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Celebrating Black History Month: A Q&A with Yolanda Mangolini
February 24, 2012
As we celebrate
Black History Month
, we bring you a series profiling black Googlers in various roles. Today we’re finishing up our series with Yolanda Mangolini, Director of our Global Diversity Talent & Inclusion and Talent & Outreach Programs teams. -- Ed.
Can you tell us about your background and your road to Google?
Yolanda Mangolini:
Although I work in People Operations, my background is not in human resources. After graduating college with an economics degree, I worked on Wall Street in investment banking for a couple of years. While the experience gave me great analytical training, the hours were killer! I decided to head back to business school at Stanford to get my MBA.
Between my first and second year of B-school, I interned with the Boston Consulting Group where I fell in love with management consulting. I love to learn and get excited about solving tough problems. Consulting gave me an opportunity to do both.
After six years, I moved to California from the East Coast and joined Wells Fargo’s Consumer Operations division as the Head of Strategy where I did similar strategic and operational projects that I had done while at BCG, except now it was all in financial services. After three years there, I was ready for something new and that’s when Google came into the picture. That was almost six years ago. I had never considered HR before and in fact my perception of HR was that it was this big, lumbering, uninteresting administrative function. But Google was at an interesting inflection point in its evolution. It had ~6K people at that point and was getting to a size where it needed to have more robust people processes in place. I was excited about to be a part of building some of those processes and the opportunity to have a real impact.
How has your career developed at Google?
YM:
The last six years have been a fun, interesting and unexpected ride. I joined Google in an individual contributor role after having been a people manager for almost ten years, which was a bit of a shift for me. My very first job was actually working with Laszlo Bock [Senior Vice President, People Operations] on a project looking at how we could improve sourcing and recruiting effectiveness. One of the recommendations coming out of that work was the idea of a Central Staffing team. I was asked if I wanted to run it and the rest, as they say, is history. At that time, Central Staffing consisted of job boards, resume screeners, the contingent workforce team and non-exempt workforce processes. We would also do special staffing projects focused on process improvement. I knew absolutely nothing about Staffing and had a ton to learn. I found the challenge a ton of fun, plus I worked with an absolutely fabulous team. After spending a couple of years doing that, I moved out of Central Staffing and into the Talent & Outreach Programs Manager role, got Central Staffing back and then added Global Diversity and K12 Outreach.
What makes Google different from the other companies you’ve worked for?
YM:
I’m really lucky in that two of the four companies I’ve worked for in my life have consistently been within the ten best places to work on Fortune’s Great Places to Work survey. I’ve worked for some really great companies, but Google is a very different type of company. The first thing that struck me is how much the employee is at the center of our people processes. At some of the other larger companies I worked for, I felt like the company was there to support senior leadership and not so much the rank and file employee. The other thing I noticed was how strong a voice employees had in the company. When they spoke, leadership really listened. I saw this both in Googlegeist (our annual company survey), TGIF (our weekly company-wide meetings, hosted by the founders) as well as many other places. The e-mail discussion threads were also so fascinating. I had never seen an employee base engage each other in such open, spirited discussion like that before. Google truly has a one-of-a-kind culture.
Your official title at Google is Director, Global Diversity Talent & Inclusion and Talent & Outreach Programs. What does that mean?
YM:
It’s certainly a mouthful! The Diversity part of my job basically means I’m responsible for ensuring we build a diverse and inclusive workplace where Googlers can bring their whole selves to work. We want Google to be the best place to work for everybody. My teams help support the activities of 19 different Employee Resource Groups at Google, from the Black Googler Network to the Gayglers to the Greyglers to VetNet. We also strive to build an inclusive culture through events like Sum of Google which attempts to bring all Googlers into the diversity conversation and working with the Benefits team to make sure our benefit programs treat all of our Googlers equally. The Talent & Outreach Programs part of my job focuses on three primary things: identifying, developing and hiring talented university students around the world, building supplemental experienced hire candidate pipelines to funnel to our functional Staffing teams and helping to promote and maintain Google’s employment brand through sponsorships of various technical conferences and hosting events like CodeJam and I/O Extended. And although it’s not in my title, one of the teams I am responsible for is the K-12 Outreach team which build programs aimed at developing the next generation of computer scientists (particularly those traditionally underrepresented in CS).
When I’m not at Google...
YM:
I’m spending quality time with my family. I have a 4-year old daughter and 6-year old son who keep my husband and I very busy!
How do you manage your work life balance?
YM:
It’s definitely challenging, but I try to set boundaries. I always leave work by 5pm to get home in time to have dinner with my kids. From 5pm to 9pm is their time. We read, play board games or make-up pretend stories. I often have to get back online to close out emails from earlier in the day, but that doesn’t happen until after my kids have gone to bed. I also never work on weekends, unless I am in the middle of a fire drill. It’s important to disconnect. I make sure I take multiple vacations throughout the year where I can really get away from work.
What does being part of an employee resource group at Google mean to you? What makes BGN special?
YM:
To me, it’s being part of group where there are some shared experiences --- whether that be because of your gender or cultural background or military experience. BGN’s members are incredibly passionate. I had actually only been at Google a few months when BGN was started by a couple of passionate Googlers. I remember being struck then by how engaged the BGN members were with both the Google community and the external Black community. There was an intense desire to have an impact and make a difference. Six years later, I still that engagement and passion. I see it in the group that faithfully travels down to New Orleans to build homes and work with local business and I see it in the team that planned a whole month full of events for Black History Month.
In your opinion, why is Google committed to diversity? What does diversity mean to Google? Why is diversity important?
YM:
Focus on the user and all else will follow. As Googlers, that is something we hear a lot. We also live and breathe our mission: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. There’s no way we can truly be user-centric and deliver on our mission unless we have a diverse workforce. Our users come from all walks of life and from all corners of the world. In order to meet the needs of our customers, our workforce needs to reflect our globally diverse set of users. At Google, we think of diversity in its broadest terms. It’s not just gender or ethnic background which comes to mind when most people think about the word diversity. It's a diversity of perspectives and educational background. There have been numerous studies which have proven how more diverse teams lead to better products and more innovative teams. Innovation is core to what Google does. If we want to remain at the forefront of innovation, we will need to make sure we have a diverse workforce.
What is your most memorable Black History Month event or moment at Google, or which event are you most looking forward to in 2012?
YM:
There have been so many great moments. Hearing from Dr. Clarence Jones, one of the co-authors of MLK’s I Have a Dream speech was enthralling. The art exhibit featuring a local Black artist was also amazing. But I have to say one of my favorite moments was watching “The Stepplers”, Google’s newly formed Step team perform was definitely a highlight! Their performance was fantastic!
Posted by Jessica Lulovics, University Programs Specialist
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