As a female founder, empowering women at coUrbanize is core to my mission as a business leader. And on this International Women’s Day, we have a lot to celebrate.
- Half of our staff identifies as female.
- Two of our three board members are women.
- We have a female CFO.
- Women lead our product, customer success and marketing teams.
- Half of our engineering team is female.
We can check a lot of boxes when it comes to creating an attractive place for women to build their careers. But, like with most things in running a startup, there’s room for improvement.
I want coUrbanize to continue to attract non-native English speakers and immigrants.
I’d love to see more people of color on our team.
As a new mom, it’s also important that we create a culture for parents to thrive, which often means attracting talent who aren’t in their 20s or 30s.
I want our organization to be known as a welcoming environment for those who don’t identify as cisgender, for those who are nonbinary and for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
In short, we have some work to do. Nearly every company does. All these facets of diversity point back to the title of this post – that being inclusive of women alone is not enough to say you’re a diverse .
The best thing we can do is be honest with ourselves and each other about how we can truly move towards diversity and inclusion. I’m sure I’ve missed important aspects in this post (ablism, socioeconomic diversity). So on International Women’s Day (coming up this Sunday, March 8), I encourage you to take a candid look at how you can elevate women and more broadly, people who don’t share the same identity and life experiences that you have.
P.S. – We’re hiring! Check out our open roles. Women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.
– Karin Brandt, CEO and founder of coUrbanize
