Diversity as a Competitive Differentiator

Building a diverse team sounds great, but it is challenging. What would you say is the most difficult challenge of building a diverse team? And how do you address that?

It starts with the management team. I mean, fundamentally, they have to believe the way I believe, that diversity is a competitive differentiator. Obviously, you need to bring the right skill sets, because we are a technology company to begin with. But that said, there is no excuse. And it starts with you. I think that’s the key here. And we have a say, you know, it’s how you unfreeze the mindset of people to think about this.
Now, we’re a diverse company to begin with, because we have management all over the world, right? We have 60,000 employees, we have operations in 172 countries. And like I said, I grew up in countries where diversity was pretty normal. You go to the Netherlands, it’s fairly normal, you don’t talk about it, it’s just the way it is. And here, you come to the United States and it’s almost like you’ve got to have the conversation to take action, versus in other countries, it’s just natural, it will happen the way the business gets run. And so it’s all about convincing people and making them believe this is important. And that’s the first step.
Then obviously, from HR perspective, you have to have the right processes in place, the way you create the pipeline, the way you recruit all the way from the internships to colleges, to ultimately the actual recruiting for requisitions. And make sure there is a diversity slate for every position. And then question all the time, why Person A versus Person B and why you didn’t select that person? And this is going to take some time, but we’re making progress and I feel good about where we are and hopefully, in the next two to three years, we’ll make a bigger improvement on that front.