MLT Partner Spotlight: Laying the Foundation for Diversity at Pandora

By: Melinda Halpert

Background: In keeping with Pandora’s commitment to increasing and fostering diversity throughout the company – and to transparency about their progress – Pandora released data showing some modest gains this past year, while acknowledging the longer road ahead. Pandora’s Senior Diversity Manager Lisa Lee and MLT’s West Coast Managing Director, Mark Taguchi, spoke about their organizations’ partnership – and what it takes to gain meaningful traction in attracting and retaining diverse talent.

So how and when did this partnership begin?

Lisa: I met Mark in 2013 when I was still working at Facebook, and my colleagues at Pandora had actually been talking to MLT since 2012. We knew MLT was very results-oriented, with ten years of solid experience and plenty of success metrics in increasing diverse talent pipelines. When Pandora hired me to lead their diversity efforts, that was when we solidified the relationship. Funny story, I remember being at the airport, on my way to Spain and making sure my new bosses confirmed our moving forward with MLT. My first executive decision!

Mark: Yes, proof that in tech, those networks and relationships are all-important!

What specific challenges do Pandora and other Silicon Valley companies face in recruiting underrepresented talent?

Mark:  Tech careers differ from the ways most people think about their careers and career paths. Silicon Valley can seem like a foreign country – in how people think and dress – and it’s a long way from large segments of underrepresented talent in much of the country. Tech companies can be risky but often they seem even more risky than they are. Company names aren’t as established and they might sound strange compared to “safer” and more familiar long-standing companies. In the tech world, careers are not really connected to a company, but instead, it’s about connection to the sector. So we advise our talent to think about tech differently than they would a big well-known company that’s been around 100 years. We’re talking about some companies that didn’t exist 10 years ago – and may not be around 10 years from now.

Lisa: Agree and I think that Pandora is a company where we have a core sense of empathy in understanding the experiences we don’t understand. After all, Pandora believes in the power of the personal and we can’t personalize if we don’t get to know you. In thinking about recruiting underrepresented talent, cultural nuances must be considered, as an example. I know when I make a career decision, it’s not just about me but my whole family. Everyone has a stake in it. Therefore, a company like State Farm might be more “familiar” to my parents than Pandora. The tech sector is losing out on amazing talent we don’t even know.

Given that Pandora’s relationship with MLT is still pretty new, have there been any surprises or “aha!” moments during this past year – what you’ve termed a “foundational” year for increasing diversity at Pandora?

Lisa: No real surprises, so much as affirmations of how meritocracy is so entrenched in tech and how we have to change the ways we operate to compete for top talent. The “aha!” for me was that we are dealing with people that other companies want, and we cannot afford to sit on our laurels and assume that if they’re smart and want to work in tech, they will wait for us. The fact is they won’t.

How has MLT helped?  

Lisa: We got candid feedback from MLT on their peoples’ experience, and we altered our approach. Top talent is a limited quantity, and we have to woo them as much as they have to woo us. This is a competitive space. So when we went to interview at Career Prep (MLT’s program for rising college graduates), we looked at MLT as we would a school that nurtured top talent, and applied a recruitment ROI similar to what we use with academic institutions.

Mark: That’s a great example of how those in the tech sector cannot assume that if they have great jobs and make offers, everyone will come running. One way MLT helps is by providing actionable feedback with companies like Pandora to help them fine tune their recruitment and retention strategies – to do things better, fix their processes and timing, challenge their assumptions. For instance, our community loves music – they play an important role in all parts of the music ecosystem.  So while our folks know Pandora as a service, they may not know it as a company and great place to work.  So we’ve worked with Pandora to make the company and culture more accessible to the MLT community.

With so much disappointing news about the pace of change for diversity in the tech sector, how can companies like Pandora gain traction? What are some of the things Pandora is doing right?

Mark: Pandora is creative, innovative and eager to find new ways to do things. Rather than focusing on traditional recruiting programs and processes, Pandora is driven by a desire to make things happen. For example, personal relationships and networks are critical to one’s career in tech – much more than careers in other sectors. Most hiring happens through those relationships and networks, and it is hard to break in without them so Pandora is making efforts to overcome those obstacles. Pandora has set up recruiting or interviewing buddies – people at Pandora who volunteer to reach out and connect with MLT community members. They get people connected and introduced. They provide insights into the company’s culture and prepare them for interviewing.  Now it’s not just someone submitting a resume and application to a job posting on a website, but someone who has a connection to people inside the company. In addition, Pandora’s commitment to diversity is demonstrated at the executive level and throughout the country.

What other factors will help “move the needle?” at Pandora and elsewhere?   

Lisa: Mark mentioned executive team commitment, and that’s huge. The lack of meaningful involvement by senior leaders can be a pain point in D&I efforts throughout tech. But that’s not true at Pandora. My team and I have worked to engage senior leaders at the top. I simply asked, and the response has always been “Yes, I’ll be there.” We have put MLT in front of them and the organization speaks for itself; our leaders see the inherent value.

Mark: It’s great when execs talk about diversity and even better when they show up at an event in person, but Pandora’s executives dive in and engage with MLT’s talent pool. They talk and get to know our people and realize that MLT talent isn’t about diversity – it is about attracting and hiring the top talent that just happens to be diverse. Their interactions have been genuine and much more tangible and that makes a big difference from an engagement standpoint. It makes the organization more accessible. And that is especially important to diverse talent – for whom a company may sound great, but they can’t get through the door. Getting to meet people at that level makes a difference.

Lisa: Sara Clemens, our Chief Strategy Officer, was riding on BART the other day and bumped into one of the MLT alums she had met months ago. They chatted the whole ride! 

Mark: And Brian [McAndrews], Pandora’s CEO, spent several hours talking with our folks about our partnership on a Fireside Chat. Pandora has engaged their execs in meeting, interacting and getting to know MLT talent. And it’s not just at the top tiers, but in the middle, too, Pandora brings in their hiring managers, too, and that’s important because it adds to the accessibility for candidates of color.

So much of the talk about diversity in tech is focused on new entrants to the market – new graduates with STEM backgrounds.  But what about increasing diversity among more experienced hires in middle-management?

Mark:  That’s so important to point out and we’ve worked with Lisa at both Facebook and Pandora – on experienced hires, both technical and nontechnical. MLT has over 800 men and women working in the tech sector, most with 5-10 years of experience and an MBA, many with a STEM degree. With Pandora, we’ve laid the foundation for recruiting new graduates by starting with experienced hires – people who can hit the ground running and become leaders, role-models, and mentors for the diverse talent Pandora wants to bring in. Mid-level managers and directors are valuable mentors and role models for younger diverse talent. They can help guide and participate in making their company that much more accessible.

Lisa: That’s one reason we are actively participating in CAP (MLT’s Career Advancement Program) where we are investing in leadership development for some talented senior managers – people we want to see move up. CAP is helping us hone in and develop more diversity within our senior leadership. This is something most other tech companies haven’t focused on yet, so we hope to get in front of that.

Now that you’ve released your data from this first year, what will we see moving forward?

Lisa: I’m looking at this update not as a milestone but as a next step. The public is catching us at an early stage in our history – just as everything is about to take off. I’m looking forward to our executives work on action plans. We are looking forward to engaging more with MLT’s Career Prep and with the MBA programs. We want to do more with the alum community. We can’t imagine university recruiting without Career Prep now – that’s become part of our everyday lingo. We’ve established best practices that will serve us well going forward. We aren’t looking at band-aid solutions but at a comprehensive, coherent strategy to increase and foster diversity.

For some companies, “diversity” is seen as a “good thing to do” or a “nice thing to do,” but not as a core business strategy.  How is Pandora leveraging diversity in its business growth?

Lisa: We’ve already spoken about our organization-wide commitment to diversity – from our executive team on down.  It is genuine and critical to our success.  But beyond the hiring and retaining of diverse talent, Pandora is eager to tap into the perspectives that underrepresented people in tech bring to our work. Diversity helps us stay in touch with and serve the needs of our varied audiences from a business standpoint.

Mark:  Many MLT’ers are passionate about music and know Pandora as a service. They’ve been users and fans for a long time. We’ve worked closely with Pandora to help them explain Pandora the company and why it is an appealing career destination as well. We are eager to bring those two paths together – the career opportunity combined with an area they’re passionate about is key to MLT’ers reaching their full potential.

Another reason we love working with Pandora is because Pandora understands diversity and inclusion – it is in its DNA. Pandora’s business is all about analyzing and trying to understand the diversity of music – all the factors that make a song different and moves us. But Pandora is also about looking for the commonalities in music as well – the themes, genres, riffs, artists, etc. that bring us together. And that is really what diversity speaks to – not just our differences but what we share.

Lisa: Yes! And with greater diversity comes greater innovation – and an ability to serve more diverse markets. We’re excited to see what’s ahead.