Guest Blog Post Series: Amber Takahashi x Blind

Blind is excited to bring you our new guest blog post series. As you know, Blind is a trusted community where verified professionals connect to discuss what matters most, anonymously. 

Our guest bloggers range in specializations, disciplines, objectives, mission, and careers.

Through partnerships and posts, these professionals are waiving their anonymity to share real advice, provide honest perspectives, discuss company culture, in order to help you discover relevant career information. Our guest blog post series adds to our mission towards transparency in order to break down professional barriers. We hope these insights help you make empowered informed decisions, and inspire productive change in the workplace.

Have a topic you want to read about? Email us at press@teamblind.com

Tell us about you!

Hi all!

My name is Amber Takahashi. I am a Software Engineer within the FinTech industry by day, and entrepreneur after 5pm. Outside of work, my time is split between two ventures: Brown Girl Tech World (non-profit), and clarityMap (SaaS startup). When I’m not working, you can find me exploring the world, hiking in the mountains, kayaking, or working on a BMW E30 “restomod” project with my dad. 

Tell us about Brown Girl, Tech World!

Brown Girl Tech World is a resource for brown women and girls looking to break into the technology industry with non-technical backgrounds. We also support women of color in their transition between technical roles. Our mission is to increase the inclusion of women of color in the tech industry through immersive tech programs, skill enhancement, and providing grants and scholarships. We aim to eradicate the “leaky tech pipeline” for women of color at every stage by 2050. A few of our goals include sponsoring 1,000 certifications by 2025 and helping 10,000 women of color transition into the tech industry. 

One remarkable sign of the racial inequities plaguing the United States: The wage gap between black and white men is as large today as it was in 1950. What tangible steps do you think can be taken to begin to close this gap?

The first step would be to invest in providing the entire Black community with the same level of access to financial literacy tools as Caucasians. Financial resources have been disproportionately unavailable to the Black community for centuries. 

Educating the Black community, specifically generations X through Alpha, about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, stock options, fractional shares, and other investment strategies, would allow us to understand how possible it is to strategically multiply wealth instead of spending it on low-value objects. 

I’d highly suggest reading “Bitcoin & Black America” by Isaiah Jackson and “Financial Starter Kit: Gain Financial Literacy and Avoid Pitfalls of the American Dream” by Symoné B. Beez.

The second step, which can be done in parallel, would be for corporations to obtain ethnicity and gender-centered data and perform a pay audit. After performing the audit, companies should appropriately adjust all affected staff’s salaries.

The last step would be for companies to establish standard recruitment and interviewing frameworks that ensure all bias is eliminated from the hiring process. Bias is one of the leading factors that can cause one to make $10,000 less than they deserve.

How do we make decisions that are fair, where all their voices are heard?

Making sure that everyone, even the quietest person in the room, shares their stance on a decision. No one person decides for the team. It’s also important to ensure that everyone apart of the decision has values and morals that align with a company’s D&I initiatives.

For example, there are 16 people that have to vote on a life-changing decision. The majority vote wins in this scenario. 10 people who may have questionable ethics and morals vote to pass something that may negatively affect the 6 that voted against it.

How does Diversity and Inclusion create opportunities to foster an environment where there is a sense of belonging?

Being in an environment where people look like you, may share similar life experiences with you, and have similar values helps you have a positive outlook on even the worst of experiences. You feel a sense of community, and feel more open to being creative.

What does inclusive decision-making look like to you?

In terms of tech, in order for inclusive decisions to be made, the team making the decisions needs to mirror that of their users or customer-base. Everyone should be represented in the room.

How would you measure inclusion? How can Executives and HR teams avoid their own subjective perceptions of the culture at their organization?

I would mandate a KPI around inclusion, and send out quarterly inclusion eNPS surveys. It’s also pivotal to hire experienced external consultants to come in and implement an internal D&I structure that spans from the C-suite to employee onboarding. It’s also important that D&I staff are external from HR. This is an important step to prevent bias from seeping into the new structure.

True diversity means having people from all kinds of backgrounds and identities at every level of your organization. How can this be at the forefront of recruitment?

By creating and actively implementing pipeline programs focused on placing diverse talent in staff and management level positions in partnership with Historically Black Colleges & Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, and diversity-focused organizations such as Brown Girl Tech World, Black Tech Pipeline, Blacks in Cyber, etc,.

One mistake that companies often make when they first start thinking about D&I is that they don’t think intersectionally. How do companies build programs that speak to all socioeconomic demographics? Not just straight white cisgender or economically privileged women.

As previously mentioned, when making decisions, especially those that directly affect your customers, it’s extremely important to have your customer demographic reflected in those discussions. It’s also useful to create a feedback loop with your customers to see what they think before you launch a program. Including your customers in the decision-making process can save an organization from making ill-informed decisions.

44% of employees didn’t feel that they could express a contrary opinion at work without fearing negative consequences. How can people speak about contentious topics in a constructive manner?

When speaking on controversial topics it’s very important to read the room, and understand your audience, and their triggers. It’s also very important to use tactful diction, and ensure that you’re in a setting where there’s no retribution for free thinking. As much as we’d like to speak on every topic, it may not always be ideal.

Do people feel like promotions and policies are fair and transparent within the tech industry?

Absolutely not. I believe this is why the millennial turn-over rate is so high. It’s not uncommon to hear someone staying with a company for only 6months to a year. According to Gallup, millennial turnover costs the U.S. economy an estimated $30.5 billion per year. If companies perform due diligence to their employees during promotions, that number just may decrease.

Which companies are examples of how to do D&I right? What do you think is their “secret sauce”?

American Express is a great example of how to do D&I. They’ve made diversity and inclusion their bottom line since 1987. Their Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are very diverse, and in 2017 they reported that 44% of their workforce is made up of minorities, and 55% of their workforce is female. For years, they’ve used their diverse makeup throughout their company to help produce the best experience and solutions for their customers.

I believe their “secret sauce” is keeping the conversation open around D&I, and also having a methodology in place for staying 7 steps ahead in innovation in terms of product and their workforce.