by Special Correspondent Adina Ba

Luke Visconti is a partner and co-founder of DiversityInc Media LLC. He is a recognized leader in the publishing field and diversity, often appearing on Fox, MSNBC and CNBC, and regularly quoted on diversity issues in publications such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, BusinessWeek, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. You can find more Race in the Workplace interviews in our archives.

What led you to found DiversityInc?

Basically, my motivation comes from my experiences. I was in the US Navy as a helicopter pilot. On my last tour of duty, I volunteered for officer recruiting. They asked me to be responsible for minority officer recruiting and I was assigned to my home state of N.J. There was an African American pilot already in the office and I asked him for help. We worked together for over a year and half, and became good friends. He helped me become aware of things I had not been aware of before, the levels of racism and bigotry that previously had escaped my world as a white man.

Later on, I worked in publishing, at McGraw Hill and at Fortune Magazine. I met Foulis Peacock, my business partner, at Fortune Magazine. We left Fortune with the intention of launching a magazine. We started our own company and created a robust revenue stream as ad sales reps. We tested different ideas. DiversityInc is the one we both really loved. We abandoned other, very profitable aspects of our business to focus on DiversityInc. The website is 10 years old and the magazine, five. It is a labor of love for both of us. W