By Jared Karol In today’s Diversity & Inclusion Spotlight, we hear from Aubrey Blanche, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Atlassian. Aubrey’s role focuses on working with teams across the business to enhance access to technical education, recruiting, retention, and career mobility for underrepresented minorities. Change Catalyst: What are you currently working on to improve diversity and inclusion in tech? Aubrey: Atlassian is a global software company that makes a suite of collaboration products for teams,…

Marco Rogers of Clover Health speaking at Tech Inclusion 2016 By Jared Karol When Marco Rogers moved to the Bay Area five years ago from Washington, D.C., it was his first introduction to startup culture. As a black man in tech, he had been recruited pretty hard, but he didn’t expect to see too many people who looked like him. It was a surprise, then, when the first person he sat down with was another black…

Rachel Williams, Head of Corporate Recruiting, Diversity & Inclusion at Yelp speaking at Tech Inclusion 2016 By Jared Karol As head of Diversity and Inclusion at Yelp, Rachel Williams is responsible for creating a diverse workforce — including ethnic and gender diversity, sexual orientation, disability and veteran status, and folks who are more senior in age. But more important than the numbers, she says, is that all people from all these groups feel included. How is she going…

Thanks, Mark. We agree and hope more teams realize the benefits you’ve listed.

By Jared Karol For the first time in its history, Reddit has a diverse executive team. This is plain to see in the Reddit panel discussion at last year’s San Francisco Tech Inclusion Conference, moderated by Wayne Sutton from Change Catalyst. What’s even more impressive is the way this team articulates its vision for diversity and inclusion. It’s clear the new executive team is aware of the previous challenges in this area and they’re working on…

By Jared Karol What happens when you have a lack of diversity on a product innovation team? In a worst case scenario, you get what happened to Google in July of 2015, when their photo app mistakenly tagged a black couple as gorillas. How could something like this happen? The short answer is that the product is a result of the creator. Engineers and product managers are going to create products based off their reality; if…

She Geeks Out provides a safe space for women in STEAM to connect and learn. by Jared Karol In today’s Diversity & Inclusion Spotlight, we hear from Rachel Murray, Co-founder of She Geeks Out, a Boston- and New York City-based company that creates “an inclusive culture committed to upholding diversity, particularly gender diversity.” They provide safe spaces for women in STEAM to connect and learn. Change Catalyst: Describe the impact you’re having in your role. Rachel: As a woman…

Tech Inclusion 2016 Keynote Fireside Chat with Sonja Gittens-Ottley, Diversity & Inclusion Lead at Asana and Asana cofounder Justin Rosenstein By Sonja Gittens Ottley, head of diversity and inclusion at Asana, the work tracking app for teams In order for diversity & inclusion (D&I) work to have impact, companies must have several pillars in operation at the same time. They need an actionable, data-driven strategy that is focused on building an inclusive culture. They must establish…

by Jared Karol In the past, most Super Bowl commercials did not make diversity or inclusion the main focus of its messaging. This is not surprising, but things are changing. All together, there were nearly 50 brands with Super Bowl LI ad spots — ranging from funny to nostalgic to poignant to decidedly inclusive. Yes, decidedly, unapologetically, intentionally inclusive. More and more brands, it seems, are beginning to realize that celebrating inclusivity is both good for business and…