Changes are coming to the diversity team at Google. Recently, the company’s chief diversity officer Danielle Brown shared she will be leaving.
In a LinkedIn post announcing her decision, Brown shared that she will be joining Gusto — a Denver and San Francisco-based payroll and benefits startup — as chief people officer.
Brown wrote that the job change will give her the unique opportunity to “influence how we build our product to drive positive change around critical issues like diversity, compliance, and employee engagement for millions of workers in the U.S.”
This puts even more on Google’s undoubtedly full plate, but the company already has a replacement. According to TechCrunch, Melonie Parker — who spent nine months as Google’s head of diversity — will take up the position.
“We’re grateful to Danielle for her excellent work over the past two years to improve representation in Google’s workforce and ensure an inclusive culture for everyone,” Eileen Naughton, Google’s head of people operations, told TechCrunch. “We’re deeply committed to this work and have made progress, but there’s more we need to do.”
Over the past few weeks, Google has had a lot going on after debuting — and then cancelling — an external AI advisory board that included the president of the Heritage Foundation. With Googlers Against Transphobia calling out the company, it’s clear that issues around diversity remain at the company.
In February 2019, Google workers called on the board to address racial and gender issues. Last year, Google employees staged a walk-out over the company’s handling of sexual misconduct.
Although Google’s diversity numbers aren’t amazing, they are slowly improving. The company made its greatest improvement in 2018 with Black male employees, but still struggles to create a welcoming environment for Black women.
