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Nation’s Restaurant News and The Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance (MFHA) announced today a strategic partnership to promote and deliver Cultural Intelligence Training and Education for the foodservice industry.

The MFHA’s new Cultural Intelligence Initiative is designed to help companies improve bottom-line results by educating executives on the cross-cultural skills necessary to motivate, engage and inspire multicultural employees. This Cultural Intelligence approach helps restaurant executives and operators to better coach, teach, train and develop talent from the Asian, Black, Latino and LGBT communities — the driving demographics behind foodservice customers and employees.

“Building the Cultural Intelligence and competency of industry leaders and managers will keep our industry relevant and competitive,” said Gerry Fernandez, president and founder of MFHA. “If we want to attract, develop and retain high performing multicultural talent we are going to have to become culturally fluent.”

“Our 15 year partnership with Nation’s Restaurant News and our shared commitment to deliver effective business solutions to the industry has produced this strategic partnership,” Fernandez continued. “We are excited to take on this promising endeavor with such a highly respected partner.”

NRN and MFHA will jointly develop and produce a series of free webinars designed to introduce foodservice operators, manufacturers and distributors to the concept of building a ‘Cultural IQ’ to better engage multicultural employees and customers — ultimately building employee retention, sales and profits. The webinar series will be augmented with live Cultural Intelligence workshops hosted around the country.

“MFHA has been a driving force for diversity and inclusion within foodservice for 16 years, and today puts forward a new mission focused on education, action and solutions — one that NRN is excited to further support and help facilitate,” said Randall Friedman, Group Publisher at NRN parent company Penton Media. “In today’s business environment, no one can afford to overlook any edge that education can provide, and in today’s multicultural world, no company can ignore the growing need for cultural knowledge, understanding and communication. Culturally relevant and inclusive companies will win.”

The new Cultural Intelligence webinar series will debut Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. EST with its inaugural session, “Navigating the Cultural Minefield: Myths, Perceptions and Realities.” Sponsored by Johnson & Wales University, the webinar will be led by the MFHA’s Gerry Fernandez and consultant Rogercarole Rogers, president of RcRogers & Associates, a human resources, inclusion and diversity consulting firm.

Registration information and further details on the Nov. 15 webinar will be available soon on NRN.com and MFHA.net.

Future webinars within the Cultural Intelligence Education Series will include: Don’t hold back — Addressing real workplace challenges in a multi-cultural environment; How building Cultural Intelligence can build revenue; What your restaurant brand really stands for — A look at restaurant employment through the lenses of Asians, Blacks and Latinos; and From the C-Suite — Interviews and insights from today’s foodservice leaders.

Questions? Contact Sarah Lockyer at sarah.lockyer@penton.com.