Women in Tech
Rhoashan Pharmaceuticals CEO Hitha Palepu joins this this week's Behind Her Empire to talk about how she became an angel investor focused on women-founded businesses and her latest book, "We're Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris."
Palepu is the daughter of immigrants who came to the U.S. from India. Her father lost his hearing when he was 10 years old. He got through school by lip reading; it wasn't until he arrived in the states he got his first hearing aid.
"All he wanted was the chance to get started in the scientific world. He had his master's in chemistry," said Palepu. He worked scrubbing toilets at McDonalds while trying to land a job as a bench chemist. Her mother left behind a life of privilege in India.
"I think that sums up who I am today, I was born a daughter of incredibly tenacious, hard-working parents who got rejected over and over and over again, and never let that stop them," said Palepu.
With the help of her parent's money manager, Palepu realized she could become a serious investor. It wasn't until about her third investment she felt like calling herself an actual investor.
"I do like to get my hands dirty with my companies and help out however I can. I'm not here to tell them how to run [them], I invest in people that I trust to run their companies," said Palepu.
She learned quickly that women face more hurdles as CEO and investors, as opposed to men, who often get a pass when their companies fail.
"It makes me so mad," she said. "Not only are we not allowed to fail, [but] the business press loves building up a woman CEO or any underrepresented CEO or founder just to tear them down."
For Papelu, business losses don't define failure. "There's just a failure to progress, staying still and not growing and not striving and not learning. That's the true failure."
In this wide-ranging conversation, we hear about Papelu's time in the corporate world, why she ultimately decided to go out on her own, and the many lessons she learned from her first "failure" in the startup world.
LA Venture: Serial Entrepreneur Jessica Jackley on Pursuing a Goal: 'Just Take More Steps Anyway'
On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, Untapped Capital, Alltruits and Kiva founder Jessica Jackley talks about her experience supporting entrepreneurs across the world, and offers advice to founders on what to do when encountering doubt -- from themselves or others.
"The pursuit of an opportunity, a vision, like an imaginary world that you want to make real. You're running after this thing, you're pursuing it without regard to what you have in front of you," she said. "So there's always going to be something wrong."
Jackley's journey as an entrepreneur started when she founded Kiva, a nonprofit that lends money to low-income entrepreneurs. She started the company and moved to East Africa where she heard stories of people starting businesses with just $100.
"I wasn't asked to swoop in and help or save. I was asked strategic questions about where they could access loan capital, where they could access business training," said Jackley. She added that the individuals she met through the service didn't want handouts.
Kiva offered $200, $300 loans at no interest. That model helped build successful small businesses. Every year, they saw a raise on how many loans they could offer. The company has so far facilitated $1.5 billion in loans since the business started in 2005.
More recently, Jackley founded Untapped Capital and Alltruits. Untapped gave her opportunities to invest in unexpected companies and watch them rise, much like Kiva. Alltruits was born out of the pandemic.
"I really wanted to figure out a way, especially as we were on lockdown, like how do we not just have our lives be waiting for the doorbell to ring and another package is dropped off and we just consume it, right? What, what would it look like to reach back out into the world in a way that is helpful," said Jackley.
She created a box subscription service that provides kids with activities that can benefit them and the world. The company's last box focused on making a pollinator hotel for bees.
From her ventures, Jackley recognized when pursuing your dreams, something will always go wrong.
"There's going to be days when you are told, or you're telling yourself, 'well, I'm not old enough', 'I'm too old'. 'I don't have enough experience'. 'I have the wrong experience', whatever," said Jackley. "Just take more steps anyway towards that thing. Cause that's what great entrepreneurs do."
Hear more of the episode, in which Jackley talks about her goal to disrupt the volunteer economy and more.
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Activision Blizzard addressed ongoing employee concerns over workplace culture in a letter to staff Tuesday, and said it disciplined 40 employees for inappropriate workplace behavior.
The letter was written by Blizzard's Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs (and former U.S. Homeland Security adviser) Frances Townsend, who joined the company in March and sent it to employees via email the afternoon of Oct. 19.
Recently 20 Activision Blizzard employees were fired and 20 more were reprimanded following widespread accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination based on gender.
In a copy of the letter viewed by dot.LA, Townsend said Activision did find misconduct had taken place after conducting its own investigation, and claimed it disciplined the offenders accordingly.
Townsend also said the company has seen an increase in harassment and workplace culture-related reports in recent months, both new and from years ago, as people began to talk more openly about the issue. She promised increased investment in training resources and more transparency about the investigation process and its results.
Activision wouldn't disclose which employees were reprimanded or let go but Townsend said in the letter that Activision Blizzard management is encouraged to "not hesitate to terminate or discipline those who violate our policies and fail to contribute to a positive culture that treats all members of our team with respect."
In July, Activision employees walked out to protest the game publisher's misogynistic and allegedly harmful company culture.
The walkout happened a week after the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision for discriminating against female employees and having a "frat bro" culture where sexual misconduct and outright harassment were accepted. The lawsuit noted that women accounted for only 20% of the game publisher's staff.
Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission launched its own investigation into Activision. The Wall Street Journal reported the investigation is looking into how the company handled allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.
Take a look at the letter in its entirety below.
Today, Activision Blizzard's Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs Fran Townsend shared the following email update with our employees:
Everyone,
As one of the world's largest and most influential companies, our future depends on fostering a company culture where all feel safe and heard. That comes with the responsibility of earning our employees' confidence that, when they speak up, we'll do the right thing. We must earn our team's confidence that, when they speak up, they will be heard. I have been quietly listening over the last few months to your comments, concerns, and observations. I am grateful to everyone who shared their points of view – especially those who challenged us to do better. It's important to me that you know how seriously I take this, and how committed I am to the next steps we will take together. We are working tirelessly to ensure that, moving forward, this is a place where people are not only heard, but empowered.
We have a committed team dedicated to this work. However, in listening to feedback over the past several months it is clear to me that we need to do more, and with a renewed urgency. We have expanded our compliance team and have even greater initiatives already underway to enable meaningful improvements to our company's culture.
Working with Jen Brewer and the team, we have thoroughly evaluated our broader compliance, employee relations, and investigative procedures, including how we handle claims and communicate with the members of our team who are involved. And today, I would like to highlight our progress on all these goals, along with some changes to build a more accountable workplace and culture.
Among the input we have received, there have been several clear and actionable recommendations, from many of you and from our Ethics & Compliance team. Among them, three key themes emerged:
First, do not hesitate to terminate or discipline those who violate our policies and fail to contribute to a positive culture that treats all members of our team with respect.
Second, be transparent, not only about our investigations processes, but also about the actions we take.
Third, invest resources and people into ethics, culture, and training.
First, I wanted to give you a sense of the work we've been doing to investigate all claims and concerns raised by members of our team:
- Ongoing Investigations: Nothing is more important to me - and the entirety of Activision Blizzard leadership - than making sure everyone feels safe and equal in this workplace. There is no place for harassment, discrimination, or retaliation in this company.
In recent months, we have received an increase in reports through various reporting channels. People are bringing to light concerns, ranging from years ago to the present. We welcome these reports, and our team has been working to investigate them, using a combination of internal and external resources. Based on the information received in the initial report, they are assigned into different categories, and resources are allocated to prioritize the most serious reports first. In connection with various resolved reports, more than 20 individuals have exited Activision Blizzard and more than 20 individuals faced other types of disciplinary action.
We continue to look into any issues or reports raised through the many channels that are available. But it bears repeating: Reports can be submitted anonymously, and there is zero tolerance for retaliation of any kind.
Second, we have begun work to improve how we address complaints, including the restructuring of two teams, Ethics & Compliance and Employee Relations, to more efficiently and effectively handle the investigation of complaints.
- Ethics & Compliance Team Leadership: I am very happy to announce the promotion of Jen Brewer to Senior Vice President, Ethics and Compliance. Jen has already been skillfully guiding the compliance function for many years. More importantly, she has been instrumental in helping me to reimagine how our investigative, training, and employee relations functions can work better together, along with the resources those teams will need to make our company better.
- Way To Play Heroes: These are the Ethics & Compliance program's unsung heroes. They volunteer their time to build bridges – by helping fellow members of our team navigate their reporting options, championing speaking up, and advising us on how we can strengthen the Ethics & Compliance program. The Heroes are crucial to our success. We are expanding the program by adding more Heroes and investing resources to better support the work they do. I am pleased to announce that effective immediately, Heroes will receive one additional vacation day a quarter to recognize their contributions to this very important work.
- Investigation Team Resources: Ensuring we have the capability to properly look into reports is critical. In the past couple months, we have already added three full-time positions to address the workload. Moving forward, we plan to scale this significantly, adding 19 full-time roles to our overall Ethics & Compliance Team, which include team members dedicated to investigations, including the ability to take live calls, as well as data analytics and communications, to help us understand how we're doing and help us better convey results of our work. Two of those roles will be specifically dedicated to overseeing investigations related to the EMEA and APAC regions.
- Investigation Team Structure: We are combining our investigations groups into one centralized unit within a central ABK Ethics & Compliance Department, which will be separate from business units and other groups like Human Resources or Employee Relations. This will allow investigators to be more efficient and coordinated, aligned on approach, and enable consistent decision making. It also allows us to scale resources more appropriately versus considering how to allocate team members across disparate units.
- Employee Relations Team: Alongside improving how we investigate concerns or claims, we need to consider how best to communicate with members of our team affected by these issues. Working with Chief People Officer Julie Hodges, this will be a key focus for the Employee Relations team. This will allow us to better bridge our improved investigative process to a recommended action, whether it's discipline, additional training, or other next steps. Our goal is to broaden our team of individuals with considerable human resources experience, ensuring we handle complaints and concerns with the care and attention they deserve.
- Transparency: We are working on additional materials that document our investigative procedures and outline what members of our team who report misconduct can expect during the investigative process. We are also working to ensure communications are transparent and time sensitive for any members of our team involved in investigations. Even more, we want to provide data reporting so we remain accountable, even if we can't always share what is happening behind the scenes. We know there's a desire to know about the outcome when misconduct is reported. Sometimes, there are privacy reasons we can't share. But where we can, we will be sharing more information with you. We will also be providing you regular aggregate data about investigative outcomes.
- Improving Training: We are preparing to triple our investment in training resources. Our intent is to deliver meaningful, real-life, scenario-based live and online training required for all members of our team, including executives - covering bystander training, speaking up, and training managers to recognize concerns and understand their obligations to escalate situations urgently and appropriately.
We are committed to making meaningful and positive change, and this is just the start. We will be sharing additional updates in the coming weeks and months. We know there is always more work to do. We are committed to continuing that work. Please continue to share your ideas and suggestions, in whatever ways you want to send them. We will work hard every day to earn your trust and confidence. Together, let's ensure that we always have a safe, inclusive, and ethical workplace that makes us all proud.
Best,
Fran
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