How to Inspire Diversity in the Tech World with Delphine Donné
Delphine Donné, the VP General Manager of Logitech Personal Workspace Solutions shares her experience of working in the consumer electronics industry for over three decades and reflects on how the industry has evolved during this time. She specifically highlights Logitech’s success in creating a highly inclusive work environment, and provides insights into effective strategies for promoting diversity within the tech world.
To connect with Delphine, contact her via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/delphinedonne/
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Delphine Donne:
When you have a business that went from zero to 200 million that suddenly you reach out to Gen Z, but also a large proportion to women, it creates a lot of excitement and it gives other groups than the hunger to transform as well.
Lauren Stiebing:
From Ellis International, this is the Career Success podcast. I’m Lauren Stiebing, and on today’s show, Delphine Donne will share with us how she has been able to inspire diversity in the tech world and support diverse talent, build successful careers over the past 25 years. Welcome, Delphine.
Delphine Donne:
Thank you for having me, Lauren.
Lauren Stiebing:
Yes, and for those of you who do not know Delphine, she is the VP general manager for Logitech Personal Workspace Solutions. And I know you’ve been working in the consumer electronics industry since 1998. I’d love to hear a bit from your side, what was the industry like back then?
Delphine Donne:
Well, things change on the time. I’ve had the opportunity to work for different companies, worked for Epson, who is a Japanese company. I then joined Logitech, but they sent me to China for six years and I had the opportunity to work with a very diverse team and it’s very equal in terms of men and women, so that was a great experience. And then I was sent back to the US where I helped the acquisition of a little Utah based company. So that was a unique experience. And now for the past four and half years, I’m now taking care of creativity and productivity business group, which now has expanded to personal workspace solution. When I joined that group, it was about 38% women, and now we are in my group about 53% women. So a lot of changes have happened during this journey.
Lauren Stiebing:
How were you or your team able to attract more diverse talent?
Delphine Donne:
Well, I think it’s really important to be committed, focus on it and realize it’s actually a gap and an opportunity from a business point of view and this transformation. So when I joined the group at the time, the portfolio was a lot of black full-size products. And so from a business and design point of view, it was surprising me that we didn’t have a more diverse portfolio. And then when I looked at the team, you realized that you are also lacking diversity in the team to work on the project. So first, I think it’s really important to integrate diversity as the core value. Diversity and inclusion is a core value of Logitech. As a leader, you have an opportunity to lead from the top the transformation, but you also have to lead by example. And you have to bring this as a priority and a [inaudible 00:02:58] strategy in what you do.
That diversity and inclusion needs to be integrated in everything you do, the way you build your team, the way you design your products, the way you reach out to your audience outside. And then you have to set up the right goals, processes, policies to help that change. But you also need to help people realize the biases they have, men and women combined. I think it’s an opportunity to really drive changes and make everybody get excited by these changes. And as you start experiencing business performance and results are very positive, it brings everybody’s enthusiasm. And then when you start turning the corner, it’s like a snowball. The more you do it, the more you see the results of it and the more exciting it is. And if you want to, I can give you just a brief example. In 2018, we were having some tough competition situation in China and we decided to focus on China to develop a product for Gen Z. And products were more colorful, more stylish, having more software that correspond to what young people do. And we transform what we call our lifestyle sub categories.
Lauren Stiebing:
Okay.
Delphine Donne:
And that category now is actually selling 60% to women. So when you have a business that went from zero to 200 million that suddenly you reach out to Gen Z, but also a large proportion to women, it creates a lot of excitement and it gives other groups then the hunger to try to transform as well. So that was definitely some of the change we’ve done. And also it’s really important to encourage your team to look at diversity when they recruit. So the pool of candidate you have saying, “No, we won’t go fast. We will first bring the right diverse talent in the conversation.” And that’s how also have transformed the team from 38% of women to now 53%. And some of my leadership team, my head of design, my head of software engineering are wonderful ladies as well that work with us. And it creates a good movement.
Lauren Stiebing:
And I think as well where I’ve seen the biggest change and shift is from the cultural perspective, as everyone knows, company cultural fit when you’re hiring is very, very important. But I think what that limited was diversity of thinking, diversity of communication styles. There’s a lot that can get left out when they want a specific culture. So I think that we’ve seen the companies that we work with that have been able to really move the needle on diversity are those that have integrated that into the culture, not trying to shape everyone into one box that is, let’s say, their culture, but really allowing the diversity into the culture, if that makes sense.
Delphine Donne:
Absolutely. You’re so right. I think what was important, I’ll always remember a meeting we had a few years back. I gave a task to that group to work on a project to design a … so it was a workshop where they needed to explain how they would design a product for women. And I was very surprised. The team came back and actually had changed the goal of the workshop and they’re like, “No, no, no, Delphine, we think we don’t need to work on a product for women. We need to work on a product that will appeal to men and women together, but we’ll focus on younger audience.” We had a bit of a heated debate that day. I felt lonely frankly that day. But what was really interesting in that conversation is that they helped everyone, men and women realize that they had also their own biases and also they were uncomfortable in reducing the audience and saying, “We’ll only focus on women and men in particular were uncomfortable.”
They’re like, “Well, I like this product as well. I would love this product.” And it was a journey in the mindset to say, that’s fine if this product end up attracting more different audiences, but let’s focus on women. Let’s understand and speak openly about how we look at it. And it forced men also talking about why they were uncomfortable and understanding their own challenges. And at the end we ended up launching, for example, the first dedicated product that we design for women looking to lift vertical [inaudible 00:07:42]. This product is very successful with men and women, but we had to hone the team really tight. And no, we focus on women for the first six months of the project development.
We will only test with women for the first part of the development. We will only open up the desirability and the testing with the broader audience at the end of the project. And that was an amazing learning. And when people start discovering everything they can learn about themselves, about the audience, it creates a lot of excitement and it then spread across the culture. And I would just add one more thing. My group is not only a good diversity of gender, but we also have about 30 nationalities and we are spread across three continents. We have about 80% of people who are non-native English speakers. So that also, again, that creates a culture where everybody feels comfortable. Everybody is different, different backgrounds, but they have the excitement of working together and learning from each other.
Lauren Stiebing:
Sure. And when you look at the tech world overall and consumer electronics, it is still quite male dominated. I know everyone’s working together to improve that. And as women are coming into the workforce, obviously having people like yourself as role models is great. But what other things could you add to inspire women to join the tech world or to join Logitech?
Delphine Donne:
It’s a really good question, and I think everybody needs to work on trying to bring this diversity into the tech world. And we definitely have a shortage of technical and women talent. That’s just a reality today. And it’s actually gone backward. Versus in the ’90s there were more women going into STEM films than there is now. So that’s why we have actually started this wonderful partnership with Girls Who Could and an initiative, we are driving with them, we did a market research, we studied about 400 people in this tech field. And what we realize is that, first, there is definitely a perception that tech films are for men and there are a lot of … It’s intimidating for women to get into it if you end up being the only one in the class. So what we are doing is through this research and we’ve learned a lot of things, we are first really trying to provide examples of all the things you can do, the impact you can have when you work in technology.
So I think companies have a responsibilities to engage with universities and school and help them understand what the job is about, what the impact they can have. The other thing as well is teachers have a big influence in inspiring students to go in these fields. And it’s important that men and women teachers really learn about their own biases but also inspire students to join this field. And then obviously through the development, we need to help women feeling comfortable. We still have like 90% of women who suffer from microaggressions every day or feel they’re not being heard or they’re being cut off on the time when they try to express an idea.
So it’s important to also train your own employees to bring this opportunity to let everyone speak, to be able to engage and bring the voice of people who may be more quiet and bring them in the conversation. So there are a lot of things we need to do moving forward, creating a culture of speaking up, being able to talk about what makes you uncomfortable and being able to openly talk about it with your colleagues and creating a strong base of women community, sponsors, leaders helping women to grow. I’ve had the luxury of having wonderful men leaders that have believed in me. They’ve given me a lot of opportunities at Logitech in particular. And that also helps tremendously.
Lauren Stiebing:
Yes, I agree. I myself have had both male and female sponsors, mentors, and it’s very important to have both. And yeah, I think any way that we can give back is always great. So as well from our side, we’re an executive search company, so if there are women that need support, definitely reach out to me as well. And Delphine, is it fine for you if we link your LinkedIn at the bottom and people may reach out to you for help as well?
Delphine Donne:
Absolutely. And if I can help more women to grow in the tech industry, it’s for the benefit of all of us and the business and the happiness of employees. I also believe that the transformation of the hybrid world is also opening up a lot of opportunities for women to be able to manage family life, work life, and also join from different location, even if your headquarters is somewhere else. So I think more than ever, it’s a wonderful opportunity to lead that transformation and I’m happy to participate.
Lauren Stiebing:
Great. Well, thank you so much for joining me today and yeah, I hope you have a great weekend.
Delphine Donne:
Thank you, Lauren, for having me.
