Happy International Women’s Day! The global theme for 2023 is #EmbraceEquity, which is part of an ongoing effort to raise awareness around “Why equal opportunities are no longer enough.” Today is a time to highlight achievements made by women, but also an opportunity to become better informed, and collaborate and brainstorm about the path forward.

“People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.” — internationalwomensday.com

Consider taking a few minutes today to learn about pervasive challenges affecting women, including in the workplace. Since unconscious bias is a major driver of hurdles holding women back, it is beneficial for people of all gender identities to educate ourselves about the varied experiences of others.

Here are some resources to get help get you started:

• Recognize the difference between equity and equality and see why striving for equality can interfere with inclusion-related efforts.

• Read highlights from the Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org to examine factors that are holding women back from advancement and in many cases making them decide to leave a company. One notable statistic: “For every 100 men who are promoted from entry-level roles to manager positions, only 87 women are promoted, and only 82 women of color are promoted.”

• Watch a five-minute video of the history of the concept of intersectionality, explained by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term. Intersectionality refers to the “double bind of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice.”

• Better understand challenges within the tech sector in the report What (and Who) is Holding Women Back in Tech? One finding from this survey, conducted by Girls Who Code and Logitech, is that 90% of women report experiencing microaggressions at work. The report describes key career drivers and the importance of communities of support.

Womenflare is a Cloudflare employee resource group (ERG) for women and people who advocate for women. We are an employee-led group that is here to empower, represent, and support.

At Cloudflare, we are continuing our tradition of building community and celebrating women’s achievements together throughout March. We are also encouraging discussion on equity vs. equality and how we can champion equity for ourselves and those around us with these internal events in the weeks ahead:

• Celebrating with comedy: We are kicking things off with some fun and jokes from Laugh.Events! Offering “Laughter as a Service (LaaS),” they will deliver stand-up comedy, musical comedy, and other comedic activities for a celebratory “Workplace Variety Hour.”

• Equity and allyship chats: After our celebrations, we are opening forums to discuss equity and what this means for each of us in our unique intersectionalities. We have invited some of our fellow employee resource group leads from Asianflare, Nativeflare, and Proudflare to share with us and dive into how we can be both supported and supportive.

• Equity leadership panel: Our internal leadership panels were always well received in previous years, so we decided not to mess with a good thing. This year, we will be inviting another group of inspirational women leaders in Cloudflare to share their experiences with us and explore the areas where we can promote equity in the workplace.

• And more: We have so much more planned for March! From Book Club and meetups to Cloudflare TV episodes and networking events, we are partnering across teams to ensure there are plenty of opportunities to participate and join in on the fun and discussions.

No matter how you plan to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, consider how you can do your part to champion an equitable world. Join the #IWD2023 movement — #EmbraceEquity today (and every day)!

Learn more about how we are cultivating community, including through employee resource groups like Womenflare, via our careers page—and check out our open positions.

To read about our progress on the UN Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), download our latest Impact Report.

“I would venture to guess that Anon,who wrote so many poems without signing them,was often a woman.” - Virginia Woolf

Welcome to International Women’s Day 2022! Here at Cloudflare, we are happy to celebrate it with you! Our celebration is not only this blog post, but many events prepared for the month of March: our way of honoring Women’s History Month by showcasing women’s empowerment. We want to celebrate the achievements, ideas, passion and work that women bring to the world. We want to advocate for equality and to achieve gender parity. And we want to highlight the brilliant work that our women colleagues do every day. Welcome!

This is a time of celebration but also one to reflect on the current state. The global gender gap is not expected to close for another 136 years. This gap has also worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has negatively impacted the lives of women and girls by deepening pre-existing inequalities. Improving this state is a collective effort—we all need to get involved!

First, let’s introduce ourselves. We are Womenflare—Cloudflare’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) for all who identify as and advocate for women. We’re an employee-led group that is here to empower, represent, and support.

Our purpose is not only to celebrate women’s achievements but also to shed a light on inequalities. That is why for International Women’s Day 2022, we’re joining in focusing on the theme of #BreakTheBias throughout our month of events and activities:

Internally, we are kicking off our celebration on March 8. We will be joined by several women from North Coast hip hop improv comedy group. We hope this fun and freestyle event will encourage participants to think about unconscious biases, breaking them down, and how they can get more involved in empowering the women around them.

Following our kick-off celebrations, we’re hosting open discussions about intersectionality and allyship alongside some of our fellow Employee Resource Groups including Afroflare, Asianflare, Flarability, and Nativeflare. It’s important to us to include other ERGs in these conversations since the goal of empowerment, representation, and support is shared among us and can’t be done alone. And we want to play closer attention to the layers that form a person’s social identity, creating compounding experiences of discrimination. “All inequality is not created equal,” says Kimberlé Crenshaw, the law professor who coined “intersectional feminism” term in 1989. Understanding the way different inequalities play a role in a person’s life means understanding the history, systematic discrimination, and the non-uniformity of it.

Last year, we brought together an internal panel of women leaders at Cloudflare to share their journeys and lessons learned. It was extremely well received, so we decided to build upon its success by inviting another group of internal women leaders to discuss their experiences and insights with us. Some important takeaways from these panel discussions have been the realization that most backgrounds and journeys are vastly different, paths to success are often rocky but rewarding, and perseverance, tenacity, and an open mind, often rule the day. What better way to learn from others and encourage more women to lead!

Allyship is integral to systemic change. An ally is someone who recognizes unearned privileges in their lives and takes responsibility to end patterns of injustice. At Cloudflare, we’re working hard to build more diverse and equitable teams, as well as create and maintain an environment that is inclusive and welcoming. There are many actions you can take as an ally; some include:

• Educating yourself: listen to the experiences of your women colleagues and work with them to understand their perspectives.

• Amplifying women’s opinions and advocating for them: speak up for others and champion them when they need support and encouragement.

• Taking action in the workplace: if you see inequality or discrimination happening, reach out to discuss further and understand what can be done.

• Advocating for diversity: talk with your peers and leaders about the ways you can get involved with improving diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s Empowerment Month in your own creative ways! And all throughout the year, remember to empower women and to recognize them in such a way that their work is no longer anonymous. Join the #IWD2022 movement — #BreakTheBias this month and beyond!

At Cloudflare, we have our eyes set on an ambitious goal: to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers approximately 25 million Internet properties. This is made possible by our 1,900 team members around the world. We believe the key to achieving our potential is to build diverse teams and create an environment where everyone can do their best work.

That is why we place a lot of value on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversity, equity, and inclusion lead to better outcomes through improved decision-making, more innovative teams, stronger financial returns and simply a better place to work for everyone.

To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, we believe it’s important to focus on communities within and around our company.

At Cloudflare, like most workplaces, there are built-in communities: your direct team, your cross-functional partners and (because we take onboarding very seriously) your new hire class. These communities, especially the first two, are important to help you get your job done. But we want more than that for our team at Cloudflare. We believe that community builds connection and fosters a sense of belonging.

Because of that, we have supported the growth of over 16 Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s). We use the term ERG broadly at Cloudflare. We have many ERG’s focused on traditionally under-represented groups in tech: Afroflare (Black, African diaspora), Latinflare, and Womenflare; groups that have been historically marginalized: Proudflare (LGBTQIA+), Cloudflarents (parents and caregivers); as well as interest and affinity groups like Mindflare and Soberflare. To read more about all of our ERGs, visit our diversity, equity, and inclusion webpage or read about them on our blog. In addition to creating a community of support and belonging, our ERGs also work to enhance career development of their members and contribute to the development of a more inclusive culture at Cloudflare.

We define an inclusive culture as one where everyone feels safe, welcome and respected with a sense of belonging. We do not leave this to chance. We make investments in training and programs to develop and deepen the skills needed to nurture and preserve inclusive communities at Cloudflare.

One of our earliest offerings was Ally Skills training. The aim of this workshop is to help build awareness of the types of behavior and language which can be harmful to inclusivity at Cloudflare, and teach simple, everyday ways to support people who are targets of systemic oppression. During the workshop, team members share strategies on how to act as allies and how to create a long-lasting, inclusive culture at Cloudflare. As the program was being rolled out, the management team did the workshop together and quickly realized these were not skills reserved for ‘allies’ but it was our expectation that this was how all of our team members treated each other. These were necessary skills to be successful at Cloudflare. As a result, we reworked some pieces of the workshop and renamed it: How We Work Together.

We have also partnered with Paradigm IQ and Included to create a three-part Unconscious Bias Education Program. These workshops are a mix of eLearning and facilitated workshops where we learn about how to help mitigate unconscious bias and make our company a more welcoming and inclusive place for everyone. tEQuitable is an additional comprehensive resource which helps us create a safe, inclusive, and equitable workplace. They provide an independent sounding board where our employees may confidentially raise a concern, access a just-in-time learning platform, and get advice from professional Ombuds. They also help us identify systemic workplace issues and provide us with actionable recommendations for how to improve our workplace culture. What we especially love about tEQuitable is that it’s all about empowering our employees with tools and resources to address issues that may be impacting them, or they may witness impacting others, so we all play an active role in maintaining and nurturing our culture.

One other program worth highlighting is our Week On: Learning and Inclusion. This program came as a response to the murder of George Floyd in the US at the end of May 2020. Our Afroflare global leaders suggested we use Juneteenth as a full-day of deep learning from external experts on topics ranging from the history of race and racism to the psychological impact of racism on people of color. In 2021, we expanded it from a one-day program to a week full of programming with topics ranging from antiracism keynotes, inclusive people management workshops and inclusive recruiting practices.

Increasing awareness and skill-building is valuable, but it is not enough. We also have to hold ourselves accountable by analyzing data, setting goals and measuring progress objectively. Each year we set company-wide goals around our diversity, and for the last few years we’ve added individual goals for managers — one focused on building a more diverse team, and one focused on building an inclusive team culture.

We also place a high value on behaviors at Cloudflare. This is imperative because we believe that culture is defined by the behaviors we reward. So in order to have a healthy and inclusive culture, we must reward the behaviors that promote and preserve that. We have defined these behaviors as our Cloudflare Capabilities.

We screen for these Capabilities during our interview process, and they are used in performance and promotion conversations. We hold ourselves accountable by using a very simple formula: Performance = results + behaviors. Equally weighted.

Speaking of interviewing, hiring is an important part of our diversity story. We believe that diverse teams win, and we put in a lot of effort to build diverse teams across the company. We have many team members who took unconventional paths into tech, and we believe that makes us stronger as a company. In fact, many of our job descriptions read: We realize people do not fit into neat boxes. We are looking for curious and empathetic individuals who are committed to developing themselves and learning new skills, and we are ready to help you do that. We cannot complete our mission without building a diverse and inclusive team.

In addition to an inclusive and expansive mindset around hiring, we also have interviews dedicated specifically to fit against our Capabilities, as well as leveraging technology and tools to help identify great talent who help to increase the diversity of our teams.

We have also made investments in events and partnerships that help support our diversity recruiting efforts. In August 2016, Cloudflare was one of the first companies to partner with Path Forward when it first launched its program in California. [Fun fact: that’s how I learned about Cloudflare and became interested in working here]. In Singapore, we have a similar partnership with Mums@Work.

We also engage with organizations and participate in events that help us reach talent from underrepresented groups. We have sponsored and spoke on stage at events like Lesbians Who Tech and Grace Hopper, where our co-founder, President and COO, Michelle Zatlyn, delivered the keynote in 2020. We regularly attend events and conferences hosted by AfroTech, Women Who Code, Girls Who Code, TAPIA, NSN, and more.

Our ethos is to support and connect with external communities as well. Prior to the pandemic, when our offices were fully open and social and professional events were a thing, we regularly hosted external organizations to host events in our communal spaces. One example of such an organization is Wu Yee Children’s Services, a San Francisco Chinatown-based nonprofit that connects parents and caregivers to affordable childcare options, offers payment assistance to low-income families, and other family and community services. We were honored to host their orientation session. Another organization we hosted was Women Who Code SF. We regularly hosted their “ algorithm and interview prep” workshops, which helped women coders gain the skills they need to land good jobs in the tech industry. Unlike many of our tech company peers, we did not offer free lunch five days a week. It was important to us that our team members got out of the office and supported local businesses and restaurants. It is important that we do not isolate ourselves, but rather are part of a larger community.

We also believe in giving back to our local communities. Prior to COVID, Cloudflare dedicated one week every year to volunteer efforts. Coordinated across many of our large office locations, we would dedicate each day for a full week volunteering at employee-nominated, local non-profit organizations. Our participation pivoted to virtual during COVID, but we are anxious to return to in-person giving when we can.

While we are proud of these efforts, it is in using Cloudflare products and services for good that is truly special. Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better Internet means we are in a unique position to help vulnerable websites, applications and services be safer, faster and more reliable online.

A few to highlight:

Organizations working in the arts, human rights, civil society, journalism, or democracy, may apply for Project Galileo to get Cloudflare’s cybersecurity protection, for free. Since 2014, we’ve been leveraging our services to support vulnerable public interest web properties including, but are not limited to: minority rights organizations, human rights organizations, independent media outlets, arts groups, and democracy and voter protection programs.

Our support of one of these organizations has blossomed over the years. We are proud to announce our partnership with The Trevor Project. Founded in 1998 by the creators of the Academy Award®-winning short film TREVOR, The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. We support the organization through monetary donations, a partnership with our LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group, Proudflare, and free Cloudflare services through our Project Galileo Program.

Since 2017, we have donated about $8 million in cybersecurity tools under Project Galileo.

Cloudflare launched the Athenian Project in 2017 to provide our highest level of cybersecurity services for free to state and local governments in the United States that run elections. The project is designed to protect these websites tied to elections including information related to voting and polling places, voter registration and sites that publish election results. And voter data from cyberattack, and keep them online. During the 2020 U.S. election, we worked closely with civil society and government agencies to share threat information that we saw targeted against these participants and protected more than 292 websites in 30 states, including the Missouri Secretary of State, Solano County in California and The Colorado Department of State.

In recognition that election security is a global issue, we recently announced our partnerships with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute to extend our cybersecurity protections to election management bodies around the world, as well as organizations that support free and fair elections. We look forward to continuing our work to protect resources in the voting process and help build trust in democratic institutions around the world.

Around the world, governments, hospitals, and pharmacies are struggling to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. Technical limitations are causing vaccine registration sites to crash under the load of registrations. At Cloudflare, we want to help. Cloudflare's Waiting Room feature allows organizations with more demand for a resource — be it concert tickets, new edition sneakers, or vaccines — to allow individuals to queue and then allocate access. Waiting Rooms can be deployed in front of any existing registration website without requiring code changes. As we watched the world struggle to fairly and efficiently distribute the COVID-19 vaccine we wanted to lend our technologies and expertise to help. Under Project Fair Shot, Cloudflare is providing Waiting Room to any government agency, hospital, pharmacy, or other organization facilitating the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine for free until anyone who wants to be vaccinated can be, until at least 31-December 2021.

We all need to work together to get past this incredibly difficult time worldwide and are humbled to have helped so many different organizations around the world such as the County of San Luis Obispo, Verto Health, and the Ministry of Health for the Republic of Latvia, and more!

At Cloudflare, we believe in being principled, curious and transparent. Publishing our diversity report is aligned with these values.

We are Principled: One of the Cloudflare Capabilities is “Do the Right Thing” — that includes long-term thinking about how we build an innovative and sustainable workforce. We have a fundamental belief that fairness is the right thing. We believe that equity is the right thing.

We are Curious: Creating a more diverse and sustainable workforce is hard work. We want to draw lessons from the things we try, and we want to learn from what others are trying. Sustainable communities is not a zero-sum game, and we believe we can all benefit as an active part of the broader community.

We believe in Transparency: For many years, we have been transparent with our team about our diversity data and our goals, and we have measured our progress regularly. Now we are taking the step to share publicly because we believe in accountability and accept the responsibility to build a diverse and sustainable workforce.

You can check out our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion webpage with our diversity report here.

While there is always more work to be done, we are grateful for the empathetic and curious team that makes Cloudflare what it is today. Together, we are optimistic we can build a better — and more inclusive — Internet.

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are important to a company’s success. They foster community and a sense of belonging, help drive organizational change, and improve the overall quality of an organization’s culture. Most importantly, they help organizations become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. I’d love to share the history of ERGs at Cloudflare, as well as how they function and help influence the company.

When I joined Cloudflare in 2017, one of the first things I did was search “LGBTQ” in our company chat. A chat room of a dozen or so employees titled “LGBT at Cloudflare'' popped up. There was evidence of some historic chatter in the room, and it was clear some employees had gathered for drinks after work before. I immediately introduced myself to the group, and asked if they would be okay with me setting up a meet & greet event. We booked a conference room, ordered lunch, found an article to discuss, introduced ourselves, and collectively decided we wanted to continue hosting such events. In our second meeting, we decided we should make things official by deciding on a name. This was the birth of Proudflare, our employee resource group (ERG) for LGBTQIA+ employees and our allies, and the first official Cloudflare ERG. I was honored to serve as Proudflare’s first global leader.

Cloudflare employees have founded and advanced fifteen other ERGs since 2017. Afroflare, our ERG for people of the African Diaspora, was the next ERG to form, later in 2017. The most recent is Flarability, our accessibility ERG. All of our groups are focused on fostering community, celebrating diversity, supporting career development, and educating those around us, but serve different communities. We decided early on that if each ERG focuses on education, celebration, and inclusion, we’ll be successful in supporting our underrepresented communities and stimulating positive change at our company. We have come a long way and still have a lot of change to make, but I can safely say that we have definitely helped make Cloudflare more diverse, inclusive, and equitable.

Scroll down to read the mission statements of each of Cloudflare’s ERGs. You may also read more about our ERGs through blog posts they’ve published at Cloudflare.

Our definition: At Cloudflare, ERGs are employee-led and company-supported groups of underrepresented and/or marginalized employees or groups of employees who are focused on key Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. These employees join together in the workplace based on shared characteristics, life experiences, or initiatives. ERGs are generally based on creating a community of support and belonging, enhancing career development of their members, and contributing to the development of a more inclusive culture at Cloudflare.

ERGs are led by passionate volunteer employees who serve in roles as global leaders, regional leads, initiative leads, communications leads, and executive advocates. We ERG leaders agreed early on to support each other in our work, so we formed an Inclusion Council. This council is made up of all ERG leaders as well as Cloudflare’s inclusion workshop facilitators and serves as a steering committee in order to surface and incite feedback on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics. We meet monthly, in rotating time zones so we may include leaders from all regions. Some of our most successful ERG partnership initiatives were forged in our Inclusion Council meetings between Womenflare and Afroflare, Asianflare and Desiflare, Mindflare and Proudflare, Latinflare and Afroflare, and more.

Most ERGs leverage executive advocates to help gain support from our senior executives and help those executives become more involved in DEI initiatives. Advocates meet regularly with ERG leaders, review company-wide or external-facing ERG communications, amplify the voices and visibility of ERGs through written communications and participation in events, and advocate for the ERG at the executive level. An example of a successful partnership between an Executive Advocate and an ERG is our CTO, John Graham-Cumming and Womenflare. John has held several meetings with Womenflare members to listen to their needs and experiences, share company decisions, and find ways to better advocate for the women of Cloudflare. He also meets with Womenflare’s leaders biweekly to help with major initiatives and any roadblocks to progress.

The most important function of an ERG is to create a sense of belonging and community amongst their members and allies through chat room conversations and regular connection opportunities. ERGs typically also produce initiatives around global education and celebration opportunities such as Women’s Empowerment Month, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, etc. These initiatives include DEI discussion events, company-wide presentations, company-wide emails, blog posts, social media campaigns, Cloudflare TV segments, publication of antiracism resources, spotlighting of underrepresented and marginalized employees, advising Cloudflare teams on decisions such as inclusive benefits package selection and accessible office space construction, and helping to promote inclusion education programs.

Through these connection opportunities and initiatives, ERGs influence the overall organization. They attract more allies and encourage them to take DEI actions, help educate employees on systemic barriers to DEI, and help make the workplace more inclusive and enjoyable for everyone. I see ERGs as impactful grass-roots movements within a company and I’ve witnessed their positive impact firsthand.

Thank you for reading about Cloudflare’s ERGs. Sixteen ERGs is a good number, but I’m really looking forward to supporting the foundation and growth of even more, and helping our existing ERGs flourish. If you are interested in starting an ERG at your company or learning more about ERG best practices, I encourage you to check out the Human Rights Campaign’s article, Establishing an Employee Resource Group.

Our mission is to help build a better Global Afro-community at Cloudflare and beyond. We support each other's growth, share our community’s stories, and help to make Cloudflare a more diverse and inclusive company.

We provide a supportive environment for all employees of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage, work to create more awareness of the struggles our community has faced and continues to face today, and celebrate our rich shared cultures.

We provide community and resources for parents and families, and welcome allies, people who are interested in becoming a parent, or who are family-oriented.

We foster networking and build a sense of community amongst Cloudflare employees using the rich South Asian culture as a platform to bring people together.

We curate and share resources about disabilities, provide a community space for those with disabilities and our allies to find support and thrive, and encourage and guide Cloudflare’s accessibility programs.

Greencloud is a sustainability-focused working group made up of Cloudflare employees who are passionate about the environment and addressing the climate crisis.

We provide a forum for the Jewish people of Cloudflare where we support each other and celebrate our shared heritage.

The mission of Latinflare is to help create a more diverse workplace, create a sense of community + belonging for Latinx employees, and connect with the communities where we work.

We provide the Cloudflare community resources around mental health, as well as increase awareness and destigmatize mental health more broadly throughout our communities.

With a shared goal of education, we recognize the heritage and cultural presence of Native American employees at Cloudflare and illuminate the historical impact of policies and racism that continue to fuel prejudice and injustice, even to this day.

Our mission is to Educate and Celebrate, Globally! We find ways to support and provide resources for the LGBTQIA+ community and make sure that the Cloudflare community is a welcoming, inclusive place for all.

Ensure the Cloudflare community is welcoming and inclusive to those abstaining from alcohol and/or drug use by increasing awareness and destigmatizing the decision to choose sobriety.

We encourage the recruitment and retention of veterans of military service from any military around the world. We also provide a supportive environment and community space for those who have served to network.

Our mission is supporting women's professional development and success within Cloudflare.

Our mission is to provide community experience and resources to help women in our sales organization to grow professionally and support each other collectively.

Womenflare's mission is to create a community where all who identify as women feel supported and represented at Cloudflare.

In the United States, May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This year, we wanted to celebrate this occasion in a more inclusive and comprehensive way, which is why we called our celebration APAC Heritage Month. This initiative was a collaboration between Desiflare and Asianflare, Cloudflare’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for employees of Asian descent. We are proud to have run a diverse slate of events and content that we had planned throughout this month of celebration.

Our priority for APAC Heritage Month has been to share the stories and experiences of those in our community: we hosted several different segments to highlight the strong culture and heritage with moderated panels. We also took this opportunity to highlight some of the leaders in the industry of APAC descent around the world, to talk about their journey and struggles, so we can learn from each other and grow to be inspired. Although there has been progress in the past several years regarding representation of APAC stories being told, this small handful of narratives have a hard time representing two thirds of the world. By telling a more diverse set of APAC stories — our own, from immigrants, stories about food, culture and our careers — we hope to bring visibility to our experiences and our existence.

To keep everyone safe during the pandemic, all of our external events this year have been virtual and televised on Cloudflare TV:

• The Asian American Experience: a CFTV series on the collective experience of Asian Americans.

  • The Youth of Today: a moderated panel discussion of young Cloudflarians on the experience of both first and second generation young Asian Americans.

  • Culinary Experiences: an exploration of cuisine and it’s bidirectional influence with Asian American culture.

  • The Asian-American Experience: Past, Present, Future: Christine Hung, VP, Data and Engineering, Flatiron Health, will share the story of her career, and the path she took to be where she is today.

• Coming of Age: a guided exploration through large cultural concepts and concerns that folks of Asian heritage stay cognizant of as they go through life.

  • One Child Policy: an in-depth exploration of the PRC’s One Child Policy.

  • Model Minorities: a critical review of the contentious idea/myth.

  • Filial Piety and Familial Responsibility: an examination of intergenerational relations and how that’s changing.

• Founder Focus: a spotlight on the human stories behind startup founders.

  • Quinn Wang - Quinn Wang is the founder of Quadrant Eye, a convenient way to renew your eye prescription online and get your glasses or contact lens prescription emailed to you.

  • Angus Luk - Angus Luk is the founder of EventX, Asia's leading virtual events platform. We'll be discussing everything from pivoting during the pandemic, to the trade-off of in-person, virtual, or hybrid events in different places around the world.

  • Beyang Liu - Beyang Liu co-founded Sourcegraph, a web-based code search and navigation tool for dev teams.

  • Kathy Zhou - Kathy Zhou is founder and CTO of Queenly, the largest marketplace for formalwear, from prom, pageant, to all evening gowns.

  • Jeremy Lam - Jeremy Lam is founder and CEO of Venu, a YC startup focused on virtual trade shows, expo halls, and hybrid events. We'll be discussing everything from the economics of trade shows, the impact of the pandemic, and predictions for the future.

• Fireside Chats: a chat set to explore the different careers of Asians in influential positions and what their experiences are of getting there.

  • Christine Hung, VP, Data and Engineering, Flatiron Health.

  • Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, hardware hacker, author, researcher, mentor to hardware startups.

  • Oli Yu, Engineering Director at Cloudflare.

  • Mohit Bijlani, EMEA Sales Manager at Cloudflare.

  • Roy Lo, EMEA Sales Manager at Cloudflare.

  • Christine Starkman, researcher and curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

  • Andy Nallappan, CTO and Head of Software Business Operations at Broadcom.

  • Andrew Li, Engineering Manager at Cloudflare.

• We Are Cloudflare: Interviews with the people behind the scenes that make Cloudflare what it is. Join Chaat as he interviews people from across all teams and offices. Get to know what they do and the kind of people we are.

• Cooking with Cloudflare: a live segment from our kitchens where we learn to make a dish or two from a Cloudflarian somewhere around the world.

• A Mile in Your Shoes: A story about their family's migration, their childhood pets, education and unique experiences, to better understand the lives of our colleagues.

Check out our APAC Heritage month landing page for the recordings of the events that occurred this month. We wanted to celebrate this month and truly embrace the culture and diversity, so please watch the recordings back on Cloudflare TV and beyond. Cloudflare embraces diversity and values diverse teams. We have also taken the recommendations of our teammates and put together a Playlist for you to be inspired by and deep dive into the deep rooted culture and practices we have celebrated this month.

In the spirit of highlighting APAC voices, we also wanted to take this opportunity to share a little about how our Asianflare and Desiflare Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) got started.

In March 2020, I (Jade) was having lunch with my colleague Stanley. We were venting to each other about the family of four who had been attacked in a grocery store parking lot in Texas. A few other co-workers joined the conversation, and we got to talk about how it echoed experiences of growing up as a minority in the US with Asian heritage.

That day turned out to be one of the last times we would physically be together in an office.

Stanley and I created Asianflare, the employee resource group for Asian heritage at Cloudflare, when we realized that we needed a space to serve as a support group. Surely, we weren’t the only ones who needed an emotional outlet about current events that impact our demographic. And we had a feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better. In the beginning, we just needed a safe space to just share our experiences with each other. And as lockdowns began across all the offices across the world, the Asianflare community became a real social hub as casual office chatter vanished into the ether.

The community blossomed with every food photo, every music or movie recommendation, every article discussion. We celebrated festivals together, held Zoom Lo Hei (“Prosperity Toss”) in multiple time zones, and held fireside chats on everything from career advice to public policy. Remember when WeChat and TikTok looked like they might be banned in the U.S.? We organized an internal fireside chat with Alissa Starzak, our public policy expert, to answer our questions on what to expect, especially those of us who feared getting cut off from our friends and family. On the average day, though, about 80% of our conversations are about food.

In March 2021, amidst the background radiation of escalating anti-Asian hate, a shooter killed eight people in Atlanta, six of whom were Asian women. What changed this time was the social support structures we had in place. We have a community that can grieve together, just as much as we celebrate together. Our People Team connected us with group therapy sessions offered by one of our benefits providers. At the BEER meeting our CEO, Matthew Prince, not only brought awareness to the issues and what our community was experiencing, but also offered our physical security team’s help. Even when I went outside, the flags were flying at half-mast. Colleagues I hadn’t heard from in ages reached out to make sure we were OK.

I know now that a kid like me growing up today would not see their families’ experiences swept under the rug, because our experiences are a part of the conversation now.

At the San Francisco office in 2019, we started to notice a sizable number of both folks of South Asian origin and folks with a deep interest in South Asian culture. So during Diwali (a festival of lights), we decided to have a small lunch get-together. The precursor to Desiflare was thus born in a room with 25 people congregating together for a commemorative vegetarian meal. The success of this small event led to monthly lunch meetings and eventually the formalization of the Desiflare ERG. Given the sizable Desi presence across all of our offices and the expansive interest we’ve seen in Desi culture across Cloudflare, today we see our ERG heavily represented around the world, especially in San Francisco, Austin, NYC, London, and Singapore!

Our Mission is to “Foster a sense of belonging and community amongst Cloudflare employees with an interest in the rich South Asian Culture as a platform to bring people together.”

We welcome everyone who identifies with or is otherwise interested in South Asian culture and look forward to welcoming all into our Desi community! While we are bound by the common fabric of South Asian, we realize that South Asia is vast and varied. Our shared body of culture embraces a breadth of diverse traditions, cuisines, habits, and beliefs, which is only magnified by the variation across the Desi diaspora across the world.

We therefore aspire to embrace and learn about each other to make the Desiflare ERG a place where all feel welcome!

Here are some of the highlights.

Selina TobaccowalaChief Digital Officer at Openfit, Co-Founder of GixoFormer President & CTO of SurveyMonkey

When you think about diversity and inclusion, unfortunately, it's often only the loudest voice, the squeakiest wheel [who gets heard]. And what a survey allows you to do is let people's voices be heard who are not always willing to raise their hand or speak the loudest.

So at SurveyMonkey, we always made sure that when we were thinking about user testing and we were thinking about usability testing — that it was that broad swath of the customer because you wanted people across all different segments to submit their opinion.

I think that collecting data in a way that can be anonymized, collecting data in a way that lets people have a thoughtful versus always off the cuff conversation is really important. And what we also provided was a benchmarking product, because if you don’t know how you rank and stack against other people, you don’t know if you’re doing well or not.

Watch the full interview

Bonita StewartVice President, Global Partnerships & Americas Partnerships Solutions of Google

It's been part of my mission to make sure that technology is introduced particularly into the African-American community, so that people see it as a viable career and not something that’s on a path that requires a different risk profile or certain level of education. It should be accessible. So one of the things that I did — I was doing some research and I found that close to 25% of the STEM grads come from historically Black colleges. And there are many education programs we [Google] work with, but there was never anything for the students to have an immersive experience.

And the thought was, what if we had Howard West at Google? So we had a partnership with Howard University, and worked with Dr. Frederick (President of Howard University) and said: what if your students could actually spend time in the valley so that they could have an immersive experience? So they brought their faculty, along with their students. And there was just an outpouring from Google of volunteers saying, “I’d love to teach the students, is there a role for me that I can play?”

And that was in 2017. Now we have over ten schools — historically Black colleges, as well as historically Hispanic colleges and universities.

Watch the full interview

Erik HersmanCo-founder and CEO of BRCK

BRCK makes rugged, portable devices that provide free Wi-Fi access to areas throughout Kenya and Rwanda.

We install our devices in buses and public transportation in Kenya and Rwanda. We also put them in fixed locations across the two countries. And we have a platform on it that's much like what you'd see at an airport, where you get you get a dashboard that pops up, you watch an ad, you do a survey, you do something to earn your time and get online — which in East Africa is really important because people have time, but they don't have money.

And so if you want to hit this demographic and allow them to have equal access to that kind of global digital ecosystem that's out there, that we all take part in, you need to find a way that they can do so without going into their wallet. And this is the only way we found that we could do that. And so we have businesses who end up paying us [to serve advertisements, surveys, and microwork tasks] and that's what subsidizes that cost.

Watch the full interview

Shellye ArchambeauFormer CEO of MetricStreamBoard member for Verizon, Okta, Nordstrom, and Roper Technologies

When I first came to Silicon Valley, I was shocked. I was shocked because I'm thinking, OK, I'm going to Silicon Valley — the place with innovation, new ideas, creativity, et cetera — I just knew it had to be diverse and… [it wasn’t]. And so that part was really a shock. And you know, I'm sure some things were more challenging for me. I wasn't in anybody else's shoes, so I don't know if it was easier for them, but…

I’ve been in tech my entire career so I always approach things the same way. I assume that people are going to think that I'm not quite capable. Not quite competent, not quite… Just that little — I know people are going to think that.

So I try to go in the same way each time. It's like I have to prove myself both to the people who I'm working for and to the people who are working for me. And I've always found that using a servant leader approach is the most effective way. To really go in and focus on the team. If I can help the team be successful, then I will be successful. So that has worked for me over and over again.

Watch the full interview

Pam KostkaCEO of All Raise

Be intentional about expanding your networks. So get out there and meet a Black investor, get out there and meet a Black founder, get out there and meet a female founder, get out there and be intentional. Don't sit in your chair. They're not going to come to you. Somebody gave me a beautiful analogy once and said, “It's like fishing in the forest. There are plenty of fish there over there in the lake.”

So if you're fishing in the forest and you're shocked and surprised to find that there's no fish on your hook, well, get yourself over to the lake. And you're going to have to get up out of your chair and walk over — especially if your company or your firm doesn't look diverse, because it’s not welcoming. And so you have to be intentional about expanding your network.

And you're not going to get there if you just think you’ll do it. You need to treat it like OKRs, you need to make it a strategic imperative. You need to tie executive compensation to it, and do what you need to do in order to keep the focus and make sure it is appropriately resourced.

Watch the full interview

*Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

The world is waking up to the fight against racism and I couldn’t be happier!

But let’s be clear: learning about anti-racism and being anti-racist are not the same things. Learning is a good first step and a necessary one. But if you don’t apply the knowledge you acquire, then you are not helping to move the needle.

Since the murder of George Floyd at the hands/knees of the Minneapolis police, people all over the world have been focused on Black Lives Matter and anti-racism. At Cloudflare, we’ve seen an increase in cyberattacks, we’ve heard from the leadership of Afroflare, our Employee Resource Group for employees of African descent, and we held our first ever Day On, held on June 18, Cloudflare’s employee day of learning about bias, the history and psychological effects of racism, and how racism can get baked into algorithms.

By way of this blog post, I want to share my thoughts about where I think we go from here and how I believe we can truly embody Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in our workplace.

Is diversity recruiting the answer to anti-racism in the workplace?

Many Cloudflarians said we should increase our diversity recruiting efforts as part of the feedback we received after our Day On event. But recruiting more diverse candidates only solves one part of the problem. There are still two major hurdles to overcome:

• Employees need to feel welcome and have a sense of belonging

• Employees need to feel valued and have an equal opportunity for career advancement

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) offer opportunities to foster community and a sense of belonging. But it is beyond the scope of an ERG to ensure all employees have equal opportunities for advancement. And honestly, this is where a lot of companies fall short. It’s the reason you see people sharing pictures and calling out management teams or boards of directors all over social media. Because there is a lack of visible signs of diversity at senior levels. Numbers can be misleading. A company might state, “We have 11% employees of this group or 8% of that group.” That’s great, but how many of these employees are thriving in their current roles and getting promoted at the same pace as their white counterparts? Or being compensated at the same rate as their male counterparts? The answers to those questions are much more telling, yet seldom shared.

Folks, if we are going to see meaningful change, we all need to get onboard with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. It’s really not the type of thing that people can opt-in or out of. It won’t work. And even if, and when, everyone opts in to make DEI a priority, that won’t be enough. We won’t start to see real change until we are all living and breathing DEI day in and day out.

What does committing to DEI every day look like?

Doing something (anything) every day that flexes our DEI muscles and gets us closer to meaningful outcomes.

Examples include:

• Mentoring a person from an underrepresented group or asking someone from an underrepresented group to mentor you.

• Scheduling coffee meetings with underrepresented people around the company and finding out how you can help to amplify their voices.

• Providing candid, timely coaching to underrepresented employees to help them grow in their field or area of expertise.

• Learning to value the different approaches and styles that people from underrepresented groups bring to the workplace.

• Watching Cloudflare TV segments like, “Everyone at the Table” which airs weekly and promotes an open dialogue about everyday topics from the perspective of people with different perspectives.

• Hosting office-wide or team-wide “listening circles” where employees can share what a just and equitable workplace looks like to them.

• Requesting educational opportunities for your team or whole company such as implicit bias workshops or allyship workshops. Asking if your company’s leaders have attended similar workshops.

• Asking your manager/team leadership how you may help increase the diversity of your team.

• Suggesting ideas for building a more inclusive culture within your team such as running meetings in a manner where everyone has an equal opportunity to speak, keeping meetings and work social activities within working hours, and regularly hosting conversations about how the team can be more inclusive.

• And finally - asking the opinion of someone from an under-represented group. This one is especially important since so many of us are not present when critical decisions are being made.

Why is committing to DEI on a daily basis important?

• Because it’s easier for us to do nothing. Keeping the status quo is easy. Coming together to change the system is hard work. Especially if everyone is not on board.

• Because having a company full of underrepresented people who are not being heard, seen, celebrated, or promoted is not going to get us the outcomes we want. And trust me, it doesn’t take long to realize that you are not going to make it at a company. Racism, discrimination, and unfair treatment can be very subtle but under-represented people can tell when they are valued and appreciated. And when they are being set up to fail.

• Because we know too much. The system is broken. Underrepresented groups have always known this. But now that it is a fact most people acknowledge and accept, we can’t ignore it. A wise woman once said, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." (Maya Angelou)

I’ll end my commentary with this: I view DEI as a journey that we must commit to every day. Here at Cloudflare. Across the tech industry. And in our world.

Notice I used the word journey. It’s not a destination in the sense that we do these 10 things and we have “arrived”. Instead, I believe it is a journey that we will always be on with milestones and achievements to be celebrated along the way.

To help you start flexing your DEI muscle, I’m kicking off a 21-Day DEI Challenge starting today! Every day, for the next 21 days, I challenge you to share in a public forum (bonus points for doing it on LinkedIn) how you are helping to move DEI forward. You can take a small step or a really big one. What matters is that you are flexing that muscle and challenging yourself (and others) to start the journey. #21DayDEIChallenge #BeAntiRacist #MoveTheNeedle

I hope you are up for the challenge that DEI offers us because the future of our company, industry, and society depends on it.

Postscript: This blog post is dedicated to the memory of the late Congressman John Lewis, a great civil rights leader and so much more, who challenged all of us to be brave enough to make noise and get into “good trouble” for the sake of justice and equality. Rest in Power, Mr. Lewis.

I came to the United States chasing the love of my life, today my wife, in 2015.

A Spanish native speaker, Portuguese as my second language and born in the Argentine city of Córdoba more than 6,000 miles from San Francisco, there is no doubt that the definition of "Latino" fits me very well and with pride.

Cloudflare was not my first job in this country but it has been the organization in which I have learned many of the things that have allowed me to understand the corporate culture of a society totally alien to the one which I come from.

I was hired in January 2018 as the first Business Development Representative for the Latin America (LATAM) region based in San Francisco. This was long before the company went public in September 2019. The organization was looking for a specialist in Latin American markets with not only good experience and knowledge beyond languages ​​(Spanish/Portuguese), but understanding of the economy, politics, culture, history, go-to-market strategies, etc.—I was lucky enough to be chosen as "that person". Cloudflare invested in me to a great extent and I was amazed at the freedom I had to propose ideas and bring them to reality. I have been able to experience far beyond my role as a sales representative: I have translated marketing materials, helped with campaigns, participated in various trainings, traveled to different countries to attend conferences and visit clients, and on.

Later, I was promoted as a sales executive for the North America (NAMER) region.

Cloudflare poster signed by colleagues after our Company retreat in 2018

I have been very fortunate to be able to closely observe the growth and maturity of the organization throughout my time here.

Today, Cloudflare has three times more employees than when I started, and I can say that much of what makes this organization unique has remained intact: Cloudflare's core mission is to help build a better Internet, to be transparent, to protect vulnerable yet important voices online through its Project Galileo, our open door policy, the importance of investing in people, among many others.

Myself with Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn, co-founders of Cloudflare

In recent weeks I have participated in conversations around "how do we recruit more under-represented groups and avoid bias in the selection process" - This has really filled me with joy but is certainly not the first initiative of its kind at Cloudflare. The company takes pride in having several Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) created and led by employees and executive sponsors—and highly encouraged by the organization: Afroflare, Desiflare, Nativeflare, Latinflare, Proudflare, Soberflare and Vetflare are just some of those groups (we have over 16 ERGs to-date!).

At Cloudflare I have found a space where I can develop professionally, where my ideas count, and where I am allowed to make mistakes—this is not something that I have experienced in my previous roles with other employers. I am not afraid to admit that in other organizations I have felt the stigma of being a person of color and that the working conditions were unfair compared to my colleagues.

Cloudflare’s values have continued to shine through during the current COVID-19 situation ​​and we have strengthened overall as an organization.

Being an immigrant (a person of color) it is a challenge to make the decision to work for organizations that don't fully understand the value of adding more diversity to their workforce. Cloudflare is a company that does value diversity in its workforce and has demonstrated a genuine interest in recruiting as well as retaining under-represented groups and creating a collective learning environment for them and the rest of the teams within the organization.

The company is committed to increasing the diversity within our teams and we want more diverse candidates in our selection processes. To achieve this we want to invite you (or please encourage others) to visit our careers page for more information on full-time positions and internship roles at our locations across the globe and apply.

And if you have questions, I will leave you my email: pviera@cloudflare.com. It would be a pleasure to be able to guide you and put you in touch with the right people within Cloudflare to better understand our technology and where we are going. Your experience and skills are what we need to continue improving the Internet. Come join me at Cloudflare!

Our team culture lives inside and outside the company - Here is our Soccer team!

Seven months ago, I joined Cloudflare to work on the Public Policy Team focusing on our democracy projects such as Project Galileo, Athenian Project and Cloudflare for Campaigns. Since I joined the team, I have learned a lot about how important cybersecurity protections are for organizations that are the target of sophisticated cyberattacks, while also learning about the complex election security environment in the United States and abroad.

It seems fitting that on International Women’s Day, a day people throughout the world are celebrating the achievements of women, we also celebrate the Centennial Anniversary of the Women’s Suffrage Movement which was the tipping point that gave many women voting rights in the United States.

Since I have been working on Cloudflare’s election security projects, this day means something extra special to me and many of my colleagues who believe that voting is the cornerstone of democracy and that having access to information regarding voting and elections is essential.

Here are five reflections that I want to share on International Women’s Day and the Centennial Anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment which granted women the right to vote in the United States:

The Women’s Suffrage movement burst into view in the United States in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, where participants introduced the notion that women deserved their own political identity and that a righteous government cannot exist without equal rights for all. These organizers passed the torch to the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, founded in 1913, which raised awareness through distributing pamphlets at street meetings, organizing parades, speaking tours, and petitioning Congress to pass legislation on the movement. In 1919, the Senate passed the Nineteenth Amendment and it was officially ratified on August 26, 1920.

With the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, it technically granted women the right to vote. However, due to widespread inequality within the ranks of the women’s suffrage movement who primarily focused on white middle-class interests, many African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian women did not receive the right to vote until later in the century. African American women were not guaranteed the right to vote until the Voting Right Acts of 1965. During the height of the civil rights movement, The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson to prohibit racial discrimination in voting.

Much has changed since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The Center for American Women and Politics in the United States reports that in every presidential election since 1964, the number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters.

There has also been a historical increase of women in elected offices around the world. This is evident with the highest number of women ever elected to the U.S. Congress in 2018, Slovakia electing the first female president, the United Kingdom electing 220 female MPs to the House of Commons, women making up 49% of Senate of the Republic of Mexico and female Prime Ministers in Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Foundationally, the right to vote is a nonpartisan issue that benefits the interest of the country, strengthens our democracy, and with more women in office, it promotes diversity of thought and experience.

The way we share information has evolved dramatically from distributing pamphlets in 1913 to millions of people sharing information on the Internet across the world in 2020. State and local governments now use their election websites as the primary source to provide up to date announcements and information on how to register to vote, find designated polling stations, and access election results. Political campaigns use their digital infrastructure to release information about their policies, accept donations, recruit volunteers and give updates on the campaign to increase supporters’ engagement.

Voting is a crucial tenet of our democratic system and regardless of circumstance, individuals should have access to the information necessary to exercise their rights without outside interference. At Cloudflare, our mission is to build a better Internet and part of that is ensuring that users have access to accurate, trusted information, in a safe environment. With many upcoming elections in 2020, it is important that we have confidence in the democratic processes and that starts with ensuring their website infrastructure and internal teams are secure against malicious efforts to take them offline and shake voter’s faith in democracy.

Cloudflare has made election security a priority, investing our time in the Athenian Project and Cloudflare for Campaigns as political campaigns and state and local government election websites are the first line of defense in election security. In 2016, it was reported by the Department of Homeland Security that state and local government election infrastructure in all 50 states were targeted during the Presidential election. Fast forward to 2020, we are protecting more than 170 state and local government election websites and providing services to 18 of the 32 U.S. Presidential campaigns.

Therefore, it seems fitting that we celebrate the Centennial anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and International Women’s Day, highlighting the achievement of women throughout history and the importance of voter confidence in the democratic institutions that many fought to participate and have their voices heard.

Working at Cloudflare has allowed me to learn how important access to information is to Internet users, and voters across the world, and I am proud to work for a company that supports strengthening democracy.

If you are interested in learning more about our election project, please visit cloudflare.com/athenian/ & cloudflare.com/campaigns/usa/.

Competing for security talent in the tech industry - where every company is investing heavily on security - isn't easy. But, in 18 months, we have grown our team 400% from under 10 people to almost 50 (and still hiring). We are proud that 40% of our team are women and 25% are from an under-represented minority. We believe from experience, and the research shows, that more diverse teams drive better business results and can be a better place to work.

In honor of International Women’s Day this Sunday, we wanted to share some of our lessons learned on how to build a diverse team and inclusive culture on a modern security team.

• Our effort to build a diverse team starts from the moment we draft a job posting. We try to choose language that will resonate with a broad set of candidates, and question proposed “prerequisites” for a role such as college degrees or a minimum or maximum set of experience. For example, we choose language that invites people looking to grow, and avoid militaristic terms often seen in security job descriptions.

• We are open to considering multiple locations where a role can be based. Cloudflare has 13 offices around the world. We have been flexible in which office our team members can join.

• We don’t rely on one hiring source. We strive for multiple hiring sources. We appreciate employee referrals and do company-wide presentations frequently to keep our team’s open positions top of mind across our 1200-person company. We love candidates who apply through Cloudflare's online careers site because they read a Cloudflare blog post and find it interesting, or are a happy Cloudflare customer in some way. We help fuel this source of candidates by writing blog posts on a wide range of topics like here and here. We also believe in proactively reaching out to potential candidates (see more in the next point). Having three strong channels in which we are meeting candidates makes hiring a bit easier.

• Proactively reaching out to passive candidates can be hard for some hiring managers. We work hard to make everyone on our team better at this. We partnered with our recruiting team to train our security team on how to use LinkedIn and Eightfold to find potential people to reach out to, and we encourage our leaders to go to meetups and the networking components of conferences and to ask respected industry peers for referrals. Our hiring managers then reach out directly with a personalized message. Our response rate is over 10% when we take the time to personalize the messaging to fit the particular possible candidate.

• We think long-term about team-building and know that it might take six months to a year to close promising passive candidates. We build a relationship by sharing updates on the company as well as new problems we are trying to solve, and over time we have seen these candidates come to appreciate the company and work and then join our team.

• We do proactive engagement at a number of conferences and events such as the Grace Hopper conference, AfroTech, and the International Association of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals events. We also look to build relationships and hire through organizations dedicated to placing minority candidates such as Path Forward.

• We leverage our internship program to broaden our candidate pool and change perception about viable backgrounds for roles. It is easier to convince people to consider candidates from less “pedigreed” schools or with skills developed outside traditional educational paths through direct exposure to those who’ve taken different routes but share the same passion for security. We’ve found some amazing interns who’ve proven themselves on short intern stints with us, and already progressed into full-time roles.

• We make sure we put together the right interview panel for the candidate: that means not only evaluating the candidate thoroughly but also giving the candidate the opportunity to look across the table at someone they feel comfortable asking “can someone like us succeed here?” You are not just using the interview process to evaluate the candidate, you are showing the candidate who you are as a team.

• We hold ourselves accountable by reviewing metrics on hiring and retention. Our company leadership team gathers once a week to review data on how the entire company is doing, including looking at how we are doing at building a diverse workforce and what we can do to improve. And we don’t just look at diversity in general, we look at diversity across management, and for those in management, we also consider things like span of control.

• We also get great support from our co-founders and other executives directly in our hiring process. They are always willing to spend extra time introducing people to the company, our mission, and our values. One of them will always be the last person to meet the candidate on their final interview. You can’t beat a welcoming message from the top.

The work doesn’t stop with getting a great set of people with complementary skills to come work at Cloudflare. To us, diversity is a means to the end of developing a highly productive team, not an end in itself. And, it turns out that hiring a diverse team is not a moment to celebrate success, it is a moment where leadership responsibility increases. A diverse team - made up of people from various backgrounds who don’t automatically feel at ease with one another - is not a guarantee of success. To cultivate a truly productive team requires a culture of openness to differences and a willingness for people to share their unique perspectives with people who are different.

We obsess over making sure all these great people who decided to join will also decide to stay for the long-term. We identified a number of ways we could build a community that welcomes people from different backgrounds and celebrates open debate.

• We’ve moved on from the media-favored image of security professionals as “hackers” and instead focus on innovation and empathy as our core values. We believe our role is more akin to a scientist designing a cure for a disease, a teacher helping a student solve a hard problem, or a nurse responding to a person in need of treatment. While we still need the skill to be able to break things and consider the attacker mindset we are responsible for combating, we will not succeed if we cannot stand in the shoes of our customers and empathize with their plight when we roll out painful security requirements.

• We talk regularly about how team members must have a stronger than usual commitment to developing the “psychological safety” necessary for everyone to believe their opinions are welcome and valued and will contribute to the greater good.

• We counter the risk that security work can become very reactive by promoting a spirit of innovation. That has led to us already open sourcing multiple solutions, contributing to development of Cloudflare products, and presenting at security conferences. We are strategic about what solutions we should build ourselves and what we should buy from other vendors, always staying current on what’s new.

• Our team decided to pick a logo, and we ended up choosing an orange-to-pink hued phoenix because they represent resilience and optimism: A phoenix never dies; instead, she always rises from the ashes and becomes more majestic each time around. This embodies the security mindset -- we help Cloudflare bounce back from attacks and security incidents, reemerging stronger and more secure than ever. It's easy to feel like you never "win" against constantly evolving adversaries. Knowing that we are the phoenix, destined to bounce back from whatever setbacks we face, helps us stay optimistic no matter what we face. And of course, the image of a phoenix also fits well with the core Cloudflare name and brand. Not your typical security imagery, but something that we are proud to wear on our t-shirts because it represents our team.

• We encourage every member of our organization to work on something that is outside their sub-team’s subject area so they interact with the broader team and also have a sense of personal career development.

• We take our work very seriously and know when to say “Let’s get down to business” like Mulan in the Disney movie (which we’ve heard team members sing), but don’t take ourselves too seriously. We keep it light around the office.

• We change our seating arrangements regularly to encourage expanding relationship circles.

• We ask team members across the organization to lead meetings and give presentations to the whole group.

• We promote from within. Five team members have been promoted into first-time manager roles.

• We have open-ended manager round-tables to discuss vulnerable topics relating to growing a diverse team.

• We support our team members playing active roles in company Employee Resource Groups such as here and speaking up on topics outside our core areas of expertise.

• We take time for team-building activities. Some of our best practices are to keep the events during business hours and limit those that include alcohol.

• We celebrate success. In the security world, external recognition is more often given for failure than success. Most companies don’t celebrate the prevention of harm, they celebrate new products and new business. If you are not careful, a security team can feel isolated from the rest of the company because its work is not directly tied to generating revenue and even worse can be perceived as blocking progress.

One of our favorite meetings was an informal risk review session we had with our engineers during which we white-boarded what we all thought were our biggest risk areas. It was great in the moment because it was such a collaborative session where everyone felt comfortable speaking up about their fears. No two people saw things the same way, but all were open to hearing other perspectives and many of us in the moment changed how we thought about priorities. And what made it an all-time experience was how even though we may have left the meeting a bit discouraged about all we needed to do, within a week every team member had stepped forward and volunteered to work on one of the hardest challenges. Looking back a bit over a year later, we have made strong progress in reducing all the risks identified in that meeting, and we did it together as a team.

Security is hard work, and the work is never done. But bringing together a diverse team with a positive culture has helped our team get a lot of hard and stressful work done well. There is a lot more we can do to keep things moving in the right direction for our team members and company and we welcome additional suggestions for improvements in our approaches.

Black history is not only relevant, it is how we ensure that our heroes are not forgotten and that we have a viable future in our respective industries. As Carter G. Woodson famously said, “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”

As the US leaders of Afroflare, Cloudflare’s employee resource group (ERG) for employees of African descent, we made a personal commitment this month and beyond to effectively represent, build, and grow at Cloudflare and in the tech industry.

To honor that commitment, we decided to tackle some commonly asked questions about the state of African-Americans in tech.

The latest report on diversity in high tech from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in May 2016, indicated African-Americans made up 7.4% of the high tech workforce, with less than 1% in Manager or Executive roles.

An updated report hasn’t been released, but according to USA Today, Wired, and Fortune, Black workers made up between 1% and 6% of Black of the tech workforce from 2018-2019.

According to the EEOC, some factors driving the lack of diversity in high tech include:

• The "pipeline" problem - traditional recruiting efforts depend heavily on individuals’ personal networks, which in the US, are typically not diverse.

• The inhospitable culture in relevant industries and occupations forcing women and minorities to tolerate the environment or leave the field.

• The reluctance of high tech companies to train new employees.

• The fast-changing nature of the industry.

The future of African-Americans in tech is dependent on the concerted and consistent effort of all high tech employees and departments.

Recruiters can build a more diverse pipeline by building relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), attending events like Afrotech, or partnering with organizations whose mission is aligned with increasing diversity in tech. We have highlighted a few notable organizations below.

Black Girls Code, founded in April 2011, focuses on teaching young African-American girls how to code in several programming languages. They hope to “bridge the digital divide” in a society that pits underrepresented, young, aspiring, girls against more privileged individuals. They aim to “provide African-American youth with the skills to occupy some of the 1.4 million computing job openings expected to be available in the U.S. by 2020, and to train 1 million girls by 2040.”

/dev/color is a non-profit foundation led by supporters of inclusion in the tech industry with a mission to “empower Black software engineers to help one another grow into industry leaders.” /dev/color does this by focusing on helping individuals find new jobs, assist with start-ups, and most importantly, ensure that engineers find a sense of purpose in their careers and in tech.

Project Include uses data and advocacy to push diversity and inclusion initiatives in high tech. They work with companies to implement diversity initiatives that focus on three core concepts: inclusion, comprehensiveness, and accountability. Project Include shares a powerful message about what it takes to ‘walk the talk’ when it comes to diversity:

“Change is hard, especially around a multidimensional issue like diversity. It is easy for all of us to become defensive and emotional, to shift the blame to others, and to feel fundamentally unheard or misunderstood. It is so uncomfortable for us to talk about the diversity problem that we have not been able to acknowledge it in full.”

These are a few of the many tech events and organizations working to solve this problem. However, doing this work takes more than just money. It involves having difficult conversations, training employees on ally skills, and supporting ERGs to celebrate and educate tech companies on different experiences, which is what we do here at Cloudflare.

As Cloudflarians, we come to work every day to build a better Internet. As Afroflarians, we want to acknowledge the current industry problems around inclusion and work tirelessly to build a better tech industry that welcomes and supports everyone. Not just during Black History Month, but always.

We urge you to do the same.

Afroflare at Afrotech in Oakland (November 2019)

Afroflare at Afrotech in Oakland (November 2019)

Afroflare at Afrotech in Oakland (November 2019)

“Diversity leads to better outcomes… better decisions, increased innovation, stronger financial returns, and a great place to work for everyone” said Janet Van Huysse, Head of People at Cloudflare during our Q1-2020 kickoff. Veterans, people who have served in the military, are a vital element of a diverse workforce. We come in diverse shapes, sizes, colors, genders, and orientations. We bring diverse skillsets, experiences, and perspectives.  

If you haven’t served in the military and haven’t worked with many veterans, here are some of the things that you can expect from your colleagues or direct reports that are veterans.

Veterans know what it means to SERVE. Indeed, it is a truism that living in service to others is a life well-lived, and that service to others is a foundation of esprit de corps. Though relatively few of us have seen combat, we have all signed a blank check to our nation made payable for any amount, up to and including our lives. This is what it means to become part of something bigger than oneself. This translates to putting our common shared interests ahead of our personal interests even when that means becoming an instrument of a foreign policy we might not agree with.  

Veterans know what it means to be part of a TEAM. The phrase “I’ve got your back” means a lot when it comes from a veteran because they’re referring to the blank check. Just about every veteran you ask will tell you they really miss being part of something bigger than themselves. Companies and organizations in the civilian world that can connect the dots in this way, like Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better internet, unlock the magic that accomplishes the seemingly impossible. We see this at Cloudflare in the incredible pace of product releases AND product improvements. We see this at Cloudflare when people go to the mat for their customers and when people come together to fix a problem.  

Veterans know what it means to focus on a MISSION. When people have bought into the mission, everything and everyone aligns to achieve it. We know that together, as part of a team, with solid leadership, strategy, and tactics we can accomplish the mission. Veterans will help you drop things that are extraneous to the mission and help you focus on the things that will get the mission accomplished. When a veteran on your team asks, “What problem are we trying to solve?” or “Why are we doing this?” you can bet a paycheck that they’re trying to draw a straight line to the goal of the mission.  

Veterans know what it means to COMMIT. Most people view the military as a top-down, hierarchical organization because, well... it is.  But most people don’t realize the level of consensus-driven decision-making that happens prior to an order being given. “Because I told you so” is just not enough of a reason for people to risk their lives or for them to effectively execute their part of a mission. So the military involves their people in mission planning where alternatives are thrashed out, often with great conviction. But when time is up and the mission commander makes their call on how the mission will be carried out, veterans know it’s time to put aside their personal opinions, get onboard, and do whatever it takes to make the plan successful. Jeff Bezos famously calls this “disagree and commit” and veterans are well-practiced in this skill.

Veterans know the importance of MORALE. We’ve seen the unit with everything going for it fail, and we’ve seen the underdog come out on top. We’ve seen troubled units turn themselves around, seemingly overnight. Veterans know how the days drag on endlessly when morale is low, and we know the joy that comes from playing their part in a group that is proud to be doing what they’re doing.

Veterans know how to make DIVERSITY work. We had to because we had no choice in who we worked with in the military. Every year one-third of the people in our units left and new people showed up out of the blue. So veterans get good at onboarding themselves into new organizations and onboarding new people to their teams. Veterans get good at figuring out what people have to offer and where they have gaps so the team can reshape itself to maximize performance.  

If you’re a veteran reading this, know that Cloudflare has a seat at the table for you. This can be your opportunity to transition into the civilian world, transition into tech, or accelerate your career in tech at a rocket-ship that appreciates what you have to offer.  

Supporting veterans is distinct from supporting their country’s foreign policy. Most Americans recognize the mistake we made in not welcoming home veterans of the Vietnam War because we didn’t support the war at-large. Nowadays, “thank you for your service” is a meaningful phrase most veterans hear with some regularity and I’m here to tell you that it means a lot. And it especially means a lot to those veterans who carry the lifelong burden of combat action.

So we Cloudflarians that are also veterans also want to say thank you to all of YOU for welcoming us into this company, this culture, and this team that is doing so much more than helping to build a better internet.  We are proud and grateful to serve alongside you at CLOUDFLARE.

Thirty-one years ago, on the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, we first observed National Coming Out Day as a reminder that one of our most basic tools is the power of coming out. One out of every two Americans has someone close to them who is gay or lesbian. For transgender people, that number is only one in 10.

Coming out - whether it is as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer - STILL MATTERS. When people know someone who is LGBTQ, they are far more likely to support equality under the law. Beyond that, our stories can be powerful to each other.

Each year on October 11th, National Coming Out Day continues to promote a safe world for LGBTQ individuals to live truthfully and openly. Every person who speaks up changes more hearts and minds, and creates new advocates for equality.

For more on coming out, visit HRC's post.

Source: https://www.hrc.org/resources/national-coming-out-day

Last National Coming Out Day, I shared some stories from Proudflare members in this blog post. This year, I wanted to shift our focus to the experience and challenges of coming out in the workplace. I wanted to share what it was like for some of us to come out at Cloudflare, at our first companies, and point out some of the stresses, challenges, and risks involved.

Check out these five examples below and share your own in the comments section and/or to the people around you if you'd like!

While my first experience of coming out professionally was at my previous company, I thought I’d share some of the differences between my experiences at Cloudflare and this other company.

Reflecting retrospectively, coming out was so immensely liberating. I've never been happier, but at the time I was a mess. LGBTQIA+ people still have little to no legal protection, and having been initially largely rejected by my parents and several of my friends after coming out to them, I felt like I was at sea, floating without a raft. This feeling of unease was compounded by my particular coming out being a two part series: I wasn’t only coming out as transgender, but now also as a lesbian.

Eventually, after the physical changes became too noticeable to ignore (around 7 months ago), I worked up the courage to come out at work. The company I was working for was awful in many ways; bad culture, horrible project manager, and rampant nepotism. Despite this, I was pleasantly surprised that what I told them was almost immediately accepted. Surely this was finally a win for me? However, that initial optimism didn’t last. As time went on, it became clear that saying you accept it and actually internalizing it are completely different. I started being questioned about needed medical appointments, and I wasn’t really being treated any different than before. I still have no idea if it played into the reason they fired me for “performance” despite never bringing it up before.

As I started applying for new jobs, one thing was always on my mind: will this job be different? Thankfully the answer was yes; my experience at Cloudflare has been completely different. Through the entire hiring process, I never once had to out myself. Finally when I had to come out to use my legal name on the offer letter, Cloudflare handled it with such grace. One such example was that they went so far as to put my preferred name in quotes next to my legal one on the document. These little nuggets of kindness are visible all over the company - you can tell people are accepting and genuinely care. However, the biggest difference was that Cloudflare supports and celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community but doesn’t emphasize it. If you don’t want it to be part of your identity it doesn’t have to be. Looking to the future I hope I can just be a woman that loves women, not a trans-woman that loves women, and I think Cloudflare will be supportive of that.

My coming out story? It involves an awful lot of tears in a hotel room in Peru, about three and a half thousand miles away from anyone I knew.

That probably sounds more dramatic than the reality. I’d been visiting some friends in Minnesota and I was due to head to Peru to hike the Machu Picchu trail, but a missed flight connection saw me stranded in Atlanta overnight.

A couple of months earlier, I’d kind of came out to myself. This was less a case of admitting my sexuality, but more finally learning exactly what it is. I’d only just turned 40 and, months later, I was still trying to come to terms with what it all meant; reappraising your sexuality in your 40s is not a journey for the faint of heart! I hadn’t shared it with anyone yet, but while sitting in a thuddingly dull hotel room in Atlanta, it just felt like time. So I penned my coming out letter.

The next day I boarded a plane, posted my letter to Facebook, turned off my phone, and then experienced what was, without question, The. Longest. Flight. Of. My. Life. This was followed, perhaps unsurprisingly, by the longest taxi ride of my life.

Eventually, after an eternity or two had passed, I reached my hotel room, connected to the hotel wifi and read through the messages that had accumulated over the past 8 hours or so. Messages from my friends, and family, and even my Mum. The love and support I got from all of them just about broke me. I practically dissolved in a puddle of tears as I read through everything. Decades of pent up confusion and pain washed away in those tears.

I’ll never forget the sense of acceptance I felt after all that.

As for coming out at work, well, let’s see how it goes: Hi, I’m Mark, and I’m asexual.

I started my career working in consulting in a conservative environment where I was afraid that coming out would cause me to be taken less seriously by my male coworkers. I remember casually mentioning my partner at the time to a couple of close coworkers to gauge their response. They surprised me and turned out to be very accepting and insisted that I bring him to our Holiday Party later that year. That event was the first time I came out to my entire office and I remember feeling very nervous before stepping into the room.

My anxiety was soon quelled with a warm welcome from my office leadership and from then on I didn’t feel like I was dancing around the elephant in the room. After this experience being out at work is not something I think greatly about, I have been very fortunate to work in accepting environments including at Cloudflare!

Nearly a decade has passed since I first came out in a professional setting, when I first started working at a global investment bank in Manhattan. The financial services industry was, and continues to be, known for its machismo, and at the time, gay marriage was still illegal in the United States. Despite being out in my personal life, the thought of being out at work terrified me. I already felt so profoundly different from my coworkers as a woman and a person of colour, and thus I feared that my LGBTQIA+ identity would further reduce my chances of career advancement. I had no professional role models to signal that is was okay to be LGBTQIA+ in my career.

Soon after starting this job, a close friend and university classmate invited me to a dinner for LGBTQIA+ young professionals in financial services and management consulting. I had never attended an event targeted at LGBTQIA+ professionals, let alone met an out LGBTQIA+ individual working outside of the arts, academia or nonprofit sectors. Looking around the dining room, I felt as though I had spotted a unicorn: a handful of out senior leaders at top investment banks and consulting firms sat among nearly 40 ambitious young professionals, sharing their coming out stories and providing invaluable career advice. Before this event, I would have never believed that there were so many people “like me” within the industry, and most certainly not in executive positions. For the first time, I felt a strong sense of belonging, as I finally had LGBTQIA+ role models to look up to professionally, and I no longer felt afraid of being open about my sexuality professionally.

After this event, I felt inspired and energised. Over the subsequent weeks, my authentic self began to show. My confidence and enthusiasm at work dramatically increased. I was able to build trust with my colleagues more easily, and my managers lauded me for my ability to incorporate constructive feedback quickly.

As I reflect on my career trajectory, I have not succeeded in spite of my sexuality, but rather, because of being out as a bisexual woman. Over the course of my career, I have developed strong professional relationships with senior LGBTQIA+ mentors, held leadership positions in a variety of diversity networks and organisations, and attended a number of inspiring conferences and events. Without the anxiety of having to hide an important part of my identity, I am able to be the confident, intelligent woman I truly am. And that is precisely why I am actively involved in Proudflare, Cloudflare’s employee resource group for LGBTQIA+ individuals. I strongly believe that by creating an inclusive workplace - for anyone who feels different or out of place - all employees will have the support and confidence to shine in their professional and personal lives.

I really discovered my sexuality in college. Growing up, there weren’t many queer people in my life. I always had a loving family that would presumably accept me for who I was, but the lack of any queer role models in my life made me think that I was straight for quite some time. I just didn’t know what being gay was.

I always had a best friend - someone that I would end up spending all my time with. This friend wouldn’t always be the same person, but inevitably I would latch on one person and focus most of my emotional energy on our friendship. In college this friend was Daniel. We met while pledging a business fraternity our freshman year and quickly became close friends. Daniel made me feel different. I thought about him when I wasn't with him, I wanted to be with him all the time, and most of all I would get jealous when he would date women. He saw right through me and eventually got me to open up about being gay. Our long emotional text conversation ended with me asking if he had anything he wanted to share with me (fingers crossed). His answer - “I don’t know why everyone assumes I’m gay, I’m not.” Heart = Broken.

Fast forward 6 months and we decide to live together our Junior year. I slowly started becoming more comfortable with my sexuality and began coming out. I started with my close friends, then my brother, then slightly less close friends, but kept getting hung up on my parents. Luckily, Daniel made that easier. That text from Daniel about not being gay ended up being not as set in stone as I thought. We started secretly dating for almost a year and I was the happiest I have ever been. The thrills of a secret relationship can only last so long and eventually we knew we needed to tell the world. We came out to our parents together, as a couple. We were there for each other for the good conversations, the tough conversations, the “Facebook Official” post, and coming out at our first corporate jobs (A never ending cycle). We were so fortunate to both work at warm, welcoming companies when we came out and continue to work at such companies today.

Coming out wasn’t easy but knowing I didn’t have to do it alone made it a whole heck of a lot easier. Happy four-year anniversary, Dan.

To find resources about living openly, visit the Human Rights Campaign’s Coming Out Center. I hope you'll be true to yourselves and always be loud and proud.

To read more about Proudflare and why Cloudflare cares about inclusion in the workplace, read Proudflare’s first pride blog post.

Why employee resource groups are important for building a great company culture but they're not enough.

Diversity and inclusion is a process. To achieve diversity and inclusion, it’s not enough to hire diverse candidates. Once hired, we must be welcomed by a safe and belonging culture, and our diverse perspectives must be honored by our coworkers.

Too many times we are approached by well-meaning companies eager to hire diverse candidates, only to look behind the curtain and discover a company culture where we will not feel safe to be ourselves, and where our perspectives will be ignored. Why would we choose to stay in such an environment? These are the companies where diverse employees leave just as quickly as they join.

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are an essential part of diversity and inclusion, especially as companies grow larger. Before being heard, or trying to change someone's mind, you need to feel safe.

ERGs serve as a safe haven for those with perspectives and experiences that are "diverse" compared to the company as a whole. They are a place to share stories, particular plights, and are a source of stress relief. A place where we can safely show up fully as ourselves, even if at a particular event (like a movie night) no words about these subjects are ever spoken. Even small groups that give the sense of “you belong here” are very much needed and important for building a strong employee community. Having a sense of “I am safe,” “I belong,” “someone else understands my truth” should be established before any of the other steps. That’s where Afroflare comes in here at Cloudflare.

But ERGs alone are not enough. They do not help us to feel welcome in a team sync when we are the only person of color. They do not help us feel heard when we are the only diverse perspective in a meeting. Our perspectives need to be incorporated in products, culture, and employee processes — a result which we can call integration. Without integration, a company will not be able to retain these perspectives. So how does integration start? I believe, it starts with empathy.

Numerous articles have been written about empathy, diversity, and inclusion. Empathy, by which I mean understanding the struggles of worldly differences, is hard to do in a work setting: understanding the struggle of Jim Crow America, or being a first generation immigrant, or how the person you choose to love outside of work can affect your standing in the job market. Some of these struggles have been ingrained into the culture of a people for generations, as familiar to them as apple pie, and yet those experiences are completely unfamiliar to others of us. So what are we to do?

In Brene Brown’s book Dare to Lead, she talks about empathy in a very nuanced way. When I read this section, it had a profound effect on me. And though I encourage you to read the whole book, here is the key idea:

We see the world through a set of unique lenses that bring together who we are, where we come from, and our vast experiences. ... One of the signature mistakes with empathy is that we believe we can take our lenses off and look through the lenses of someone else. We can’t. Our lenses are soldered to who we are. What we can do, however, is honor people’s perspectives as truth even when they’re different from ours. ¹

Getting a seat at the table and mustering the courage to share a new perspective is challenging. Mustering the courage to share when it’s likely that your truth will not be honored because you are the only voice with that perspective is virtually impossible within today’s pervasive “data-driven” culture. Having more than one voice to “second” a thought, to value it, gives it more weight than the one lone voice that can so easily be written off as an outlier or a fluke. I'm never going to be able to count on having a second black, straight, cisgender woman from Baltimore in every discussion. More numbers are not the solution. Honoring people’s perspectives as truth even when they’re different from ours is hard to do for all of us. But unless we each do so for one another, none of our individuality can contribute to our work.

This doesn't often happen bottom-up. All the employees at a company don't spontaneously decide to honor each other's truths, and only hire those who do the same. It has to come from the top and it has to be a conscious decision.

This leads me back to why Afroflare (Cloudflare's ERG for people of color) and other ERGs like it are so important. They are the first step towards integration, providing that sense of safety and belonging. Combined with leadership that values this specific kind of empathy, we can create a culture where diversity has the safety it needs to speak up, and the ears needed to be heard. We’re not perfect, no company is, but Cloudflare is consistently making efforts to improve and become a more inclusive workplace for all, starting from our founders down. And, Cloudflare is aware of its duty to shed light on our diversity efforts, and speak up about how we’re going to create lasting change in the world by building a better Internet for all.

Empathy is great if you can do it. I urge the readers of this blog to simply honor the diverse perspectives of others as truth equally alongside their own. We’d all really win if we consider differing perspectives equally, regardless of the majority opinion, as we are hiring and creating solutions, products, and features. It is only then that our workplaces will begin to reflect the true diversity of the world we live in.

[1] Brown Brené. Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts. Random House, 2018.

The reason why we feel like we can help build a better Internet is simply because we believe in values that instill a nature of freedom, privacy, and empowerment in the tool that helps individuals broaden their intellectual and cultural perspective on the daily.

Knowing all of this, our own great company needs to be able to build itself daily into a better company. And that starts with having those conversations which are always uncomfortable. And let me be clear in saying this, being uncomfortable is a good thing because that makes one grow and not be stagnant. Saying all that, here we go...

The Afrocultural community at Cloudflare should take pride in being diverse and inclusive for all just as we all work together to help build a better Internet for all.

And one of the many ways we can build upon this effort is to do more than just belong in a work place and eventually build off of that, feeling normal over time. When I mean belong, it’s more than the "Impostor Syndrome" that normally hits every new hire at any great company. The "Impostor Syndrome" phenomena can be explained by the fact that even though someone may have all the credentials that make them seem like they fit in that particular space, a human being can feel like they don't belong there because of self-doubt or nervous, initial insecurity. This notion eventually goes away over time because this person proves to not only to his/her team that they belong in that space but also to themselves.

That’s the problem, however. That feeling doesn’t seem like it goes away for cultural groups, especially that of the Afrocultural community.

That's the Black Elephant in the Room and it's about time we talk about this.

Our community came together because we needed each other. We wanted to congratulate each other when one of us surpassed a goal at the end of a quarter. We wanted to have dialogue with not only our team but with other communities in Cloudflare, to empower, encourage, and remind each other every now and then that we are apart of what makes working at Cloudflare so great. From that moment on we knew that we had a sense of community and diversity. Cloudflare is a great place to work, but we knew that we need each other to make this an unforgettable experience. From that first meeting, we knew something special was born, and that is Afroflare.

And so we're able to talk about the issues that matter to us: diversity in the workplace, Afrocultural pride, a new and fresh view of the Black culture at work, or even just saying, "Hey, you're dope." More importantly though, we're done talking among each other. No. We now need to have the talk with our other brethren on this little blue ball in our Solar System called Earth. How can other Afro American employees get to feel welcomed into the tech world? What do young African American men and women need to strengthen their resumes and also empower themselves to be better and smarter individuals? In what ways can Cloudflare help lead this charge?

After all....we're just discussing the Black Elephant in the room.

Proudflare, Cloudflare's LGBTQIA+ employee resource group, finds ways to support and provide resources for the LGBTQIA+ community, both within Cloudflare and in the larger community.

Proudflare started in 2017 in our San Francisco headquarters and in 2018, the Proudflare Singapore chapter was formed. We were excited to participate in our first public-facing event and demonstrate Cloudflare’s commitment to equality and dignity for all people!

We took to the streets this year to celebrate, but more importantly demand equality for our community in Singapore. It was an exciting event, with heaps of buzz, cheer, and joy amongst the crowd! Pink Dot SG included LGBTQIA+-themed events, information tents, a concert, and onstage were 10 Declarations for Equality, a list of changes the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies are ready for and advocating for in Singapore.

Annual supporter-wide group pink light moment

You can read more here about what the Proudflare team has been doing globally. I am a Singaporean Permanent Resident, and am proud to share our Proudflare journey so far in Singapore.

Cupcakes!

We kicked off our celebrations with twenty-five Cloudflarians over cupcakes and lunch. We discussed a few articles articles centered on about LGBTQIA+ issues in tech in Asia Pacific, specifically in Singapore.

Different pride booths at Pink Dot Singapore

Next up we took to the streets! Pink Dot is a terrific opportunity to meet other LGBTQ+ individuals in Singapore, and share stories and methods of efficacy. We listened to and learned from a ton of like-minded peers, and had a great time!

Some of our Proudflare Singapore members at Pink Dot

Notes of love and hope from the event

It may sound a bit cheesy, but I loved the opportunity to meet other folks who faced the same challenges that I did. I was reminded that progress does not come to those who accept that status quo, and that sometimes it’s necessary to make a bit of noise to facilitate change. Pink Dot is a terrific opportunity to share stories, and remind both allies and non-allies that we exist and can’t be ignored.

I’m tremendously lucky to work at a company that supports employees of all stripes. I’m optimistic that Singapore will change its laws regarding non-cis people and activities, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Art from the event

Our Proudflare Singapore team met for food after the event

Singapore, we are ready, ready to support the freedom to love! #PinkDot10 #WeAreReady!

by Sebastian Tan via Pinkdot.sg

We would like to encourage you to support us by following us social media and join us at our next events.

• Proudflare on Facebook

• Proudflare on Twitter

• Proudflare on Instagram

Vu Long Tran and another Pink Dot Participant

Cloudflare #GHC18 team

I am 25+ years into my career in technology, and this was the very first time I attended a conference geared towards women.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Grace Hopper Celebration (#GHC18), and I can still feel the exuberant energy from the 22,000 women over the intensive 3 day conference. I attended with our Cloudflare team; our purpose was to connect with women in the greater tech community and recruit new talent to join our team and mission to help build a better Internet.

Cloudflare prioritizes GHC because we recognize that diversity in our company, and particularly in our technical departments, is crucial to our success. We believe that the best companies are diverse companies. This was Cloudflare’s second time sponsoring GHC, and I was part of the planning committee. This year I headed to the event with 20 of my colleagues to meet all of the incredible attendees, hold on-site interviews, and even host our own Cloudflare panel and luncheon.

Early Tuesday morning, the day before the conference, as I joined the Southwest Airlines boarding line at Oakland Airport, my fellow passengers were not the usual contingent of suited men on their way to business meetings. Instead I was surrounded by hundreds of women (and some men) in conversation about what to expect in Houston. The anticipation was palpable, and energy was invigorating.

The flight itself was essentially a Grace Hopper networking event. I sat next to two others who were also attending on behalf of their companies. In my row there was a product manager at a well-known and successful startup, as well as an executive who was heading to Grace Hopper to learn and hire. That was the best professional conversation I ever had on an airplane.The topics ranged from how to scale data pipelines at rapidly growing software companies, to how to find and hire great women engineers. All three of us were using the spotty airplane wifi to communicate last-minute conference plans with our colleagues all heading to the event. One of my seatmates showed me a massive airplane selfie that one of his colleagues had sent him—the whole plane was filled with women from his company, and the pilot had even made a special announcement welcoming them.

Upon arriving in Houston there was more of the same energy—it was just warmer and a bit muggier now that we were in Texas.The area of Houston around the conference centre was overtaken by the 22,000 attendees, most of whom were women at various stages of their studies. Uber drivers were eager to ask us what the hell was going on. Why so many women?

Cloudflare Expo Booth photo

As a member of the Cloudflare GHC contingent I had a few jobs—working the booth on the expo floor, interviewing candidates, and being one of four panelists at our Cloudflare: Women in Leadership Lunch.

Working the booth was a whole lot more fun than I could have imagined. I am an introvert and tend to avoid crowds and interactions with too many strangers. I surprised myself by taking on the role of “traffic control”— walking the expo floors and approaching women to ask if they are looking for a great place to work. Cloudflare is a great place to work so I could authentically express my feelings and also specifically speak to why it’s an ideal place to start your career. Cloudflare is a company where you work to solve some of the internet’s biggest problems at a scale where it has real impact.

I would then proceed to walk any interested people over to our booth so that myself and my colleagues could further engage them. I got so much from my conversations with these women. It gave me insight into why the celebration is so well attended. Women at various stages of their studies and careers had very specific reasons for being there.

The highlight of my week was the Women in Leadership Luncheon that Cloudflare hosted on the last day of the event. It gave us an opportunity to interact with some of the women we had met throughout the week in a more thoughtful and private way where we could open up about our careers and personal goals.

Cloudflare Women in Leadership Luncheon w/ Jessica Rosenberg, Jade Wang, Lisa Retief, and Suzanne Aldrich

We mingled with women in a relaxed setting, and had conversations about their situations and experiences. I found it very inspiring. As part of the event, I joined a panel with my three colleagues Jade Wang, head of developer relations, Jessica Rosenberg, head of brand design, and Suzanne Aldrich, solutions engineering lead to share some of our experiences and career journeys. All of us have different paths and have landed in different areas of the company, but all play integral roles in Cloudflare’s success. I don’t think you can underestimate the impact of seeing someone you can relate to in a position you may aspire to. This is an opportunity I wish I had when I was younger, and now am thrilled to share with the next generation of leaders in tech.

Another personal highlight of GHC was getting to really know my colleagues, many of whom I had never directly worked with. We were a team of women and men across different departments and locations who were excited to represent Cloudflare and ready to make some hires. We all had fun doing this and worked well together. While I didn’t go out dancing and singing quite as often as some of them, I made friends who I now greet enthusiastically whenever we cross paths at work. Two things we look for in candidates are empathy and curiosity, so it was great to be able to bond with my colleagues and get to see that side and know each of them personally.

Team dinner @ #GHC18

As I left Houston, I reflected on the contrast between the national headlines and what I had experienced at the conference. The week had coincided with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford giving testimony that was resonant to many of us. It was hard to hear. In spite of this, I saw at the conference a groundswell of potential to transform today’s companies into places that can help affect change.

When people ask me about what it’s like being a woman in tech, I often joke that I have never had to wait in line for the restroom. And while I’m being funny, it’s true. GHC was a very different experience, however. For me, attending GHC was like entering an alternate universe — something like a Margaret Atwood speculative fiction novel, except this was not a dystopian future. It was a future I want to see happen.

I look forward to #GHC19.