Claire Babinoux-Fontenot remembers the first time she felt a true hunger. It was 1987, and the Louisiana native was in the middle of his first year of law school at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge. She worked at a local department store to pay for rent and textbooks, but between paychecks, she had nothing. Finally, one afternoon, she went to a Salvation Army near her apartment.
The CEO of Feeding America told CNBC Make It, “I was so embarrassed and bowed my head and approached the center.” “I said, ‘I don’t have anything to eat, can you help me?’ She remembers.
Volunteers there showed her “such care and sympathy” and gave Babinoux-Fontenot a food voucher and emergency food stamps to help her buy gas for her car and enough food to eat until she got her next paycheck. Got it.
That experience stuck with him, and in 2018, Babineaux-Fontenot became CEO of Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States.
Feeding America has been at the fore of the hunger crisis triggered by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has had a particularly devastating impact on families with young children and people of color. According to Time, the organization’s network of 200 food banks provided more than 6 billion meals between March 2020 and March 2021 alone.
Below, Babineaux-Fontenot shares what she learned during her decades-long journey to the C-suite, from coping with imposter syndrome to beating breast cancer.
“You don’t want life to be fair, you want it to be good”
Babinoux-Fontenot, now 57, had a unique and record-breaking childhood. She grew up in Opelousas, Louisiana with her parents and several siblings.
Her parents, Warren and Mary Alice Babineaux, cared for over 100 children through a combination of birth, adoption, and parenting, although the household never had more than 16 children living together. In 2008, the couple was inducted into the National Adoption Hall of Fame.
She says that most of her siblings came into the Babinex household from “some combination of trauma, abuse, and neglect.”
“Even when I’ve had to go through something incredibly difficult, I think of my siblings and they’ve never lost hope in spite of all that,” she says. “They help me learn more about my privilege and be grateful for my life.”
But what inspired him the most is his mother, who passed away in 2012.
“She was the eldest of her siblings and worked on a farm to support the family so they could go to school,” she says. “Although she didn’t graduate high school or do much, she wound up becoming the mother of 108 kids… she was just a wonderful, generous woman.”
She honors her mother’s spirit of giving through her work with Feeding America. “People have harassed me, or done things that I thought were unkind, but I have this mantra: You don’t want life to be fair, you want it to be good,” she says. “If life were fair, my siblings, my family wouldn’t go through such a difficult time – life isn’t fair, but I want to help make it good for others.”
Claire Babinox-Fontenot Volunteering supplies and distribution during the coronavirus pandemic
Photo: Feeding America
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
In 2004, Babineaux-Fontenot was appointed as Walmart’s vice president of audit and tax policy, becoming the first black woman in the company’s history to hold that position.
She felt confident accepting the job and thought her previous roles in business development and tax practice prepared her well—but before she started, her team doubled. Then it doubled again.
“All of a sudden I was in a job where I had almost no idea what was being asked of me,” she recalls. “Imposter syndrome is set in deep and hard, I’ve created a narrative that says who I am is not good enough for the job.”
She decided to adapt the mannerisms and attitudes of her predecessor, so for a while, Babinaux-Fontenot says she was pretending to be “a white man from Alabama.” Still, she was “failing miserably.”
“Being someone else wasn’t working, so I decided to speak out loud to myself instead,” she says. This included being transparent with his manager about where his knowledge and skills fell short, hiring people to fill those gaps, and speaking up more in meetings to help his team grow.
“It’s important to be honest with yourself and accept that you can’t be all things to all people,” she says.
finding a greater purpose
After Babinoux-Fontenot left the corporate world after a cancer diagnosis in 2015, she questioned whether she would be fulfilled if her current job at Walmart was the last thing on her resume.
Babineaux-Fontenot had worked closely with Feeding America throughout her tenure at Walmart, which remains a corporate donor, and decided she could make a bigger impact by joining a nonprofit — and Can help more people.
“The cornerstones of their mission to feed, nurture, empower, connect and unite communities in need really spoke to me,” she says. “I knew I wanted to be there.”
Babineaux-Fontenot understands that Feeding America can’t be everything to all people—but there are a few ambitious items she’s hoping to cross off her to-do list before retirement.
“My aspiration is an America where no one goes hungry, and that Feeding America helps realize that dream by improving access to nutritional food within vulnerable communities,” she says.
She is also hoping that Feeding America can be a leader within the diversity, equity and inclusion space, both by promoting diverse, equitable recruitment practices within Feeding America and by increasing its engagement with communities of color who are affected by the pandemic. have been disproportionately affected.
To help meet this goal, Feeding America established the Food Security Impact Fund in March. The fund, which was put together with a $20 million donation made by Mackenzie Scott, will work with communities facing poverty and racial inequality, as well as minority-led organizations to improve local food security.
“We can make bigger tables and add more chairs,” Babinex-Fontenot says of the initiative. “We can listen, we can ask questions, and we can excel even more now.”
check out:
Feeding America CEO: What it’s like to receive a $100 million donation from Jeff Bezos
The difference between DEI and anti-racism at work, according to the diversity chief of the $37 billion company
‘You have to give yourself a chance’: The founder of a hiring app shares his best career advice
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