 So, together with Gillian today, we are going to talk about DEI, which is a topic that we are both very passionate about. And our goal for this session is that every one of you in the audience can take something very concrete, very practical with you to start building more inclusive organisations. But Gillian, let's start with your journey with booking.com. So, you spent about 20 years with booking.com. You were the CEO and eventually also the chairwoman of the board. And you led the company's expansion from a start-up to the global travel giant it is today. So, can you start by telling more about your journey with booking.com? Yeah, no, absolutely. It's been almost 20 years of my life and it's super interesting to being part of able to scale a company from a very small start-up, like lots of people out here, to a world leader in travel. And it's nice if you can go through all these phases of growing a company right in the beginning, where you're really trying to find product market fit, where you're setting up all the departments you need to be successful, you're thinking about your culture and really start scaling everything you do all over the world. And I think once you've scaled, you come into a new phase again where you can start thinking about real new innovations because there's still so many challenges that people experience while travelling and there's still so many problems that you can really solve to make it a better experience and it's been an enormous journey and the nice thing is if you've done that, now I've been looking at booking for 20 years which you cannot really think about anything else, it's quite intense to do that and after that, so it's about two years ago, I started really, the world has opened up because you can look at so many other companies, I've been investing in many companies and the other topic that I've been working a lot on is DEI which we will speak about today but it's nice if you're now also able to use your knowledge in a different way. Absolutely. Can you tell us, when did you realise that DEI was important and also why is DEI important for you? Yes, so if you look at my own journey, in the beginning I never realised that or I never realised that as a woman in what I was doing that I was kind of an exception and there was actually two moments when I started realising, okay, within booking this is something that really needs attention. The first moment was when I was pregnant of my first child because that's when you feel you're a woman, right? Because you feel kind of the elephant in the room and everybody was looking at me like, what's going to happen now? Is she still going to be so dedicated, work hard, etc., which was all fine but you do feel a bit different at that time and the second part was, I think it was when I was COO at booking and I did a presentation and then somebody came up to me and she said, yeah it's so nice to have you at the top but we don't see any role models in between so it's very hard for me to see the route to eventually ending up in a job like you're doing and that's when I started realising, yeah this needs work because to get that right you need to really work on every level in a company to get even DEI on the top for instance. Yeah, absolutely and what would you say for example now you for example have invested in several companies and are working with several companies, what do you tell them when they ask you like why is DEI important? Why does it matter? Yeah and that's also the good title of the session right? I don't think we need to talk anymore about why it's important. I think everybody knows that you get better cultures and companies, you get more creativity, better innovation, it's proven that companies have better results so I think that the business case for DEI is quite clear and that's also why when I had more time started thinking about why is this now moving forward so slowly right? Well everybody knows it's important and yeah you see through a lot of research we've done as well that most companies really see themselves as beginner and companies want to be inclusive right? That's not the problem I think but they often also don't know how so there's still a lot of work to do to think through how do you then do that and I've learned that that booking as well that I always say it's hard work, it's really hard work and the booking we really started looking at the whole funnel to think through okay where is it now breaking and what can we do as a company to really improve every step from recruitment to when people get promoted to how we develop talent until you have the leadership team right? So every step requires so many actions and I've also learned that booking that this is a topic you cannot address top down specifically when you have like you have 800 people I think and it becomes really difficult so you need to do a bottom up and when you do a bottom up you need data so I realized yeah if you don't have data and I was so surprised because tech companies and I know within booking as well you don't make any decision without data and then if you look on the people part there's hardly any data right and I think with DEI this could really help companies to see are we making progress but also what we're doing does that actually have the impact that we need so that I've learned another big part is if you think about building a culture where everybody feel they belong you can do engagement service which are very important but that in itself is not enough you need to really listen to employees so we started doing courageous conversations where people open up round table sessions or smaller sessions and I've learned a lot through the sessions that I didn't realize either right and the first leaders in tech did a whole research as well where you see this if you if you if you ask leaders two-thirds of them think that there's no problem of building an inclusive culture but actually one-third of the employees and the talent actually actually thinks that so there's a big perception gap and that's something when I saw that I thought yeah that I've seen a booking as well that you really need to step in and stimulate to have these conversations absolutely and there's a lot of already practical stuff that I want to dig deeper into but let's start with data so I definitely kind of do recognize that kind of behavior in companies that companies that are generally very dated to event but when it comes to DEI then they don't know what to do with data so can you can shed light to what can you or what should you be measuring when you want to improve the DEI in your organization yes so the first thing I started doing when I have more time is we've done two benchmarks to really because I thought if I put benchmarks out you can really help companies as to what should you measure yeah which was good to do but you do see that companies are not ready because they just don't have the data so now we're actually seeing okay we need to do it one step ahead and to really see it's a maturity level where do companies sit and how can they make the next step to make these improvements but companies really can start looking at data right there's a lot you can measure and there's a lot you can see right in recruitment there's a lot you can see in promotions you know that's what we've done at booking as well so the data that you can put in place you should put in place in your engagement survey make sure you ask questions around DEI right so and these type of it's qualitative and quantitative data that you should slowly start together there's companies out there now that do self-assessments right so that can help because then actually your employees can give you the information because sometimes you're not able to ask the information so there's actually already lots of things that that companies can do yeah absolutely and maybe also to share one very practical example what I think many companies can do is implement the question as part of the pool service that you are already doing in your company even if it's something you've built yourself like a very start-up Google forms type of full survey or if you're using a Apple server tool nowadays they're very good questions yeah but I've also there's two elements which are also super crucial role models and if you're a very small company that's sometimes more difficult but role models are super crucial yeah I think as a company to make sure that these role models are visible that you give them a stage as well right so and mentorship sessions is something that you can implement so there's lots of things that companies can already do yeah absolutely and maybe let's talk about that next so I want to talk about recruiting which I think also for many startups here in the audience is a very hot topic how do you bring that top talent but if if you are a startup or a bit larger larger scale up already and you want to bring in more diverse talent and you want to bring in more diverse talent to leadership positions as well what what are some tactics or kind of practical things that you can do to bring in more more diverse talent yeah yeah so it starts with making sure there's no biases right and in how you recruit information about the company etc so that's I think a step number one in the job profile that you're putting out so but these are things that there's tools to do that very well today and then I think it's very important to really stimulate to get a diverse pool of candidates to choose from and that often takes more time and I see that as well with companies I invest in that at the moment they need an urgent hire that's the moment they start thinking about and then think oh it's not that they don't want to hire diverse candidates but then there's a time element they get pressure on making sure to make progress and and then it's just very difficult to accomplish that so I think building a diverse talent pipeline so to speak is something you should be working on all year and once you have connections with these communities with these talent pools actually at time you need it's easier to find them they are out there but you just need to do a bit more effort so I think that is something that that really helps absolutely and then I've learned many things that booking as well once actually candidates come to interview I've learned as well if they come on the floor if you think about all the technology for instance they see only man then for instance that's also a problem I so you do need to think a little bit on how you deal or people that are interviewing should be diverse right because also then you get a diverse perspective of if the candidate is is suitable or not so there's there's so many little things I always say but if you put your effort to it it's something that can be accomplished absolutely so sourcing like taking the time to source more candidates not just relying on your personal network or friends and really think about like how do you structure the interview process so for example making sure that people from a bit more diverse backgrounds are interviewing candidates I think those are some great tips that great tips that it's very easy to implement in like company of any any size I want to talk more about building an inclusive culture because we we both both know that bringing in more diverse talent does not help if you don't have a culture where people from different kind of backgrounds can really thrive and be themselves at work so what can startups do to build and scale more inclusive cultures yeah yeah we're booking this has always been part of our DNA and I think if you think about the Netherlands it's a very small country so I mean we're booking when we started to grow we had to cross borders very early on I mean you cross borders very early on you know you're straight gonna deal with different culture different backgrounds of people right but also currency there's all kinds of elements as to scaling into different countries but it's very important also as a startup to really think about that how am I gonna scale right and there's lots of elements to think through your strategy as to how you're gonna scale but you also actively need to think how am I scaling the culture and how do I make sure that the culture is similar everywhere right so that's that's another part of it but if you think about building a workplace where everybody feels they belong that's something you actively need to think about and then I think leaders are so crucial I've seen that booking as well because I mean even as a founder you you you can have a certain culture right but then if you bring in new leaders you really need to think are these the leaders that are going to build the culture that this company needs or that is that is good for the business because everybody can change the culture and the leaders will hire new people right so it's super crucial to really think about that and really build that into your strategy absolutely and like you are very very right of of like when you are bringing in leaders and when you are in a certain scale and I think at booking.com you've really seen the massive scale of a company as well you need to bring in the leaders that can can lead and forstern inclusive leadership style and inclusive cultures do you have any like very practical examples of like how do you find this people so what would you for example ask a leader or like a leader you're about to bring in what would you ask them in in interviews or how would you find that day for me culture I mean if you think about it for me in interviews there's lots of things you can already see right from resume so it's very important that you focus interviews on culture and seeing if somebody really fits your culture right because that's so super important because I think people mostly fail because of that because you know if people are qualified right that's often not even so complicated and you need to think three years ahead because I've always learned if you're in a scale up and you need to think three years ahead is this person actually capable today of being part of this business in three years when it scales so these are elements that for me are always super important but culture is number one yeah questions around culture to really test as well right how if people solve problems right how are they're working together with other people etc. I mean a booking you saw as a culture where it's really a joint culture so you know you need to understand are people also able to grow other talents right because they see that's how I build success it's not when I'm successful but it's that I actually could develop others so these type of elements in leaders are super crucial to be successful and yeah and I think what's also part if you think about talent in the Netherlands and that's diverse leaders in tech it's a platform that Ingrid Tappin has built on the tech leap and that is fantastic because she actually has now 200 leaders and exceptional leaders and I've learned with the benchmark that yeah if you have the data you need the leaders because the leaders can actually make the change and you see that talent now is looking for these leaders that that want to build these inclusive workplaces so the leaders are quite in the center so we're actually joining forces now because then you actually have the leaders the exceptional leaders that you can help with data so we're actually helping them with data as to what to measure how to measure see where your company stands what next step can you make and then we help them with training with the tools to do it because I think if you if you get this fly will ride for companies it gets much easier I think for them to make progress and and I think that's I'm really excited about that yeah that's great and I want to ask a little bit more about that about the organization diverse diverse leaders in in tech can you tell a little bit more about what is the mission and kind of how are you supporting diversity in tech yeah so the mission really is to accelerate right the AI in companies that's really the mission and you see now like I said with this flywheel you really have everything together and many companies I see that as well and I speak to many companies many CEOs they say yeah I find it super important but I really don't know where to start and I don't know what to do so I think this can really help because it gives companies a platform for their leaders to really be educators it's and I've learned as well with booking that even if you do everything as a company you still need the ecosystem to help as well so you somehow need to bring together this ecosystem and there's lots of initiatives out there on the eye but they're all a small and focused on one single thing or one a single community for instance so it really needs that to come together yes it's a topic that requires the ecosystem and even conferences like this right to help and so yeah I'm super excited about how this approach and how this can truly help yeah let's still get back to back to startup founders they are the majority in the in the audience is there something that you would recommend that startup founders kind of start or build early on let's say there's someone in the audience who's like I like I kind of I really want to do this but I don't know how where would you recommend that they they start yeah so I always say with many things and I had to do this many times in my career it's really step out of your comfort zone I mean you need to step out of your comfort zone to really connect to different types of communities because I think that's quite important I think to do specifically if you want to really build an inclusive culture right it starts with yourself so that's always the biggest advice that I give because that will really help also the understanding of a founder on how do I now need to do this what type of people do I need how do I find people that really contribute to my skills my vision give different perspectives perspectives into the business which you need so I think stepping out of your comfort zone that's probably the thing to do yeah and I think kind of during your journey at booking.com you've done a lot of things and you've you've tried and tested and maybe failed in some things as well what it comes to DEI so do you have like what would you say that would be your biggest learning from those years when it comes to come to DEI. It's a very open mindset and it's like I said it's really if you have this open mindset and you want to make this work and you really listen to people you will find out things that even myself I've learned I was not aware of right because of my background it's like we had when we were growing our product teams we have people from Japan that are not used to speak up and then you have a Dutch culture that are always picking up so it's like but how do you make sure that these people get heard right and how do you make sure that others understand that how do we stimulate to get the whole group to participate these type of things we had events where we have people in Saudi Arabia that women cannot travel by themselves right to the Netherlands so then we said okay then we bring the man as well so you constantly need to think how do I make this work for everybody and once you have an open mindset to doing that it is super fascinating you learn a lot you push yourself as well I think I became a better person because of that but yeah I think that's super important and you must have seen as well because in your job as well you probably need to step out of your comfort zone a lot absolutely and I I love what you said about the open mindset because I would also emphasize that that's the one of the most important things that you need to have when you are starting your DEI journey because it is a journey and you will not get everything right from the beginning and there might be even like situation where you will fail but as long as you have that kind of open mindset or growth mindset to always committing doing things better and learning I think that's the really useful mindset to have well I mean in business in general what I see happening with companies as well that ownership often sits with HR or a DEI department in bigger companies and I think you know it's it's it's everybody should take ownership in the company and and that is something that really needs to change I mean and that's why the leaders are so important because they're actually the ones that can make make that change absolutely I think that's something that I personally believe and we at Swapy believe a lot as well the DEI can't be something that would be kind of like outsourced to someone but it needs it needs to be something that it's responsibility for everyone and especially all leaders in the organization to really build that as a part of your culture and not some nice to have you have on the side so I really believe in that but I think we're running out of time this was such a nice chat thanks for finding the time to share your learnings Gillian and thank you everyone who came to listen thank you thank you for doing the interview