Sarah Shin is Chief Diversity Officer of enterprise data cloud company Cloudera.
With 25 years of experience, Sarah spearheads Cloudera’s commitment to addressing workplace inequality with deliberate and decisive action and holds the company accountable for promoting belonging in its workplaces and communities.
"I’m passionate about finding effective ways to weed out the systemic racism and sexism — really all the isms — hiding in the legacy systems and thinking so prevalent in our society. And the data tells us it shows up in the workplace as well," says Sarah.
Integrating fairness, equality and justice into the workplace
Sarah outlines her role as one that helps "advance the inclusive employee experience, providing progressive development opportunities around equality and belonging and driving operational excellence within the organization.”
"At Cloudera, we’re starting with breaking apart all aspects of the employee lifecycle and rebuilding it with fairness, equality, and justice. Guidelines, processes, and tools are all being reviewed and restructured with that goal in mind," she adds.
A strong leader who guides her team with precision and heart
She was previously the Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Learning at Cloudera where she led various diversity and inclusion initiatives focused on leveling the playing field for women and underrepresented minorities.
Prior to that, Sarah held various Diversity & Inclusion and HR leadership positions at Apple, LeapFrog, HPE, and further companies.
“Sarah is a strong leader who guides her team with precision and heart. What sets Sarah apart is her strategic mindset, skill in creating a people-centered culture, and her ability to bring out the very best in her team at every level,” says Rob Bearden, CEO of Cloudera. He describes Sarah as an "excellent advocate for Cloudera employees" and "an ambassador of our amazing culture on our journey to becoming an inclusive and representative workplace.”
Combating unconscious bias with internal and external training
Sarah is supporting Cloudera's investment in diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives.
The company is creating a Technology for Equality (TeQ) Consortium to provide an open digital platform enabling individuals and groups to address racial bias and inequality using data, analytics, AI, and open source technology tools.
Sarah is also supporting the company's Unconscious Bias training, as well as its partnership with an external organization to provide inclusive leadership training for Cloudera's executive team and inclusive management sessions for our managers around the globe.
"Everyone, including managers and leaders, has blind spots and may not be able to understand others’ experiences. The goal is for each of us to recognize our unconscious biases and come away with the tools we need to interrupt them. When we know better, we can do better. In other words, once we learn inclusive management skills and understand how our actions set the tone in the organization, we can help lead the way to an even more inclusive workplace," explains Sarah.
"We’re already seeing the results of the training in action. I’ve heard a lot of anecdotes from across the company about leaders acknowledging and correcting unconscious biases. Thankfully, Clouderans are eager to show up as their most progressive, vulnerable, and best selves; we’re simply providing some structure for them. They’re very motivated and have proven it with how quickly they’ve jumped on—and run with—our initial D&I training opportunities," she adds.
Sponsoring an educational workspace for high school minorities
Sarah is also helping Cloudera establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) that will be an incubator developed alongside industry partners with the goal of sponsoring an educational workspace for underrepresented high school minorities. This workspace will train future industry leaders.
"I’m proud and excited about the work we’re doing to make Cloudera (and the tech industry) a more welcoming, inclusive place to work," she comments.
"Our colleagues at every level of the organization are stepping up and stepping in to create change and it gives me so much hope for the future. I’m still dreaming of a time when women and underrepresented minorities make up at least half of all board members and executive teams, and I hope that beyond having a seat at the table, they’ll be fully included, fulfilled, and valued. I’m honored to do my part in helping to turn that dream into a reality."
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Disclosure: Where Women Work researches and publishes insightful evidence about how its paid member organizations support women's equality.