Pledging to Become an Anti-Racist Organization With Strava Chief People Officer Michele Bousquet
In this episode, I sit down to talk with Strava's chief people officer, Michele Bousquet. We discuss the early days of her career in HR, the work that she has done at Strava and the organization’s commitments and pledges to become an anti-racist company.
Michele began her career in executive recruiting, transitioned to project management and then found her way back to HR. She shares with us that while those could be viewed as deliberate moves early on in her career, they were more driven by factors outside of the career itself. Michele started at Charles Schwab, where she was unintentionally placed in a recruiting role. She gained her foundation in HR through the company’s culture, which centered on putting people first.
She reveals that the first half of her career was about finding out who she was. After her time at Schwab, Michele had the opportunity to move to London, then came back to the States, where she landed a role with a major commercial construction project in California. She ultimately understood that she had the “curse of the competent,” where she could bring that can-do spirit to each position. However, that quality also caused her to take a step back to understand whether she wanted to pursue these opportunities. She decided not to pursue architectural engineering, instead taking another HR role and eventually winding up at her current role at Strava, where the company is doing its part to create an inclusive culture.
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Obstacles to Strava’s Initiative
Becoming an anti-racist organization is a huge aspiration for Strava. When the company began to make the shift, they understood that achieving this aspiration was complicated. “For anybody who is talking about this, please know that no one knows how to do this,” shared Michele. She respectfully acknowledges that those who act as if they know exactly how to approach becoming an anti-racist company may have a few gaps, especially with tech companies historically set up as historically white systems.
Like many other companies, Strava was not functioning as an anti-racist company. Everything, from their team and leadership to their standards around everything they do, was unintentionally very white. “We even had DEI programs. Some of which were more successful or progressive than others, but they were definitely DEI version one,” said Michele.
Some of these follow-on efforts failed to have any impact on racial equity. One example was holding anti-racism accelerators for two weeks. Employees took time out from work to attend workshops and classes to gain more awareness. “What was the experience of sitting through some of that ‘Aha' and learning how obnoxious must it be for people of color to watch white people come to the realization that we live in a racist country?” Michele said.
Michele shares this example to show that they tried different approaches that led to understanding the complexities of achieving this aspiration.
Finding a Better Way
What these zero-impact tactics achieved, Michele explains, is creating a “commitment to the struggle toward racial equity, to be eyes wide open, honest, and to create real feedback loops around actual experience.” Now, the entire management team at Strava takes the time to talk about and examine racial inequities every week. The company overhauled its talent process, including making the team more representative of the global community that Strava wants to serve.
Instead of following quotas to create a diverse team, Michele and her team have built representative pipelines that help Strava pick the best candidates. “I'm not a fan of quotas. I don't believe in numbers,” Michele shares, adding that naming a percentage-based goal leaves the question as to what that means. “I want every team at Strava to have the rich intellect and lived experience of a variety of different people.”
Strava has made numerous efforts to establish itself as an anti-racist company, including diverse intern programs, pipelines and education, but it is still a work in progress. While Strava has welcomed more diverse candidates into the company, Michele has also been focused on breaking down the leadership demographics.
She shares that having a diverse team is great, and it’s essential to also look at who makes the decisions, who holds power and whether they are all white. It’s a different set of barriers, but not impossible to break down.
A Work in Progress
While the team understands that there is still a way to go, they have made simple but effective changes that have driven significant results. The team is now sharing representation and other statistics online, as well as writing and speaking honestly about where they are and where they aren’t.
In addition, Strava has configured its teams and product development to have anti-racism threads within all of their product development planning, created a robust employee resource group, reorganized the company calendar to be more representative of different holidays, and more.
Michele and her team understand that making this pledge means understanding that it’s going to be a process of trial and error. It’s continuous work for any company that decides to commit to these pledges, and there is no finish line. Instead, pledge to continue to learn and at least try. “I think at the end of the day, the thing we've done most successfully is just commit to being in it,” says Michele.