Inclusion Starts with Opening the Door

Let’s talk about inclusion. That’s a big topic these days. As a leader, how do you ensure that all of your team members feel like they belong and that they’re included? How do you amplify those voices that perhaps don’t get heard as often?

Yeah, there’s a number of things that leadership starts with. And I think the vulnerability that we talked about is super important. I think having the confidence to be able to have a conversation that’s hard, allows people to feel included, and to have voices and discuss. And this might be around product or company issues, but it could be around social issues. And on the social front, you know, we set up a number of ESGs across the company, over the last two years, and these groups are just amazing. I think we have over 200 women that are in the women ESG group. We have a Latinx team that is bringing in kids from San Jose that are Latinx high school, getting an internship. We have a group that’s focused on accelerating black leadership and entrepreneurship, where we’re giving mentorship and real opportunities for capital and grants to be able to grow their businesses.

But the inclusion has to start with opening the door, being transparent, and really bringing people in and making sure that they have a voice, that they’re not shut down. And that they really know that that voice matters, that we need to hear that voice. And so one other obvious thing is, it’s also not something you can do overnight. It is something that inclusion is a journey as well. And so, we’ve worked hard and have, I think, a pretty diverse workforce for a tech company. We have more work to do. We know we have more work to do across a number of different demographics. But we feel good about where we are. And I’ve talked to other friends that they’re like, “This is so important, but I don’t have anybody internally that I can promote that’s not a white dude.”

Oh, God.

But it’s true. That is often times the case because you weren’t working on it all along. You have to be working in developing people along so they can actually rise to the occasion when the time comes. You have to be recruiting executives that are diverse, and on your executive team. You have to recruit board members that are the same way.

So I think inclusion is representing what it means at the top. I mean, if you looked at our independent directors, we brought on seven independent directors, and four of them are female. So now across the board, we still have a bunch of VCs, which are not, so we’re only 25% female across the board, but we’re doing about 50/50 on all new directors.

That’s pretty good; more than a lot of companies.

I feel very good about that. So, it’s just a lot of different things. I guess the main takeaway is it doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be a part of your DNA from day one.