Tech’s diversity problem is no secret, and many of the industry’s underrepresented workers concordantly describe the feeling of being the only one in the room: “the loneliness of onlyness,” as Vijay Pendakur, global head of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), at VMware, described it. 

Pendakur joined VMware this summer, bringing two decades of experience in DE&I across postsecondary education and nonprofit sectors – including as the presidential advisor for Diversity and Equity at Cornell University. 

His first role in the space was straight out of college where he had no expectations of it flowering into a career, but he found a budding passion through “the idea that meaningful inclusion is – one an imperative – but [it's] actually how you let people do the best work of their lives,” Pendakur explained to SDxCentral. 

Flash forward 20 years, Pendakur saw VMware as a global and complex organization where he could bring multi-sector experience to deepen their enduring commitment to the work, and where he could expand on his DE&I vision: “access is not the same thing as inclusion.”

“The human experience is extraordinarily diverse, and diverse ecosystems are healthy ecosystems whether you're talking about a forest ecosystem, an agricultural ecosystem, or a human ecosystem," he noted. "So an organization that is homogenous risks irrelevance, and an organization that increases its diversity capitalizes on relevance.” 

Sector versatility has given Pendakur a unique angle on identifying innovation that gets trapped in one sector. “We have these swim lanes in our society that I think are very unfortunate because underserved communities need us to be open sourced about DEI innovation,” he said.

In approaching a historically homogenous industry like tech, Pendakur plans to pull from the postsecondary and nonprofit industries’ ability to foster confidence and resiliency. “Anybody who's set foot on a college campus sees these deep and complex organizational structures that allow students to coalesce around shared identities.”

“When you can have a place where you can go and actually be maybe in the majority – be seen and not othered – that allows you to recharge your battery,” Pendakur explained. “That allows you to go out into the places where you may be a stark minority and do your best work.”

Conversely, Pendakur believes the iterative innovation and agile approaches typical within software, while not common within his former sectors, can inform his work. “I can apply that design modality and rapid prototyping into DEI,” he said.

The combination offers Pendakur a complementary viewpoint on how to grow VMware’s approach to nourishing shared-identity through their Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), referred to Power of Difference groups (PODs) within the company's community.  

While many companies tout their movement to a more diverse future, Pendakur clarified broad, high-level promises can often be shrouded in opacity and flowery language. But to move forward with genuine change means creating accountability, which he believes in part is maintained through transparent and metric-centered goals.  

VMware’s DE&I  transparency comes with their 2030 Agenda, he explained, where the company has lofty goals including half of managers “identifying as a woman, gender non-binary, and/or from an underrepresented community," and hiring half female and half male or non-binary people by 2030. “Equity… that's the philosophical underpinning behind the 2030 agenda,” Pendakur explained.

With the challenging goals ahead, Pendakur noted a point of pride within the company, achieving a 100% rating on the Disability:IN’s 2022 Disability Equality Index. “To have achieved 100% rating represents considerable movement for VMware,” he said, adding that the company is following through on their values in a very public way.

Moving forward within the operations of VMware, cultivating inclusivity and intersectionality is at the basis of their POD structures, Pendakur explained.

Just as HPE Vice President, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer Aisha Washington reminded the industry that people can often be more than one diverse demographic, VMware's various PODs allow people to engage within multiple intersections of their identity, and create more engaged allyship within different demographics.

“The level of intersectionality and allyship that we see around these employee resource groups – or PODs – is really powerful, and it actually allows people to show up and engage at work with their fuller selves,” he explained. It allows the organization to “meet people where they really are,” and create a ramp to genuinely supportive working conditions.

During VMware Explore 2022 last week, leaders from various PODs were able to speak to the sense of strength sourced from these groups. “We got fabulous reception from our customers there,” Pendakur explained. 

PODs allow employees to communicate with the executive layer through executive sponsors, "so they actually function as a business-influencing mechanism.” Pendakur is proud that this communication allows for capital-based equity extending beyond VMware. 

The company takes a grassroots approach to supporting diverse businesses, opposed to top-down models limiting the “ability to localize,” he described. This allows employees to lead business investments to influence supplier chains, shifting capital flows to minority-owned businesses that have been historically under-prioritized if not blatantly excluded.

While the practical benefits of DE&I movements within the U.S. continue to stress the “business imperative” behind diversity, Pendakur offered a reminder that workforces should have the complexity that the world does. This complexity is what empowers innovation, the connection of new markets and customers, and people to interact in an “authentic and empathetic way.”

"We have to afford people the chance to engage in intersectional ways,” he stated.

Read all of SDxCentral’s VMware Explore 2022 coverage here.