萝莉视频

isn’t phased by the challenges tech faces with diversity and inclusion. These issues are not unique for someone whose everyday includes 238 years of our country’s history.

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Ekpo is the Director of People and Diversity at the , a government team tasked with integrating tech into the notoriously stodgy and formal U.S. government. Nicknamed the 鈥済overnment startup鈥�, they told 萝莉视频 News that 60 percent of its leadership team identifies as female, and roughly 25 percent of their leadership team is a minority. Approximately 27 percent of its staff, which is comprised of around 170 employees, is a minority.

It鈥檚 quite an image: a government agency, operating during the Trump administration, that has to hire talent willing to take a pay cut and move across the country, is doing better at hiring diverse candidates than many tech startups.

And for those running said startups, Ekpo has some advice: keep it 鈥渙ld school鈥� and do the work.

That means going behind the careers page and meeting candidates in person, going to events that are hosted and attended by those that have been historically ignored, and asking to tap into networks.

For USDS that means Slack groups, events that aren鈥檛 just happy hours, and community health surveys.

USDS isn鈥檛 immune from diversity issues, however. Ekpo explained that while the numbers are great, 鈥渋f you dissect the space, we are lacking in representation of women and people of color in the engineering (team).” To expose these gaps, she says they鈥檙e open about diversity statistics. First, they share to a small group of internal audiences, next to the entire organization, and finally more openly to the general public.

Some important context here is that scaling, a pressure startups face nonstop, is a mountain that USDS doesn鈥檛 have to face. This is to the relief of USDS鈥檚 administrator and the former head of spam at Google, who admitted that while scaling is exciting, growing pains are real.

鈥淚f you hire the wrong people, they can do a lot of damage, burn bridges, and turn people off of a specific approach for 5 to 10 years,鈥� Cutts told us last month.

The organization hovers around 170-190 employees and plans to stay that way. Plus, by design, there鈥檚 a fast turnaround in new hires (most employees stay for about 16 to 19 months).

Pivoting to a tech company that is under pressure to expand, take , a benefits communications platform that says a hybrid of both technology and 鈥渙ld school鈥� relationships works.

The Chicago company has grown from 65 to 400 employees in the past five years, and it maintains a 50-50 split in terms of gender diversity, from entry-level employees to the C-suite. The company still struggles with diversity in race: it doesn鈥檛 have any people of color in leadership roles in the C-suite currently, said , an HR manager at the company.

As the company grows it鈥檚 added technology into the equation: Jellyvision is switching its applicant tracking system to help automate the identity enactment process. This started from an informal effort by Jellyvision鈥檚 hiring managers who were already using blind hiring to bring on new employees.

Formalizing these initiatives, according to Rothschild, should 鈥渉elp everyone continue to push [diversity] forward, but quickly.鈥�

But what if you鈥檙e a big bay area tech company and have tens of thousands of people? Along with creative initiatives, flashy budgets, these companies could probably use the advice of people doing hiring right, especially under the rigorous standards of government agencies.

Ekpo was recently plucked from USDS to help lead diversity efforts at , where she says she鈥檒l bring her perspective on making products that represent and cater to the American people. First up on her to-do list? Be open about diversity and inclusion statistics, both internally and externally. She has the startup experience to prove it works.

Editor鈥檚 Note: Sherika Ekpo鈥檚 title was modified to match her official title at USDS.

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