 Hi, everybody. My name's Sabine Ali, and I am the CEO of Angel Hack. And today, I am going to talk to you about driving innovation through diversity. And basically, what that means is, how do you become an innovative company while also embracing diversity? For me, I personally believe that diversity is really what brings about innovation. And without diversity, you truly cannot be innovative. So let me tell you a little bit about myself and my entrepreneurial journey before I talk to you about what innovation and diversity mean to me. I feel like I was born to be an entrepreneur. Ever since I was very, very young, I was always trying to figure out what the hustle was in every single situation. How I could create something to sell for money. How I could go wash cars. How I can improve on what the current state of something was so that I can make it better and really excel in that particular department. I started working very, very young when I was 15 years old. And I was exposed almost immediately to a very diverse team of people. And the job was a very simple job. I was 15 years old and back in the US. There's only a few things that you can do. And I chose a very honorable profession of bagging groceries. And in this job, I basically learned really how I was being perceived in a very diverse environment. So in a grocery store, you basically see people that are of all ages, all genders. Because honestly, it's a good entry level and entry job for anyone. And that was my first experience working with all these diverse groups. And really what I noticed first was diversity in age and how me being so young made such a big impact on how my co-workers saw me, how they treated me, and ultimately what my success trajectory was going to be. Very quickly, I started going from job to job. And each one of the jobs, I found myself fascinated by my team members and fascinated by what motivated them. By the time I was, I think, 17 years old, I was in my first management position. And I was 17 managing people that were two times, three times my age, people who had been in their roles significantly longer than I had, and yet I was managing them. And immediately, I had to learn while on the job of how to interact with these individuals and how to embrace their diversity and embrace our differences in order to make our relationship successful at work. Fast forward, quite a few years, I founded my first startup called Team Building ROI. And the premise of this startup was to work with Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies in Silicon Valley, like Amazon, IBM, Cisco, NetApp, and help them with their team dynamics. I studied organizational development, and if anybody doesn't know what organizational development it is, basically the study of organizations and how to make organizations successful through its people. So think about an MBA, but rather than being focused on numbers, you're focused on people and culture. And really, culture eats strategy for breakfast any day. And if you can build a good culture in an organization, you can actually be very, very, very successful. The numbers will ultimately follow. So the first company worked with teams from Amazon or Google that had really tight deadlines. Teams that were dismantled and brought together by other managers that had a goal of creating or launching the new phone. And I was there consulting them, working with them on how to overcome barriers, how to communicate better, how to basically harness the differences in their team in order to make them more successful. Quickly, I realized that there's this market, niche market, that needs this type of soft skills training, and that's developers. My co-founder and I decided to organize an event where we would do team building activities with people who could code and people who had app ideas. Believe it or not, seven years ago, there was really no environment to bring these two populations together. And so we created what is now called AngelHack. And AngelHack is a global hackathon organization. And the most important part of building both of my companies actually was the internal operations and the internal organizational structure that I put in place. Ultimately, we created a foundation that we could scale and build upon in every single city. So before I get into best practices for building a diverse and inclusive team, I'd like to talk to you about why I'm here and how this philosophy can actually help you scale your companies. So AngelHack started very small. Again, seven years ago, we organized one event. About 200 people showed up. So that one event was very successful. But very, very quickly, we started expanding to multiple events in the United States. Then we moved to Europe, then to Asia, and to Middle East, et cetera. Now we're in 106 different cities. Every time I have to quote that number, it goes up. We're in 106 different cities all over the world and 54 countries. Keep in mind, AngelHack is completely bootstrapped. That means that we haven't taken a single investment dollar. So how in seven years have we scaled from a one city hackathon to 106 cities? I'm gonna actually tell you all of this. One of the main things is that everything that we do has a local homegrown element to it. What that means is that we don't go into any city and organize hackathons from the outside in. We have to be invited by an ambassador. When we're invited by an ambassador, we actually have a regional manager there that lives within the region, that'll work with this ambassador, and train him or her to organize the hackathon. What we're trying to do is impact the culture of each one of the cities that we're in and each one of the tech communities that we're in. We're trying to impart to them all of the best practices that Silicon Valley has. And at the same time, we're trying to take from them and all of these other tech communities that we're in, all of their best practices. Another thing that's really important and we've been able to do, and we have to do because we were bootstrapped, is that we have to listen very, very carefully to our customers and our clients. If we're not responding to where our money is coming from, we would be obsolete. And for us, it's always a game to make sure that we're paying attention to what's happening internally in our company, but also keeping a keen eye on what's happening externally. If we don't strike that balance any given day, we can actually lose footing and not provide our clients and our customers who also happen to be our 150,000 developer community all over the world, as well as large corporations. We might provide them with the wrong product and therefore be out of business very soon. So we have to keep our eyes and ears low to the ground and make sure that we're responding rapidly to what our clients are looking for. Which brings me to my team. So my team, we have a majority, it's a female-owned company and it's a majority female team. 75% of our C-suite is also female and 65% of our leadership team is female. Additionally, as I mentioned, we have someone on the ground in each one of these regions which really helps us identify with our community in each one of the regions. We hire someone locally that speaks the local language, that'll travel to meet all of our ambassadors, that'll go to all of the events in the region. We wanna make sure that people feel like that they're getting best of both worlds, that we embrace and we acknowledge that there are a ton of great benefits and best practices in each one of the tech communities that we're in. But we also know that this is a learning and teaching opportunity. From my perspective, having a diverse team is one of the most important factors when creating an inclusive working environment and community. So what are the foundational elements you need to include when building a diverse team and promoting an inclusive culture? One of them is organizational development. In the startup world, many people start with three key players, a CEO, a CTO and a CMO. These three people have significantly different roles. The CEO plays out the vision and the broad strokes of the business while the CTO builds the technology to meet those needs. And then the CMO presents information in a way that the community can buy into it. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the more diverse your team is, the better they will perform. And the better the opinions will be and the feedback will be. And you'll help avoid things like group think or class ceiling. So it's really, really important from the get-go to make sure that your C-suite is diverse and that you're embracing all sorts of differences. Team dynamics. So the dynamic of a team is very complex. So this area focuses on the overall team when players get involved. I personally and meticulously pick every single one of my team members. We have a team of 25 people that, honestly, our clients say that they thought that our team was double that size. We're a very, very high functioning team. And the reason for that is that we actually believe in what I call, or what the term is, strength-based leadership. What strength-based leadership is that we focus on where people's strengths are and we identify where their weaknesses are. Just like myself, I have strengths in public speaking, in going out and meeting people and doing pitches to clients and building a vision in operational tasks where I lack is putting together PowerPoint presentations in note-taking and being detail-oriented. I don't prefer to get down into the details of something. I wanna be up here and be able to set a vision for a particular initiative. And I'm expecting my team, who is detail-oriented, to come in and support me. What I believe is that if I spent my time trying to be more detail-oriented or if I spent my time putting together the best PowerPoint presentations, which, trust me, is just not gonna happen, then it would be a waste of my skills and my talent and also of my company's time. Therefore, I bring in people who are excellent in focusing on details and building PowerPoint presentations and probably all of the other hundred tasks that I'm not so great at. And they come in and support me. And together, we have the best team dynamic. It's because we make up for each one of our other's weaknesses. Another thing to keep into consideration is trust. You know, when you're talking about companies and you're talking about startups, this is such a soft and fuzzy word, trust. But it's absolutely essential, especially in startups when you're moving so fast, you need to know that you can rely on your coworkers that they have your backs. One of the things that I tell my teams is fail forward and fail often. I will always be there to support you if you're trying. So if my team is trying and they're trying new things and trying new initiatives, I'm always going to support them. And so they trust me. And when they are out on a limb and selling a product that we haven't sold before, or trying a new social media method that we haven't tried before. So you have to make sure that there's trust between the team. The elevator theory. This is very near and dear to my heart. This theory is all about supporting others and recognizing when you've reached success. So the pinnacle of success is all about self-actualization. And self-actualization is all about making sure that you leave a legacy in this world. For me, the most important way to leave a legacy is to teach and impact people around you. That's the best way to make sure that what you've done and the work that you've done is going to live on for many, many years after you do. So when you're successful and you've reached the top of the ladder, make sure that you send the elevator back down. For somebody else who needs mentorship, who needs an opportunity, take a chance on hiring someone that's new that maybe doesn't fit the regular profile. It's your social responsibility and it's your responsibility as someone who is successful to make sure that you are giving someone else that opportunity as well. And that's basically how this environment will thrive is if we are all taking a chance on people who maybe don't necessarily often get the chance. Team building is also very, very important. In any organization, there are teams involved and work cohesively. Your team will need to interact with other team members. You wanna make sure that you give teams an opportunity to speak to each other outside of the working place. Give them a chance to have a meal together. Give them a chance to have an outing together. This is an essential part in actually building bonds at work is you build bonds outside of work. For us, we blend the lines in our team quite a bit and a lot of our coworkers are our friends. To be very honest with you, that's really what startups are. How many of you can tell the difference between when you're working and when you're not working? We're all always on. So why not pick team members that you can be best friends with and make sure that the blended life is something that you don't necessarily have to balance or take a break from. Honestly, for me, a lot of my coworkers are also my friends. And if you guys wanna get a hold of me, you're more than welcome to follow me on Twitter or send me a message at sabineatangelhack.com. I'll also be doing a Q&A very shortly. So you guys please come and ask me any questions. Thank you so much for listening to my talk and I'll see you guys on the other stage. Thank you.