For PayPal as a company, one of our core values is diversity and inclusion – it is not just a poster on the wall. It is fundamental to how we build our products. Fintech at PayPal is about democratizing money and allowing access to financial services to everyone.
Continue reading “Louise Pentland, chief legal officer, PayPal”
At Morgan Stanley, we are in the service profession – we don’t make anything. Rather, we serve the communities we operate in. But we don’t always reflect those communities in the ways we would like. Putting aside the moral and ethical issues, we just think this is bad business, and as a goal, we want to better reflect the communities we serve.
Continue reading “Eric Grossman, chief legal officer, Morgan Stanley”
I’m an electrical engineer by training and then became a patent lawyer. In patent law you need to have a technical degree before obtaining your law degree, and so, even though I’m in the legal field, I see first-hand the diversity issues that tech companies are facing. The pool of diverse candidates in the engineering space is smaller than it should be, and so the pool in patent law is even smaller.
Continue reading “Dana Rao, vice president of intellectual property and litigation, Adobe”
Diversity for me has been an issue I’ve been passionate about throughout my career. It’s certainly something which has evolved over time, but it’s rooted in my upbringing. My parents were very involved in the Civil Rights Movement back in the 1960s, so from an early age it has been ingrained in us as children that concepts like civil rights, diversity and valuing differences were the right thing to do.
Continue reading “Mark Roellig, general counsel, MassMutual”
A diverse workforce means you have a diversity of experience and a diversity of opinion, which translates into better products and better services. We service customers worldwide and our team has to reflect that in order for us to remain competitive.
A number of years ago, while interviewing an individual for an open position on my team, he shared a very personal concern with me. He told me that he was gay and that was causing him concern about how he would be perceived, should he be out in the workplace with his colleagues. He also worried that he may be treated differently because of his sexuality.
Continue reading “Mike Cammarota, senior director of legal services, Accenture”
Rhanda Moussa: ‘Bring your whole self to work’ is our team’s new lens in which we define, progress and measure the strategic direction for diversity and inclusion across legal. We broadly work from three guiding principles, focusing on attract, retain and develop.
As a white man, I don’t scream diversity. But as the first-generation son of Russian immigrants who came to the US in the 1950s, I know all too well what it feels like to be a minority. When my parents came to America, they didn’t speak a word of English. Despite being highly educated (English was their fifth language), I saw them be treated as if they were stupid simply because they struggled to express themselves in a language other than one of their own. This experience shaped my character and how I think about diversity, both personally and professionally.
Continue reading “Alex Dimitrief, general counsel, General Electric”
Maternity policy is a conversation that has been around for decades; the problem statement is our most valuable resource is our people. We have a group of working women who are assets to the organization. We invest in them via time, finance and development, and we lose that tremendous value they have with the insight, the skillset and experience because someone chooses to have a baby.
Continue reading “Megan Doberneck, general counsel, Vodafone Americas”
The idea for the Denniston Fellowship originated from my own frustrations with other diversity and inclusion initiatives. We participated in a diversity summer internship program in 2013 where a law student spent a few weeks of the summer with a law firm and three weeks with our team.
Continue reading “Tom LaFrance, general counsel, GE Transportation”