Consider the story of investors such as Kirsten Green, founder of Forerunner Ventures and one of two women who featured on The Top 20 VCs Worldwide list by The New York Times. She represents diversity as she had never worked at a Venture Capital firm before starting her own in 2012, and she is also a woman in a male-dominated field. She achieved two billion dollar exits with Jet.com (acquired by Walmart) and Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever), demonstrating the value she brings as an inclusive investor. Alternatively, there are
The day after Christmas 2016 I shared the 10 lessons learned from the 40 books I’d read last year. ~200K views later I knew without a doubt, even in January of 2017, that I would be writing a follow-up post :). This is that follow-up. One of the best comments on last year’s post was that I share this before Thanksgiving to ensure folk can add the books to their holiday shopping lists . I got the chance to read this many books again this year due to a lot
Over the last 12 months, I have been creating content for dozens of platforms. Perhaps one of the highest profiles ones has been Blavity. ‘The digital voice of black millennials’ boasts a readership of over 30m readers a month across all platforms (incl social). It is an excellent example of fast growth and strategic execution. From inception in 2014, Blavity always positioned itself as a ‘Tech’ company and not only a media player as they had an ambitious vision. They fast grew from a newsletter to attain 1m MAU’s within
Just because someone has a higher position, doesn’t mean they have a better perspective Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to help black founders focus on avoiding the death zone and getting to traction. I didn’t want to spend my free time advising white men and graduates from top schools where they were already grossly overrepresented within tech — I didn’t need my left brain to tell me that it wouldn’t be me adding value (talk less of my heart). When I read CB Insights report that less than
Accountant. African American Woman. A small dot within the tech workforce. This is my bio. Being a person of color in the tech industry tends to feel like you’re a fish out of water. Though tech companies are working to improve diversity in the workplace, Black and LatinX employees still make up only a small margin of the workforce. And for those of color that are in the industry, there is usually a minor representation in the more senior and executive roles. The lack of representation at those levels tends
First, I want to give credit to this idea to Jeneba who produced Yes We Tech: 161 Black Women in Tech to Follow on Twitter and 185 Women of Color in Tech to Follow on Twitter. My list is not as organized or detailed but has a different circle of users with a little overlap with these previous lists. I hope you can use all three lists to share this empowering narrative of the existence of women of color! Don’t be fooled by your environment, the movies you watch or the news stories you read,
The past two years have changed me quite a bit as a person. By most standards, I could be seen as reasonably successful, having been promoted nine months after my initial start date at my place of employment and well on my way to achieving the two-year milestone. In that short period, I’ve seen lots of good people go and teeter on the edge of going, the majority of them being people of color. (For context: I am a young, African American woman, the only one in the IT department.)
It used to be a tall order to find a representative look for your powerpoint presentation that featured communities of color. Little to no stock photos existed that you could download or purchase that fit the theme. But that is not the case anymore! Here are four websites that will provide you a free collection of photos you can use with either attribution or email subscription. It is time to update your blogs, PowerPoints, branding material and all other forms of media representation you are creating! While everyone can’t pay
There is a long way to go until tech reflects how society does. I’m glad there is the discussion happening, but I’m not sure if the people having the debate have the right people involved. Where are the people from a regular school, that had black, Latino, and LGBT friends growing up? If your network all followed the Stanford, MIT, Google pipeline, I’m not sure you are the right person to lead these discussions. I think you should have a seat at the table because your experiences are super valuable,
I have been speaking to Coworking spaces, Incubators and Accelerators across London and it has become apparent that there is a common problem arising from non-technical startup founders. This transcends the culture; this impacts more than just female or minority-led startups. I have worked as a Product Manager at software companies for a few years as well as experienced starting a tech startup myself. One of the harshest lessons I learned was that to succeed at building a tech company; you need technical talent in-house. Put simply; we had to
