One of the top goals for many companies in the tech industry is to focus on building a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce. It is also one of our top goals at VentureFizz in terms of helping to support companies on this important mission.

Companies have different approaches as it relates to how they are addressing their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, so we thought that it would be valuable to profile companies and what they are doing to accomplish their DEI initiatives.

We connected with ezCater, the most trusted provider of corporate food solutions and is purpose-built for business. ezCater's corporate food platform and flexible, scalable food solutions allow organizations to centralize and track their food spend, and fulfill everything from daily employee meals to client meetings and company all-hands. ezCater backs this up with business-grade, best-in-class, customer service and an unmatched nationwide footprint. We're backed by top investors including Insight, Iconiq, Lightspeed, GIC, SoftBank, and Quadrille

Please provide a high level statement supporting your DEI mission and objectives?

ezCater promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion as it is crucial to the development and success of our organizational culture where everyone has equitable opportunities to succeed and thrive. By valuing diversity and celebrating our differences, we can build stronger communities and foster a culture of respect, empathy, and understanding where everyone is encouraged to bring their authentic self to work.

What is ezCater doing to attract a more diverse workforce?

To attract a more diverse workforce, we are taking proactive steps to create an inclusive and welcoming workplace culture. This includes developing diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as affinity groups, unconscious bias training, and inclusive leadership programs. ezCater is also intentional about our recruitment process to provide an equitable experience by creating job descriptions that are inclusive, partnering with and reaching out to diverse organizations and networks, and building diverse interview panels to incorporate a range of perspectives when making a hiring decision. We are setting diversity goals and metrics, regularly reviewing and refining recruitment and retention strategies, which includes surveying our employee population 2x per year to gather continuous feedback, and striving to uphold a culture of open communication and feedback. Ultimately, creating a diverse and inclusive workforce requires an ongoing commitment and effort across the entire organization, and is a shared responsibility for every ezCater employee. This work never stops. 

Can you share all the importance of Affinity Groups at ezCater?

Our current affinity groups range from racial and linguistic identity to parental identity, and they consist of slack based dialogue to virtual and in-person meet ups. We aim to provide safe and inclusive spaces for employees to connect with others who share similar experiences in a way that is most effective for that community. All spaces are employee initiated and developed in hopes that employees will feel connected in our hybrid/remote work environment regardless of where they are in the country. 

What other programs do you have to support your DEI initiatives?

In addition to our module based Unconscious Bias course, we offer live workshops for all employees to continue learning in the DEI space. We strive to make this learning as experiential as possible during facilitated workshops and through our cultural speaker series. Managers are expected to take courses through She Geeks Out and LifeLabs Learning which teach inclusive leadership. These skills are incredibly important to continue building an inclusive environment for our teams and establish a space where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, feedback and opinions. The workshops not only offer employees a forum for continued learning, but also teaches them how to speak out and share feedback in various situations. 

Do you have any data that you’d like to share that demonstrates your diverse workforce? 

Self-identifying demographic data offers us an incredibly important lens through which to understand the diversity of identities and experiences that exist within ezCater. We can gain a deeper understanding of how employees experience our culture and what we can do to make it stronger. 90% of our employees elect to provide us with their gender, race/ethnicity and sexual orientation. 57% of our population self-identified as female, 40% male, 1% non-binary and  2% selected “other.” 20% of our employees identify as being part of the  LGBTQ community and our racial breakdown is 72% White, 6% Hispanic, 6% Black, 6% Asian, 4% two or more races, and 4% self selected “other” for racial identity. 

For more information and data points, we published our 2022 DE&I survey results which can be found here. 

Our Black in Tech series features the career path & advice from Black professionals in the tech industry. In this Q&A, Simon Howlett, Support Engineer at Acquia shares his story.

Where did you grow up and what were you like as a child? What did your parents do for work? 

I grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, we moved around a few times to nicer neighbourhoods. From what I remember, I believe I had a happy childhood. I loved to play soccer and was quite energetic. I was always relatively quiet, probably because I was deaf in one ear when I first learned to speak, so my speech was impaired, and it took me a while to pronounce words correctly when I was a teenager. Despite getting along with most groups of people in high school, I spent most of my freetime on the web playing MMORPGs, creating online English communities in foreign games, chatting and participating in projects on forums and IRC, and surfing every edge of the web. 

One of the funniest memories of my childhood involving tech was when my parents had just banned me from the computer because I wasn't concentrating enough on school or going out enough. The very next day we had a parent-teacher conference and my computer science teacher was so excited to tell my parents how great my skills were in class that he pleaded with them to let me continue whatever I was doing on the computer at home. My mother worked on and off as an estate agent when I was growing up, and my father was a boring mill operator. I'm not saying his job was boring, that's the actual title of his work: he bored holes.

Where did you go to college? What did you study and what did you do after graduating? 

I originally went to business school, I didn't know whether to specialize in accounting, marketing or finance as I enjoyed them all, but it didn't matter because I had a tragic life-changing event that caused me to drop out and move to Florida. I suffered from psychosis and paranoia during this time. I would go into detail, but I wrote a book you can find on Amazon called GPF: One Decision at a Time, which explains this period of my life. After I got my sanity back and returned to Canada from the States, I went to an IT school for Computer Networking and Security. I was instantly hired as a Data Analyst after graduation.  

What inspired you to get into the tech industry?

I actually tried to avoid the tech industry. I spent a lot of time on IRC as a kid while the computer industry was booming and growing, and a lot of the programmers I spoke to were worn out and tired. Seeing and hearing this all the time made me promise myself that I would never become a programmer and that I would keep that side of my life as a hobby. Instead, I pursued a career in an industry that would push me out of my comfort zone and help me grow as a person. I only went into tech because it was something I was naturally good at after completely losing my identity, so it was the easiest way to get my life back on track. I still kept my promise that I would never become a programmer for profit; I did scripting instead.

What has your career path looked like in tech and the various positions you’ve held before joining Acquia? 

I started as a data analyst in the electricity/utilities industry. In my position I saw a lot of potential for saving time in processes across all departments of the company, so I created a number of scripts to automate daily tasks and made a proposal for a new automation department. So I became an Automation Engineer and worked with each department to optimize their daily workflows, personally creating tools to keep costs down while improving production. 

I had a lot of fun and a lot of free time while testing scripts or processes, so I started a hobby that I could do at the same time while sitting at my desk—a fidget toy called Begleri. Within a few months, when I was quite good at it, the spinner craze had just hit the world. With the reports about the health benefits of fidget toys and gadgets, a bunch of companies were looking to cash in on the wave, and one of them saw my skills online and picked me up as an ambassador. So I started traveling around Canada and the States in my spare time, filming commercials and doing big events like VidCon or the New York Toy Fair. This really improved my people skills and I was even offered jobs in marketing, but I loved IT too much to leave. 

Back at home, in my company, senior people were leaving for a bigger company and they convinced me to go with them. I became an International IT Consultant for the new company, and my job was to set up customer databases and to present and train customers on site. That's what I did until the pandemic, when international jobs were no longer in high demand. I was also in bad health due to a disease called cholinergic urticaria, which causes an allergic response to heat. This led to my next career move, which was sharing the treatment for the condition through streams that eventually attracted 20,000-30,000 people.  This work as a community leader and positivity coach allowed me to pursue my dream of moving to Europe and then the UK, where I now work as a Support Engineer. 

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position at Acquia?

As a Support Engineer, I interact with customers on a daily basis over the phone or through a ticketing system to help troubleshoot, inform or resolve technical issues. Much of the work involves solving real-time problems across a wide range of technical areas. We work with teams in each part of the world and other internal teams in other departments to meet customer needs. Good knowledge of Drupal, web development, cloud systems, Linux, etc. is required as this is a digital experience platform company.

What has attributed to your success thus far and what types of obstacles have you had to overcome along the way as a Black professional? 

I believe my success is down to my flexibility and willingness to learn and change. I'm never afraid to put myself in situations that are out of my comfort zone, like taking part in this series. I really don't like to talk about myself or show pictures of myself and I know that surprises a lot of people. However, if they understand my strength to stay curious and open to new opportunities as they present themselves, they can understand the duality. That's where I find my success. As a Black professional, it's really about giving people the benefit of the doubt. I truly believe in my heart that all people are good at their core and make choices that they feel are good. 

What types of programs and initiatives does Acquia have that support diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Acquia has an amazing employee resource group called AABLE (Acquia Alliance of Black Leaders for Excellence), which provides a space for networking and community within Acquia, among other amazing things like bringing in speakers and programs to educate and help all Acquias have a more diverse opinion about people of color. We also have a dedicated Acquia Academia portal with lots of resources and videos on diversity, equity and inclusion.

What advice would you give to other Black professionals who are interested in joining the tech industry? 

Focus on your well-being above profit. Have it be a priority to put yourself in a good space, with good people. 

While general awareness of the problem of diversity in the tech industry is a step forward, to make a lasting change, real actions need to be taken.  Do you have any ideas or suggestions on what companies or employees can do to step up and make a difference?

I believe in affirmative action. I believe that we’d have a lot more Black executives in large corporations if all candidates were given equal opportunities, but unconscious bias is a real thing. So we need to put procedures in place that remove or reduce unconscious bias. I believe in the good of all, so if everyone has an equal opportunity to present themselves, the best candidates are more likely to be chosen. We live in a representative democracy, so it is important that all walks of life have representation in most aspects of our daily lives, including organizations. Diversity brings many benefits, most importantly the ability to find new and potentially better ways of doing things that can only be thought up by a team with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Innovation is at the core of the tech industry, affirmative action supports diversity that drives innovation.

Episode #295 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Scott Friend, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase - data is the new oil. It makes sense as it is data and of course other techonogical advancements that are powering the growth and use of AI in different industries.

But even with all the buzz about AI, data has been the key differentiating factor for companies and a strategic advantage for years and years. 

It has been a key component for Scott’s success in the retail industry going back to ProfitLogic, a company he co-founded, which leveraged data for its merchandize optimization platform for major retailers.

As an investor, Scott shares another great data example from one of his portfolio companies, that being Rent the Runway which went public in 2021. The company set up a data science and analytics team in the early days of the company as a strategic advantage.

It will be interesting to see what companies emerge with this platform shift to AI and how it will affect the retail industry. Scott will certainly be in the mix of it all, as BCV recently announced two oversubscribed funds totaling $1.9B. So, lots of dry powder to invest.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• Scott’s background story including getting his career started at IBM and what this experience taught him.
• The full story of ProfitLogic, from how it got started to growing the company to a successful exit to Oracle.
• What led Scott down the path of becoming a venture capitalist at BCV.
• More about the Rent the Runway story, plus other investments like Mirakl and Attentive.
• What he’s targeting in terms of making investments and the importance of unfair advantages.
• Advice on scaling a company and how you should think about your team and board of directors.
• And more

Is your company hiring? If yes, then what are you doing to build up your company’s employment brand?  If you don’t have a content strategy, then it is likely that you are just flying under the radar.  The good news is that we can help!  A subscription to VentureFizz includes a content playbook for sharing all the details on your company, people, and culture.  We leverage all formats of storytelling to include video, podcasting, employee profiles, and more.  Reach out to [email protected] to learn more.

Here's your look at the latest hires and promotions across the tech community at Acquia, Drift, athenahealth, Labviva, and Simpro Software.

Did I miss your new employees? Send me an email with their name and details about their new role. I'll add them to next week's edition of Talent on the Move. 

Acquia

Jennifer Griffin Smith

 

Chief Market Officer at Acquia

Previously, Chief Marketing Officer at Brightcove

Acquia is hiring!

Drift

Diana Brunelle

 

Chief People Officer at Drift

Previously, Chief Human Resources Officer at Avid

Drift is hiring!

athenahealth

George Hamilton

 

Chief Strategy and Development Officer at athenahealth

Previously, Strategy and Emerging Business Leader at UnitedHealth Group

Labviva

Neal Karasic

 

Vice President, Product at Labviva

Previously, Head of New Market Solutions at Datavant

Emily Nault

 

Senior Vice President, Platform Sales and Commerce at Labviva

 

Previously, Senior Director, Global Sales Strategy at Aldevron

 

Jonathan Sheffi

 

Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Labviva

 

Previously, New Market Entry Strategy at Various Startups

 

Simpro Software

Rachel Truair

 

Chief Marketing Officer at Simpro Software

Previously, Chief Marketing Officer at Cart.com

 

 

Our Lead(H)er series features impressive women leaders in the tech industry. In this Q&A, we are featuring Stephanie White, Senior VP Customer Success at Duck Creek Technologies.

Where did you grow up and how would you describe yourself as a child?

I grew up in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania.  We had a lot of freedom to enjoy the mountains and lakes where we grew up.  As a child I was a rule follower and a people pleaser.  I liked to have fun but had to be in the lines. 

What did you study in college and what was your first job out of school?

I studied International Business, with a focus on Accounting and Minor in Japanese.  My first job out of college was Andersen Consulting in New York City and I was staffed on a project at Marsh and McLennan as my first client.  I thought I would be assigned to that project for 6 months, hop around to different companies and industries, but I ended up taking on various roles including Program Management, Developer, Tester, BA, led development teams and conversion teams and stayed at that client for over 3 years.  

Can you share the details on your career path and what were the critical moments that got you to where you are today?

I started my first job at Andersen Consulting after college and never left.  I worked in Andersen Consulting’s consulting practice, which became Accenture, implementing core systems for insurance, reinsurance and capital market customers for about 12 years.  During the last few years, I worked in the Accenture Quality and Process Improvement program, guiding project teams on best practices and ensuring projects were meeting CMMI certification standards. My next role was within the Accenture Software group, where I worked with several organizations to integrate acquisitions into the division.  One of the products we worked with was Accenture Claims, where I got reconnected with several members from my first project at Marsh.  I was asked to take on a role leading the QA, BA, and Documentation teams for Accenture Claims in 2009.  In 2011, we acquired Duck Creek. I continued leading various engineering teams, including QA, Support, Release Management, Dev Ops, Performance Test, UX and Technical Writing through 2018 across the Duck Creek suite of products.  

In 2018, I was approached to take on a new challenge leading our customer facing support organization for our growing Cloud customer base as well as OnPrem customers.  Many across the organization thought I was crazy for even considering the role, but with challenge comes tremendous opportunity to improve our business, and my teams and I have been able to experience the rewards together.  Although apprehensive at first, I have never been so passionate about our company, the role our team plays as our customers advocates and how we help them achieve success.  

After I had my first child, in 2002, I started working part-time 3.5 days a week and was fortunate enough to continue part-time, after my son was born in 2005, and for several more years.   I was always very goal oriented, and I struggled the most during this time.  I was trying to be the best parent, wife, friend, daughter, sister and employee.  I was also taking care of my terminally ill father 1000 miles away.  It was very difficult.  I felt like I did not fit in the stay-at-home mom role.  There wasn’t a part-time mom’s group.  And I didn’t feel like I could advance in my career being part-time.  My part-time status was always a consideration when it came to performance cycles.  I felt like I was on pause.  However, I do not regret it and would do it all over again to spend that precious time with my kids.  Well, I would do it a little differently now that I am older and hopefully wiser.  I learned there is no set path, you choose the one that is right for you.  I made the choice to focus on raising my family and knew the consulting lifestyle and commuting from NYC every day, was not going to allow me to be the mom I wanted to be.  And that meant taking a step back from my career.  

What is your current role and responsibilities?

As SVP of Customer Success at Duck Creek Technologies, I am responsible for the teams of passionate technology professionals who focus on customer experience and ensuring our customers achieve their business and IT outcomes using our software.  The team of Customer Success Managers and Customer Success Engineers are advocates to the customer for the duration of the customer’s contract from kickoff through post Go-Live production phase. Our team of Onboarding Success Managers focus on ensuring the customer is trained on our proven Cloud standards, guide in preparation for go-live with speed and minimal risk and are operationally ready in production to drive value.  Our upgrade team works with customers to keep them current and getting value from the latest versions of our software.  Our migration team supports our OnPrem customers moving to the Cloud. And lastly, our Customer Success Ops team enables all our organization to focus on driving proactive strategic value to our customers through standardized playbooks, communication, metrics, and analysis.  

Looking back, is this where you thought you’d be professionally?  Was it always your goal to be in this position?

Definitely not.  At one point as a child, I thought I wanted to be a dentist like my grandfather and uncle.  After living in Japan and learning Japanese in high school as an exchange student, I wanted to focus on using language in business.  While I have had occasional opportunities to leverage language for short projects, I have not used it in my day to day job. Even so, that incredible experience and my appreciation for people of all cultures and backgrounds is something I am privileged to leverage everyday at Duck Creek and across our customers and SI partners.  I love people and nothing makes me happier than to see them thrive and succeed.  

For people who are looking to be in a similar position, what advice would you give to others in terms of helping them achieve their career goals?

Never sacrifice what you believe in to achieve success.  You won’t be happy if you are not true to who you are.  

What are the most important skills that you need to do your job well?

Empathy, listening, integrity, data driven decision making, and being action oriented. 

What do you find most interesting/rewarding about your work?  What’s the most challenging?

Every day is different and brings a new challenge.  This is what I find most rewarding because there is nothing monotonous or predictable about any given day – it is also what is the most challenging.   This is software and there is no defect free software that meets 100% of every customer’s needs out of the box…and our customers have complex businesses.  As a result, I am constantly growing and learning from others, our customers, and colleagues.  I have been honored to be presented with new challenging opportunities throughout my career, which I find extremely fulfilling.  There is nothing more gratifying than solving complex problems and seeing customers succeed. There is also nothing more rewarding as a leader than seeing your team members achieve their goals and full potential, whether it is overcoming an obstacle, getting recognition from a customer, or getting a promotion and advancing in their career. 

What is your proudest professional accomplishment?

Co-founding the Women’s Resource Group at Duck Creek in 2020. It was the first Employee Resource Group (ERG).  With a couple new ERGs launching, we are now at 7 and counting.  I continue to be the executive sponsor of the WRG (now at 350 members globally), and a member of the Employee Experience Council.

Are you involved with any professional organizations outside of the company? Volunteer work?

I am a member of Athena Alliance and various Customer Success related communities and networks. My husband and I will be empty nesters next year, so I hope to volunteer more consistently, however, I currently support a local organization called Blessing Bag Brigades, donate blood, volunteer, and support various other local school and community events.  

Q&A

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I enjoy time with family and friends…we love to travel, go to the beach, play tennis, run, bike, ski, go someplace new or try a new adventure.  

How do you manage stress?

Exercise.  As much as I say I hate to run, when I am stressed, I feel so much better after a great run or playing tennis.  Humor always helps. When I stress, it helps to look back at another time I felt overwhelmed or stressed, and remind myself how everything worked out.  Deep breaths and reminding myself that ‘this too shall pass’ often helps.

How many cups of coffee do you have in a day?

Too many.  I try to stick to one pot of the (fairly large) French Press I make every morning. I am the only coffee drinker in my house, so if it is there, I drink it.

Any book or podcast recommendations?    

Latest read: Chief Customer Officer playbook, Podcast: Women in Tech, the Double Shift

What advice do you have for recent college graduates?

You can pave any path forward you desire. Details from your past, where you grew up and where you went to school does not define you. It is your work ethic, attitude, energy, passion, and moral values that define you and will bring you success and happiness.  Stay true to who you are, and you can achieve anything.

Our Lead(H)er series features impressive women leaders in the tech industry. In this Q&A, we are featuring Debi Dowling, SVP Business Operations and COS to CEO at Onapsis.

Where did you grow up and how would you describe yourself as a child?

I grew up in the UK in a town called Reading just outside London. I had always wanted to move to America. As soon as I started traveling for work, I knew it was where I needed to be! I have been stateside now for just over 6 years in New Hampshire and most recently to escape the LONG winters have moved to sunnier climates of North Carolina, but I still get my Boston fix traveling back for work most months!

What did you study in college and what was your first job out of school?

I studied Business Studies at college and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do when I left school. I saw an ad for Vodafone back in the day when a mobile phone was the size of a brick and only used for absolute emergencies! It was a 2-year rotation program to learn about all aspects of business from Sales to Marketing to Customer Support and it also allowed me to continue my studies with a certification with the Institute of Credit Management. I ended up staying just over 10 years at Vodafone in a variety of roles including Customer Services, Credit Analysis and ultimately became the Head of Risk Strategy for the UK. 

Can you share the details on your career path and what were the critical moments that got you to where you are today?

After 10 years at Vodafone I knew I needed to make a decision - would it end up being a ‘job for life’ or should I explore the big world outside of this very structured company. I took the plunge and ended up leaving for a start-up opportunity in the city of London. Wow, it was such a change from the process and discipline I thought I loved at Vodafone to being thrown into the chaos and delight of start-ups - I think that is where I got my real passion for working in more early stage companies and having the opportunity to really help shape the future!  

I really focused my career around Project Management and Business Operations with a real love for Services. I moved several times in my career from start-up to corporate and back again most recently spending just over 8 years at Juniper where I moved into the Chief of Staff world and worked with 3 very different leaders over the years and also relocated to the USA. 

What is your current role and responsibilities?

I am currently SVP of Business Operations and COS to the CEO at Onpasis and this is my 4th and I have to say favorite COS role to date (I mean I have to say that right - the boss is probably reading this!).  All joking aside, I think the COS in a start-up is VERY different to that in my last 3 roles in a non-start-up environment.  Every day I get to do what I love and no days are ever the same.  I get to work in all aspects of the business from leading hands on functional teams (Right now I am running our Marketing organization, Business Operations and Company Enablement) and I have also lead some of our most strategic company initiatives - most recently working with the Chasm Institute on our  ‘Crossing the Chasm’ initiative as we move into a much more focused and deliberate GTM approach.  I also get to work on what I love most, which is employee engagement initiatives - these focus on wellness activities (we launched our 4.5 day work week last year) and community events and communications and development.