An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Culture in its most basic definition is how employees experience their leaders, policies and each other. Generally speaking, most tech companies are below talent benchmarks in terms of balanced representation and diversity in their employee base. This means there should be some efforts underway to correct that representation gap, from both hiring and retention angles.
As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Chou.
Jeremy Chou currently leads Marqeta’s core Recruiting and Sourcing teams, in addition to heading up DE&I for the Oakland-based fintech company. Prior to joining Marqeta, Jeremy spent eight years at Google, where he built and led a series of technical sourcing and recruiting teams. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Stanford and lives in Danville, CA with his wife, Celina, and their 1-yr-old Bernese mountain dog, Francis.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?
As a first-generation immigrant to this country and now a Bay Area resident for over three decades, I was incredibly fortunate to be able to break into the tech industry and Silicon Valley very early in my career. After graduation and a short stint in IT Sales, I stumbled into the recruiting field, initially specializing in sales and executive search before moving to engineering-focussed roles. I then embarked on a 5-year tour inside Google’s recruiting organization, holding a wide range of sourcing and recruiting leadership roles. This ultimately led me to find a niche at the intersection of diversity and technical recruiting. It was the start of a 3-year journey helping build Google’s Diversity Staffing function from the ground up, alongside some of the brightest and most impassioned diversity leaders and thinkers in the industry.
After wrapping up my 8-year anniversary at Google, I made the bold decision to start a new journey, in a new industry here at Marqeta. I came to Marqeta to build out a new team and function by leveraging my experience in recruiting and diversity. I learned quickly that I would be the one gaining from the company, its sets of leaders and people. With brand new challenges in a new environment and a completely different pace of execution, the journey has been fast and like nothing I’ve experienced before. Now, a year in and with an unbelievably powerful team in place, we’re marching forward on our mission to write the future of global money movement.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away, you took out of that story?
A few years ago, my team and I were signed up to participate in an intern and new grad career fair. As I was entering the hall and headed toward our booth, I struck up a conversation with a student headed the same way. They asked me “…so, which graduating class are you in?”. Being mistaken for a student left me amused and yes, slightly flattered. But it also strangely transported me back to when I was, in fact, a student like him, wandering the hall at my first intern fair. I remembered so vividly the anxiousness and nerves but also the excitement of being in that state of mind.
The majority of hiring I’ve led over the years has involved some element of intern and university recruiting. Often overlooked by companies, establishing an Early-In-Career program that’s in tune with this growing, and constantly changing, talent pool can really accelerate your corporate brand. It benefits your culture, internal mobility/progression, and investing in the next generation of leaders for your industry.
I’ve learned that early career recruiting and the candidate experience you create must be uniquely different in terms of approach and structure. Many in our field have deep subject matter expertise in building and scaling these programs. A staffing organization isn’t complete without one.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
“If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind.” -Lao Tzu
Of all the wonderfully inspiring quotes about drive and persistence, this one speaks to all of the competitors out there. The undersized athletes, the underestimated talent, the undermined and underscored. Through sports, academics and now my career, I’ve always worked to prove myself and chase the impossible. I believe you’ll never show up hungrier or more determined than when you play with a chip on your shoulder. This message of staying humble and focused while being unapologetically relentless in your pursuit has served me my entire life, especially in the last several years of my career. In a valley of over-achievers and industry bar-setters, standing out and setting yourself apart can be a long and trying journey. The recipe I’ve followed is simple; find those who are the best at your craft…learn how they set their bar…then set an even higher one for yourself. It may take you years to reach but it’s all the motivation true competitors need.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?
There are far too many names on this list but one I’ll be forever indebted to was the leader who first gave me my first shot at managing a team. I couldn’t be more grateful for how she kick-started an unbelievably rewarding career as a people leader. Being far from the obvious choice for the job, she saw the potential in me and risked her own reputation in order to give me a chance. I’ve tried my best to follow her example and make her proud. She knows who she is…Thank you, J.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
At Marqeta, we back up what we say we’re going to do with action. For example, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, our leadership team immediately rolled out our new healthcare policy to support every Marqetan, no matter where they lived in the US. Instead of simply communicating our support to employees, our leadership team took action and ensured employees knew they would have their certain travel expenses covered. Through examples like this, I get a sense of how we strive to live by our “Marqeta Cares” corporate value. We continue to take action to support the diverse needs of our employees, customers and communities.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I’ve dedicated my career to helping break down barriers in tech for new and emerging talent pools, specifically talent that had been historically excluded from the tech industry. Silicon Valley still remains an insider’s club in many ways, as many tech companies struggle to sustain progress with diversity efforts and programs. However, despite the nominal improvements in workforce representation, the establishment of a central DE&I function and practice has finally become a standard for companies, and this is a very good thing. I’m proud to say I’ve been a part of that change. And while we still have a lot of work to do in the years ahead, being able to watch our practice grow and mature beyond a novelty gives me tremendous hope for the future.
Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line.
Having seen and been a part of operationalized DE&I at both a big tech giant (Google) and now a recently IPO’ed high-growth fintech like Marqeta, I believe the bottom line impact really does vary based on company size and sector. That said, there are a few constants that I hold true across all players, large and small, in tech: Impact on your Customers, Corporate Culture & Communities
Customers typically want to work with companies whose values, operating principles and viewpoints are not in direct opposition to their own. This is especially true for the suite of publicly-traded, high market cap companies most often sought after by B2B tech players. In the B2C space, ‘customers’ are obviously the end users of that particular tech and they, too, will spend their customer loyalty points on businesses who will provide the value(s) they need and support. A company’s commitment to DE&I and how that commitment is messaged, sponsored and operationalized now frequently sits at the center of every company’s value(s)-based branding and ethos. This can have a direct impact on every aspect of the customer experience, from acquisition and satisfaction to retention and loyalty.
Culture in its most basic definition is how employees experience their leaders, policies and each other. Generally speaking, most tech companies are below talent benchmarks in terms of balanced representation and diversity in their employee base. This means there should be some efforts underway to correct that representation gap, from both hiring and retention angles. A firm commitment to DE&I, along with a well-published strategy is no longer the same choice or matter of opinion, as it may have been 10 years ago. It is now almost considered a minimum requirement of any company’s mission statement and set of values. Not to mention an expectation of its leadership and executive teams. Variance is found in how that strategy is funded and the extent to which the employee base truly believes it’s as important as their leaders tell them it is. I see better culture equal to better and more efficient hiring, a better employee experience, and better retention rates. Transitively, lower talent acquisition and retention costs equal an improvement to bottom line.
Communities have more influence over customer spending and decision-making than ever before, and we don’t expect this to change anytime soon. Previously known as the “word of mouth” effect, the modern consumer experience is now impacted by various spheres of influence; from social media sites/groups and alumni associations to professional organizations and identity-based collectives. These emerging communities of consumers will often elect to buy products and services that don’t just address their individual and community needs but actually caters to them, their beliefs and values. Having an employee base as diverse as the users a company aims to serve is a great starting point. Next, is building a go-to-market strategy that is specifically tailored for that diverse customer/user base. Finally, a user experience that retains that base against competitors and alternative choices. In a world where users belong to multiple communities and are paying close attention to how businesses cater to those communities, it becomes highly important that businesses understand how to engage, support and maximize their community brand and reach.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?
One of the best pieces of feedback and advice I ever received as a leader was to check my own assumptions. As leaders and people managers, we’re often expected to have the answers and/or guide our teams to growth and success. The problem is that the advice we give is often rooted in a core set of assumptions and truths that we rarely examine ourselves. Sometimes, an experience or outcome can shake these assumptions- and it’s critical in those moments to zoom out and observe what may have become a blind spot for you; or even worse, an unconscious bias.
I remember first hearing a senior executive admit, in a public forum, that they had made a huge mistake, driven by an incorrect set of assumptions. It gave me chills. Not only did I gain a tremendous amount of respect for that leader, but it allowed me the space to examine and admit my own mistakes. Continuously checking your assumptions, and admitting when they were wrong and needed to be changed is a vulnerable but powerful moment. It can be extremely difficult to identify, change and admit, but it can also inspire deep trust and unshakable followership.
What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?
Someone once took a chance on me and hired me for a role above my experience level. I’ve tried to adopt that same faith in people as a leader and it’s yet to steer me wrong. My advice, especially when building a new management layer, would be to take chances on people who appear motivated to take on more. While it may be tempting to hire an external candidate with 10 years of role-related experience, take a thorough and continuous inventory of the talent you already have and be willing to bet on those who may be itching for an opportunity to stretch. The ‘less risky’ candidate from outside may serve you well in the short term- but that rockstar leader on the bench may be a key in unlocking the entire team’s potential. A culture infused with internal mobility and progression drives loyalty, motivation and results.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂
Any of my closest friends would tell you I’ve been an avid Lupe Fiasco fan since I first heard his first mixtapes decades ago, so it’d be hard to pick anyone over my favorite musician of all time. That said, I’d love to sit down with Adam Grant and pick his brain over breakfast. Having learned so much from his writings and talks these last few years, I have no doubt I’d leave a better leader and person.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-chou-72981a5/
Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.
Jeremy Chou Of Marqeta On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
