Is the transparency of your Diversity, Equity & Inclusion data relatively new or has DocuSign always collected and posted it?
It is relatively new, within the last 18 months. We collected the information in the past but didn’t post it. But Dan Springer is a CEO who believes in transparency, and we are a company that does. So, when we decided to do it, it was like, “Oh, yeah, of course.” We didn’t even debate it.
Has posting it had any impact?
It’s been a great opportunity to show that we’re an organization that cares tremendously about diversity, equity and inclusion, and a company that is going to hold itself accountable to update this information on an ongoing basis.
We’ve got three DE&I goals. One is around diversity, which is to have lots of different kinds of people, and ways people think about things in the organization. Also, inclusivity. We want to infuse inclusion into everything we do. And the last thing is holding ourselves accountable. Publishing this information is a way for us to hold ourselves accountable in a public way, to our employees, to candidates, to investors, and to people who have an interest in DocuSign and want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.
Has anyone said, “Gee, DocuSign’s numbers aren’t as good as they could be”?
Sure. Internally we’ve got some of that, saying, “How come we’re not doing better than we are?” We’ll own it and say, “We are not pleased with where we’re at.” We’re not dissimilar from a lot of tech companies and benchmark companies that we compare ourselves against. We’re quite like a lot of them. But we don’t think tech in general has done a very good job with increasing diversity in terms of women in leadership and, in general, under-represented minorities in leadership and throughout the organization.
We’re OK with the criticism, and we feel like by being transparent, it’s a good way for us to say we’re measuring this, and we know you’re looking at us, and we care about it.
Is DocuSign taking other steps to advance their DE&I initiative?
Going forward, we’re putting DE&I measures into our executive compensation plan. The bonus plan for Dan Springer and his team will include metrics for the percentage increase in women and under-represented minorities in leadership and in under-represented minorities in the organization. That’s a powerful message, to our employees and executives.
I’m also pleased to announce that we just hired our first Chief Diversity and Engagement Officer, who will be starting in March. We’ve had a DE&I function, but not at the chief diversity officer level. That was an important statement to our organization, to our employees and to our external stakeholders, that we’re serious about this. This is a person who is going to have responsibility for helping guide the organization and getting us to where we want to go. This is a person with great experience.
We’re doubling down on infusing inclusion throughout the organization. We have 12 very strong employee resource groups (ERGs), including ones for employees who are Black, Asian, LGBTQIA+, veterans, caregivers, or affected by disabilities. We also have multiple ERGs for women.