Diversity & Inclusion at Heavybit
Heavybit has had a diversity and inclusion policy since 2014. This is different from an anti-harassment policy because we don’t just believe in creating a safe and participatory environment for women and traditionally marginalized groups, we believe they’re essential in shaping the future of software and want to make room for them to contribute. Some of the ways we embody this value include:
Diversity & Inclusion Policy
Read our commitment to inclusion policy here.
Pipeline & Outreach
Heavybit actively encourages women and founders from traditionally marginalized groups to apply to Heavybit. We’ve done so by seeking them out via joint events with women in technology groups, producing female founder dinner events, and hosting professional groups that support women and under-represented minorities. If you run a group focused on diverse founders, we’re happy to discuss ways to work together. If you’re a founder, we encourage you to apply.
Visibility for Diverse Experts
We believe that diverse domain experts should be given the forum to share their insights and we know our member companies and broader community are better for it. Our conferences feature at least 50% women and minorities on stage. As preparation for these types of events, we spend hours helping speakers prepare for their presentations and coach them through the process of presentation development. Heavybit also actively reaches out to diverse experts to publish their content and helps them shape the content and further distribute it to our community.
Hiring & Staff
Heavybit has always had an employment equity statement associated with its job listings. Perhaps more importantly, since our inception in 2013, our staff has always been fairly diverse with at least half of us being female, racialized minorities, and/or queer. That said, we own our privilege and recognize the need to continue to model diverse hiring practices to our portfolio companies. Some of the ways we’ve done that have been to create unconscious bias resources and events, and to introduce teams to stellar and diverse candidates.
Diversity & Inclusion Committee
Heavybit’s Diversity & Inclusion committee has met monthly since 2014, to design new proactive activities and events in furthering our commitment to a participatory culture.
Conduct
While we believe an anti-harassment policy is the least we can do to create an inclusive culture, we know it’s just and responsible to be deliberate about the safety and participation of the community. We have an anti-harassment policy and procedure and take complaints very seriously.