My D&I Journey with:
Lauren von Stackelberg,
Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity,
Expedia Group
My D&I Journey with:1. What was your journey into diversity and inclusion?
I’ve always been working in the service of equity. I started in microfinance, setting up a micro fund in Ghana to help empower women to lift themselves out of poverty via entrepreneurship. I learned first-hand about financial inclusion and financial literacy, specifically how they should be basic human rights but are not treated as such.
I thought about how to go from micro impact to building financial equity at scale, and that led me into banking. Banks were perpetuating inequity in society by not offering their services and advice to a diverse range of people. This caused differentials in financial literacy, but also longer-term consequences like pensions, savings and investment gaps, leaving certain populations unbanked or underbanked.
I felt it was time for banks to expand their D&I efforts – largely focused internally on recruiting more senior women – to reach their millions of customers in a more intentional and intersectional way. I became a Banker to work on client diversity strategies for Barclays and JPMorgan, ultimately building and leading JPMorgan’s first Female Client Strategy. I also founded a business, the WealthiHer Network, to change the perception of the banking industry.
In an effort to be more intersectional and to progress digital inclusion, another basic human right that’s not treated as such, I transitioned from banking to tech, becoming Expedia Group’s first Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity. In this role, I focus on our company-wide I&D strategy for our employees, partners, customers and communities. I also progress digital inclusion through the charity board hats I wear, including my role as Trustee and Chair of the Diversity Advisory Committee for Founders4Schools, an educational technology organization focused on increasing equitable access to careers education and diverse role models to prepare students for the rapidly changing world of work.
2. How would you describe a typical day in your role?
One thing I love about this job is there is no typical day. We spend our time working on the 4 pillars of our I&D strategy:
- Mindset – we focus on shifting mindsets through strategic communications, content creation, and campaigns. In this pillar, we partner closely with communities like our Employee Resource Groups and Inclusion Champion volunteers!
- Skillset – we focus on driving behaviour change through a customised inclusion learning journey across our talent lifecycle, covering topics from ally skills to mitigating bias to anti-racist action to inclusive leadership
- Toolset – we focus on driving accountability and building equity by (re)designing institutional policies and practices for talent, legal, benefits, compensation, etc.
- Measurement – we focus on evaluating and measuring progress through a company-wide listening strategy, diversity data in organisational health dashboards, goal setting, benchmarking, and transparently sharing information both internally and externally.
In this work, we partner closely with stakeholders and leaders across the business, so cross-functional engagement is a big part of every day on the job. I’m also leading a team, and one of the most important things I do is encourage their self-care. In this role, work can feel like it’s never done, and our work is hugely important given human rights and human lives are on the line. Every day I check in on how my team is feeling to ensure they’re not pouring from an empty cup and to share my gratitude for all they are and all they do.
3. What is the best part of your job?
Making the world a more equitable place. My role is very purposeful and mission-led. I’m here to make the world a better place than I found it, then to pass on the baton in this relay race.
4. What advice would you give to someone looking to move into D&I?
First and foremost, speak to other people who do this work. We all asked for advice and first-hand insight at some point in our careers, and we are happy to pay it forward.
Second, you need to understand the depth of the emotional impact this career has, and the inextricable link between your personal life and work. There may be things that are triggering, particularly if the systems of oppression you’re focusing on in place have impacted you over time.
Third, D&I work is a long-term journey and there is never a point where you know everything and you’re a subject matter expert. You need to be committed to active listening, reading and learning, seeking out perspectives you don’t hear enough or you do not personally hold.
Lastly, it’s important to think about the audiences you hope to impact through your work in D&I. If you seek to focus on employees and/or to have an HR career track, a company that holds D&I within HR might be a good fit for you. If you seek to impact audiences more broadly – product inclusion, digital accessibility, customer inclusion, inclusive marketing/communications – I would recommend joining a company where D&I sits outside HR, perhaps reporting directly into the CEO or in another part of the business, to enable you to maximise your audiences and your impact.
5. What are the main challenges faced by D&I professionals at the moment?
One of the common challenges is a misunderstanding of timelines. These are longstanding problems we’re trying to solve and they require long-term solutions – racial equity, for example, is a 400-year-old problem and the solution won’t take a week. There can be tension sometimes with people wanting to see change quickly, but it is our job to sustain this as a movement not a mindset-shifting moment.
Another challenge is lack of global data. Many companies make their D&I strategy an export from their headquarters, or from the US/UK where it is easier to store and collect demographic diversity data. If you have a global footprint, you need to prioritize global data, respecting that minority/majority populations vary by countries and regions. Leverage institutional listening via pulse or inclusion surveys to understand identity-based trends at a more granular, localised level.
6. Name three skills that support you to succeed in D&I
I can’t emphasise resilience enough. You have to be able to switch off. You will be told ‘no’ a lot. Sometimes that means not yet, so prioritise your energy to keep working to protect human rights and human lives. Be sure to protect your own wellbeing along the way.
Emotional intelligence is also enormously important. You need to have an intrinsic sixth sense for how people are feeling. You can’t always be in person with stakeholders so be attuned to whether what you’re saying is landing in the way you intend.
You need humility – there is no monopoly on good ideas and solutions in D&I, so we need to be humble enough to ask for help and tell each other when we got it wrong. We don’t hold every identity we advocate for, so we need to centre different voices, and recognise when we need to listen more than we speak.
Finally (and I know this is number four!), be comfortable being uncomfortable. You will have a lot of conversations that are difficult with stakeholders who are at different places on their journeys. This is not a job you can do in your comfort zone, so make sure you create a safe space for yourself and others to make mistakes, learn and grow.
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