Christa Quarles at OpenTable

When she was CEO of OpenTable, Christa Quarles made improving gender diversity a priority. Knowing she had to start from the top, she and her team publicly emphasized the importance of hiring women and other underrepresented people. She didn’t set a specific target number but instead focused on the need to fix the process.

The results were remarkable. By the next quarter, the share of newly hired women engineers at OpenTable had gone from 14 to 50 percent. They then averaged between 40 and 45 percent for the next four quarters.

When I asked her what the secret was, she said: “I was frankly surprised by the speed. But it’s like any other business problem. You put effort toward something, you measure it, you get results.” 

By using Christa’s method of applying the same skills that you employ to solve other priorities, you can improve the diversity of your hiring, too.  In this week’s episode, Wesley Faulkner and I chat with Christa about her strategies for improving recruitment to hire more diverse teams. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://www.justworktogether.com/podcast-season-2/episode-11-changing-the-rules