 groups that represented different ethnicities, genders and intersectional identities at American Airlines. 

She worked hard to develop a culture that was ready to take on modern challenges and tough conversations. She learned how companies could support legislation. In fact, her office helped support passage of The CROWN Act, which seeks to end discrimination based on race-based hairstyles.

“There is no one more passionate and committed to the work of diversity, equity and inclusion,” observes Cedric Rockamore, the Chief Diversity Officer at American Airlines.

Rone believes that changing a company culture is of more than just internal importance. Company culture informs everything a company does, she observes. That’s why she takes her advocacy outside the office and coordinates community service projects with the ERGs she oversees.

For Rone, it’s important that American Airlines has a visible presence in people’s communities. “American Airlines bears the name of our nation,” she says, “and if we can’t get it right, then we are a disservice to our nation. That’s why I’m passionate about getting it right now with this company.”

Flying high

As a UOPX alumna, Rone has taken her education to heights that plenty of people thought impossible for her. She went back to University of Phoenix for her master’s degree, completing a Master of Business Administration in 2015.

“I pursued my master’s degree to raise the bar,” she says.

Like her mother, Rone serves as a model to her children of how far effort can take a person. Her son is the first in his father’s line to become a college graduate. Her daughter, Randi Washington-Fannin, followed in Rone’s footsteps, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business from University of Phoenix and now working at American Airlines.

Washington-Fannin heaped praise on her mother. “The biggest lesson my mother has taught me is how to overcome difficulties,” Washington-Fannin writes. “There are times life throws us obstacles, and my mother has taught me to embrace those challenges.”

Rone’s daughter sees her mother’s impact at American Airlines in both the work she does and the impact she has on others. “Let’s not forget how popular my mother is here at American Airlines. It brings me so much joy when co-workers express how great a person my mother is to work with,” Washington-Fannin says.

The impact Rone has had on those around her can be felt in every word her daughter shares on her behalf. Through every challenge and pivot point, Rone has soared beyond what people thought possible for her.

And she’s only getting started.