Why Diversity and Inclusion matter to every SaaS business

Jan 10, 2019

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

In December of last year, we attended the first ever SaaS E[quality] unconference, organised by the Women’s Work Institute and held in Toronto, Canada. In a room of about 100 D&I champions and leaders, we had a day of fascinating stories, provocative ideas and discussions around Diversity and inclusion challenges in SaaS. On the day after the conference, I sat down for a chat with the founders of the Women’s Work Institute, Kristen Liesch and Anna Dewar Gully to hear their thoughts from all the interactions and to lay down some steps for pushing diversity and inclusion forward. A conversation we are bringing to this week's SaaS Revolution Show.

Without prior experience in SaaS, Anna and Kristen approached the industry for two very specific reasons. One is that they believe the intersection of services and tech is where the best results can be achieved in terms of fixing diversity issues but also because as they reached out to leaders in different spaces to see if they would be interested in participating in a conference aiming to address this, SaaS was where they saw incredible uptake.

Both Anna and Kristen are equality champions but as business strategists, they inherently believe that the topic of Diversity and Inclusion is a business objective above all and it needs to be approached as such. In that, every company should start with Why.

Listen on to learn:

What problems SaaS leaders experience when it comes to D&I
Why diversity and inclusion remains an unsolved issue
How should each business get to a clear Why diversity matters to our business? which will be more effective in bringing improved results

Improving the diversity and Inclusion at both SaaStock and SaaS is something we will be putting much more effort in 2019. By our side, we have Zendesk, our Global Diversity and Inclusion partner. We already have started the #TakingStockPledge, and look forward to doing many more initiatives throughout the year so stay tuned.

Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward:

🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe: 14-15 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland
Book tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/tickets/

🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: April 2026 | Austin, Texas
Book tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/

🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)

🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)