 HBC Dutchess Radio welcome back to our latest edition of our strategic partners initiative podcast series where we talk to the best and brightest in corporate minds supporting the historically black college and university sector through workforce development and training opportunities today our distinguished guest is coming to us all the way from the west side from Lyft and she is Monica Poindexer the head of inclusion and diversity for the great company Lyft so miss Poindexer great to have you on today thank you I'm glad to be here thanks for having me so Lyft is is one of the early and most aggressive companies that has been very involved in very public with support of historically black colleges and not just from a perspective of ride-sharing I think one of the first initiatives was a project with Paul Quinn College in Dallas Texas where a portion of proceeds from ride-sharing went back to the university but also in the in the way of training and development professionally for students and graduates of HBCU's can you talk a little bit about how Lyft kind of got started into the HBCU space and why it's so important to be involved with the sector at large yes absolutely thank you for that and let me just first start off with by saying that when we look at the why we are supporting HBCU's it is a broader discussion just around recognizing that there has been a lack of progress increasing diversity over all in the tech industry and so when we look at what are those strategic opportunities for us to look at the not only the challenge but the opportunity to increase the workforce diversity it is going to be through strategic partnerships as well as understanding where and how we can leverage the Lyft brand as well as these partnerships to increase our overall workforce diversity. The relationship that we have started to establish early on in our journey are with campuses like Howard University, Hampton University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, North Carolina A&T, Spellman and then we also have partnerships and events, webinars, virtual because we do recognize that geography can sometimes be a challenge we're also piloting some events and webinars with Fisk University and Tennessee State University but we are very excited with these partnerships and while we're early on in the partnerships we do fully expect that we will continue to yield higher impacts but also increase Lyft's brand and trust with the HBCU campuses but more importantly with the actual students that we want to be able to hire in the short term. So that's one piece. The HBCU aspect is really being able to recognize and leverage the fact that HBCUs do contribute and do produce a very large or significant percentage 42% of black engineers and so when we look at how do we actually leverage the pipeline of talent that HBCUs are generating, how do we as a tech industry leverage that talent pipeline, develop it, hire it, retain that talent and then also show that that talent is strategically influencing our product design as well as helping to brand our products and how we actually market our products to a diverse marketplace. So the why with the partnerships and the how through the HBCUs is just one aspect that we want to continue to leverage on. We are early in our journey with the HBCU partnerships and that is being demonstrated through the investment that we have made to hire specialists that are focused on HBCU efforts through our university program through internships as well as ensuring that we can get those internships converted to new grad hires. So while we're early in the journey, we want to ensure that we have the partnerships and the strategy to support our both short term and long term efforts increasing workforce diversity. Talk about developing that partnership because a lot of companies and particularly in the tech sector in recent years have stressed the importance of we got to become more diverse because we understand that if you if you leave out certain groups of people, you are leaving behind a significant part of the nation's brain trust. So that that's your math. But it's it's difficult to figure out, OK, well, where do you find talented people of color? Where do you find people in communities that aren't typically exposed to those kind of opportunities but could be excelling beyond those those kind of restraints? How does Lyft actually develop that talent pipeline, identify it and develop that strategy around the sector? Yes, very good. So I think it does start with being very intentional with the schools HBCU that we do partner with and having a criteria around who we partner with and why we partner. And I think a lot of that is really coming from the the faculty and then also the curriculum that they are offering to their HBCU students and then also looking at their placement rates for their students that are coming and matriculating out of their program and also the the willingness to be able to partner to help influence content and curriculum so that as we are designing and developing new content, new products and really disrupting the marketplace with new technologies, we also want to be sure that there is the opportunity to be able to partner and to influence how the HBCU and faculty can actually help to incorporate some of these new technologies, innovations into what are they actually presenting to their students through a curriculum perspective. So if we take autonomous vehicle, for example, you know, when we think about I'm just gonna make it very real. I don't know how many members of my family, agnostic to how old they are, we're so comfortable getting into a self driving car. Right. But if we and if you think about your own family members, how comfortable would they be getting into a self driving car? And so when we think about how that actually relates to the products with the technology, but also the early adopters for these services and the unique ways in which the marketplace is actually evolving and our technologies are evolving, I would feel much more comfortable if I knew that these products and services were actually being designed by diverse engineers who who understood how to help us understand how do we actually open up our mindset that there is a safety consideration, but also a cultural consideration that we that we need to be mindful of how we even position autonomous vehicle in diverse marketplace of diverse communities. And so we think about just early adopters and how diverse talent can actually help us do that more effectively. That to me is a way in which leveraging that leveraging diverse faculty, really being able to influence curriculum design, ensuring that we actually have diverse students in these internships will help us a better position, not only the products and services, but also how do we actually go to market and summit in our diverse community? I mean, it does begin and end with do we understand the technology? Do we have the right people on the design product design teams and also ensuring that the schools that we're partnering with have the needs to be able to have the curriculum that is actually being accessed by the students and available to the students. Let's talk a little bit about tech culture. So we hear stories not necessarily of Lyft, but other Silicon Valley organizations and corporations that that struggle not to bring in minority and people of color to work, but that their retention numbers are low, because a lot of times, they aren't the most welcoming communities. Can you talk about some of the things that Lyft does to specifically promote cultural, not only just diversity, but inclusion and welcoming for all kinds of people at your shop? Yes, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that up, because I think that we have seen that we do put a lot of effort on bringing in the talent diverse talent to the organization. And we equally need to invest in the resources around retaining and developing that talent. And I do not think that that we all have a one shot bullet that is going to impact both the bringing in the talent and retaining the talent. But it is being more holistic with our strategies and also leveraging the existing diverse talent that we have within our workforce, so that that talent is not actually leaving out the organization because of either real overseas barriers in the organization, lack of advancement opportunities, equitable ways in which they are being developed within the organization. And so how do we actually leverage our employee resource groups, which is one way in which not only our employee resource groups, a magnet for diverse talent, but it also is an opportunity for the organization to leverage the cultural insights of our ERGs to help with product enhancements to also help with increasing our cultural competence. And I think that if we as industry can do a better job of leveraging the insight and being able to leverage the cultural insight from our ERGs and understanding when they do have unique experiences that are real for them, that we take that into consideration on how do we actually develop retention efforts, development efforts, and how do we unpack what those experiences are so we can provide a more inclusive experience for our diverse employees so that we can either slow down the leaky pipeline, because here's the reality is that the tech talent is not being regenerated, but it's actually being moved from one tech company to another. So if each tech company can retain their existing diverse talent, then we can actually start to make some incremental progress by building on top of the workforce that we have versus trying to supplement or replace who we've lost with the new hire that we're actually trying to bring in. And then the final question and we really appreciate your insight today. If you were to advise college president's board members, specifically at HBCUs, who want to join this growing coalition of yours in reaching out to HBCU faculty and students, but they don't have an existing relationship with your office or from reps from Lyft, how would you advise them to start to build that relationship or to look for the pathways to that relationship? And where can they get more information about your HBCU initiatives? So I think we're leveraging the strategic partnership that industry, academia and government are really trying to establish and forge together. Because this is the challenge, the tech talent, tech diversity challenge. It's not just industry. It is a systemic challenge. And I do think that if we collectively can align our partnerships in which we are starting to be even more effectively with the Congress for Black Caucus, CDC, where industry, academia and government can convene and be able to actually start to make not only build a relationship, build the trust, and then also be able to start to make headway on one to two or three consistent initiatives that all tech companies can work for specifically to increase diversity within the workforce. And I think leveraging the CDC and the Tri-Coccuses to help with some of these efforts to be a unifier voice for industry, academia and government, so that we can actually have some translation of where what are the gaps, what are the opportunities? And then more importantly, what are the levers that we all can work on within our respective areas, so that we can actually rise the tide in all areas, both for industry, academia and government, so we can address this systemically. And it's not just an industry problem, but it truly is a trifecta challenge, but also could be a trifecta solution.