Hair color; gender; hometown; music taste; culture; sexual orientation; the list of traits that build a personal identity goes on and on. If team members don’t fully comprehend the way someone’s identities can overlap, even the most well-intentioned DEI groups can misstep in their approach to fostering a culture of belonging for everyone.
Exclusion and lack of recognition don’t just hurt the employees experiencing it, either; both the business and internal teams as a whole can and do suffer. As a result, hiring teams have started to come together in order to create change within their organizations by embracing intersectionality.
“Approaching intersectionality starts with awareness and education,” Thressa Irigon-Rachetto, DEI business partner at PitchBook, told Built In.
At the venture capital and private equity company, team members have access to various and frequent DEI trainings as well as educational events dedicated to different identities within the financial industry. But that’s just the beginning.
To gain a better sense of the current DEI intersectionality landscape within the local tech scene, Built In NYC asked Irigon-Rachetto to break down how exactly her team is building an increasingly inclusive workspace.
How does your company approach intersectionality in the workplace – particularly the intersection of race and other identities, such as sexual orientation, gender or parental status?
Approaching intersectionality in the workplace starts with awareness and education. At PitchBook, we maximize our communication channels to provide forums for employees to learn and better understand the multi-faceted experiences we all face and how we can best support one another. In our education platform, PitchBook Learning, employees have access to various diversity, equity and inclusion trainings to expand their knowledge and apply them in the workplace.
PitchBook further educates our employees on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and how they can get more involved by providing educational experiences. Recently, PitchBook hosted “Empowering LGBTQIA+ Entrepreneurs,” with a non-profit organization providing support for LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs. During the event, employees learned more about the experiences of LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs in the financial industry and how to increase access and equity moving forward. We hosted this event in tandem with the launch of an LGBTQIA+ PitchBook Case Study with the organization, which showcases how the PitchBook Platform can be used to promote DEI within our industry.
We have also created a relationship with the organization Women in Sales Everywhere (WISE), which provides our female sales employees with mentorship opportunities, educational experience, and much more. As we grow as a company and in our DEI efforts, we will continue to look for other opportunities to support our employees and communities.
In addition to educational awareness, we will be conducting regular audits of processes and procedures to check bias and consider all perspectives. PitchBook is a data-driven organization and will use these audits to influence our future initiatives and ensure they are impactful and intentional.
What has been the most impactful action your company has taken to create a more inclusive and equitable work environment for ALL employees, and why?
Before I came on board, PitchBook had already started the groundwork for a great DEI journey. They partnered with Catalyst, a DEI consulting firm, to further understand the needs of the employees and create a strategy that focuses on allyship, communication and decision making. Additionally, executive leaders participated in a three-day intensive workshop aimed at deepening their diversity, equity and inclusion knowledge. We have and continue to provide our employees with several avenues to strengthen their knowledge in this space. Our learning development team created Foundations of Inclusion, a comprehensive training session that helps employees discover the basics of having inclusive conversations, confronting bias and more. We encourage managers and their teams to participate in learning groups in order to conduct smaller talking sessions to reflect together on the learnings.
I’m proud to be part of an organization that already started the groundwork on DEI while recruiting a DEI specialist instead of waiting for one.
A designated DEI person cannot do this work or influence a company culture on their own.”
What role do your employees play in driving DEI efforts? And what have you done to ensure even the most marginalized voices on your team are represented, heard, valued and respected?
A designated DEI person cannot do this work or influence a company culture on their own. I rely on all employees to be committed to our DEI journey in order for us to grow and be successful. One way is for employees to be part of and help create employee resource groups (ERGs). ERGs are voluntary, employee-led groups that foster a diverse, inclusive workplace that aligns with organizational values and goals. Other benefits of participating and developing ERGs include developing future leaders and increased employee engagement and retention. Some notable ERGs PitchBook has developed is Women’s Initiative (WIN), a community focused on growth and promoting inclusion of women at PitchBook, and PB All In, which focuses on creating a space for a diverse, active and engaged culture of inclusion.
I am looking forward to growing our current ERGs and creating more resources for our employees. I am currently developing the ERG structure where members of our leadership team serve as executive sponsors to build relationships and connections that will best support ERGs and the company.
I will continue to encourage open and transparent communication between our employees. Communication is key to making meaningful connections in order to create trust for everyone to have voice and have access to space and support to speak up.
