My parents are both from Haiti and I grew up speaking multiple languages and traveling. Social responsibility and citizenship is something that has always been stressed in our household.

I think it’s important to have a global perspective, and Penn does a good job of providing that, not only because the student body is so international, but also because there’s an intentional focus on thinking bigger than one’s self—being a global and connected citizen and giving back in that way.

I’m originally from Boston, and I started at Google’s Boston office in global business, working with technology customers to build their digital advertising strategies. I also worked with my manager to help start a program called Accelerate with Google, which helps minority-owned businesses get online—so Black, Hispanic, women-owned, LGBTQ+-owned, veteran-owned businesses. We saw that they were less likely to have a website at the time and new that was crucial. We built a 12-week program in partnership with a company called HubSpot to help them learn digital skills and use digital tools. It was super fun.

It’s exciting for me to fuse my passion for diversity with my business background. When underrepresented people feel valued and feel safe sharing their perspectives, solutions are better, products are better, and services are better.

Later I moved here to San Francisco as a diversity business partner. I worked with senior leaders looking at talent within their teams—everything from retention, progression, and organizational health as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion. While I was doing that, I started to think about how culture and representation affected our design process. We build for billions of users all over the world—how are we bringing an inclusive lens to our products? I then transitioned to becoming the Head of Product Inclusion after 3.5 years of being a diversity business partner.

I love being able to bring diverse perspectives to the table at critical moments. For example, we collaborated with the team that develops sensors for Google products with cameras in them. They worked hard to ensure that the sensors accurately detect the skin tones of people of color. We have another program called Tech West that brings in students from historically Black colleges and universities, and trains them as interns and with the hopes of them becoming full-time staff. It’s not just getting people in the door, but once they’re here, do they feel valued? Are they seeing a pathway? It’s a multifaceted challenge, right? One thing we always say is, “If you can see it, you can be it.” And so it is important to have women and people of color, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and other underrepresented people at senior levels, because if you don’t see someone you feel connected to, that’s very disheartening.

It’s exciting for me to fuse my passion for diversity with my business background. When underrepresented people feel valued and feel safe sharing their perspectives, solutions are better, products are better, and services are better. — March 7, 2019 • Photo by Brooke Sietinsons