Sem Ponnambalam
President
xahive, Inc.
Orange County, California
Being a woman of color and having had to hustle to get my cybersecurity startup off the ground in Canada, the US, and the UK, I have firsthand experience of sexism, racism, and unconscious bias. It is one of the main reasons why at xahive, I have made it a goal that we have substantial diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, procedures, and goals. It is not just a business goal for xahive, but a life-long personal goal based on my experiences.
Whether we employ students, part-time or full-time employees, or consultants and vendors, we ensure that we are working with organizations that are fully representative of marginalized communities or work with organizations that explicitly demonstrate their “allyship” to achieving DEI goals. We continue to measure our DEI goals, policies, and procedures on a bi-annual basis, including our partner and vendor relationships. In addition, we have come to realize that we need to undergo unconscious bias training. We put ourselves and our team through this process bi-annually to ensure that we continue to provide an open, diverse, and genuinely inclusive environment regardless of background.
Some lessons learned through our DEI programs:
Collect demographic data & analyze hiring practices & compare data and DEI policies & procedures to other organizations
Share data with key stakeholders, companies as this can increase accountability and transparency
Identify roadblocks and address them in a path forward
Changing leadership & board’s mindsets from seeing complaints as threats to valuing them as insights that can spark positive organizational change
Technologies that get deployed for corporate screening, hiring, and evaluation processes have to be built on data that is fair to socio-demographic groups
To avoid tokenism or stereotypes best to use simultaneous evaluation processes rather than evaluating individuals one by one
Get managers and other leaders involved from the start on how to increase DEI
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, “the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt by women and marginalized communities. The timeframe for closing the global gender gap has increased from 99.5 years to 135.6 years.”
Given this new evidence, it is more important now than ever for xahive to make a concerted effort to help make a positive difference in not just achieving DEI goals. Most importantly, enacting policies and procedures that will ensure true DEI for all marginalized communities.