Best Companies for Women to Advance Q&A: Aetion

What makes Aetion such a great place for women to advance? Cathrin Stickney, Founder and CEO of Parity.org, talked with Carolyn Magill, CEO of Aetion, about benefits for all parents, leading by example, and staying sane during COVID. Here's the interview.

Cathrin: Why is gender equality in leadership important to your company's success?

Carolyn: At Aetion, gender equality among our leadership diversifies the ways of thinking that help shape our strategy. We aim to bring about a world in which we know which health treatments work best, for whom, and what they should cost. This ambitious goal requires bringing together thought leaders and operators who approach challenges in unique ways, and who build off of one another’s ideas in our quest to advance.

With that need in mind, we have deliberately built an executive team of men and women with different leadership styles. A few of us tend to be more analytical, others quickly assess the facts and make decisions; we have both introverts and extroverts. In bringing together these different perspectives, we are able to check and challenge each other until we reach the strongest decision. 

Cathrin: What do you do to create an inclusive company culture? Has that changed as some employees work remotely?

Carolyn: One of our company values is that we’re an “eclectic collective,” which reflects the diversity of thought and experience that we embrace in our colleagues and celebrate in our work. We strive to create a space at Aetion for our colleagues to bring their whole selves, and all of the experiences that have shaped them into who they are, to their work. Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in engagement around this value and creating an inclusive culture as we’ve reflected on the Black Lives Matter protests around the world and mobilized to create the space for discussion among our team.

To uphold our cultural commitments, our People team is focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in our recruiting practices, and in ways to support our people once they’re on board. We also have a range of employee resource groups, which have organized to support, educate, and organize events around particular issues. These include Women at Aetion, Black Lives Matter at Aetion, and a Pride Committee.

Specific to supporting women, we encourage our people managers to have conversations with their direct reports to support growth. We endeavor to support women in advocating for themselves.

Aetion also offers our employees the flexibility to create a balance between their family and professional responsibilities. We offer generous health and wellness benefits that are geared toward supporting all of our employees, including four months of paid parental leave for all parental figures. We’ve also instituted a sabbatical program for employees who have been with us for five years or more, and unlimited vacation time. I encourage our leaders to demonstrate that it’s okay to take time off, especially now as we adapt to the challenges brought on by COVID-19. 

Cathrin: Kudos on providing four months of paid parental leave for all parents! Can you tell us about one program or tool that has been particularly helpful for your company in your journey to gender parity, particularly in leadership? What have the results been?

Carolyn: Taking the Parity Pledge has been hugely impactful on our recruiting methodology and strategy. It is critical to bring women into the candidate pool for leadership positions, and to make space for them at our decision-making table. We are looking forward to expanding this progress to underrepresented groups more broadly.

We’re proud that in addition to women making up 42% of our executive team, 33% of the C-Suite, and 52% of our people leaders, they also make up 62% of the company. We take our commitment to gender parity very seriously — for example, I once had to let a recruiting firm go when they couldn’t surface a woman candidate for an open CFO position. 

I was also thrilled to welcome Cathy Polinsky, CTO of Stitch Fix, to our Board this year. Cathy adds incredible insight to our Board discussions, and her perspective as a leading woman in the technology space has proven invaluable as we advance our technology strategy.

Cathrin: Gender parity, or the lack of it, impacts all of us. What advice would you give to other companies in your industry that are still charting their path forward?

Carolyn: I’ve found a few key practices have helped us on our continued journey to gender parity. One, make a commitment to diversity, and make it public. It’s critical to let your organization know that this commitment is important, and explain why. Transparency works, this helps get everyone involved and on board as we forge ahead.

Two, lead by example. Hire women who set the tone for the type of executive you want on the team, and exemplify those values in your own actions and work. When I’m in meetings, I try to demonstrate best behaviors and call out those that are detrimental to women. For example, if a woman in the meeting is unable to break into the conversation, I make space for her to participate. We call out when someone simply repeats an idea already shared by a woman in the room. While it’s important to take a systemic and systematic approach to supporting women and their advancement, individual actions on the day-to-day level matter too. 

Three, emphasize to hiring managers and recruiters that diversity is a requirement among our candidate pool.

Cathrin: I have to ask: how has COVID-19 impacted equality or parity in your company? What are you doing to retain women, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities at home?

Carolyn: COVID-19 has taken a toll on all of us, especially those with caregiving responsibilities at home. To help support and retain our women employees through this challenging time, we have recommitted to offering the work flexibility we’ve always had in place at Aetion. For example, there is no set “start time” for the workday, we want our colleagues to schedule their work in a way that makes the most sense for them and their families. 

Given the fact that we’re used to a dispersed employee base—most of our colleagues work in New York or Boston, but we also have people in LA and remote across the U.S. and Europe—we’re accustomed to video meetings. We’re continuing to find ways to engage and connect with one another that feel natural. Personally, I’ve enjoyed sending regular video communications to our organization, and convening the team for monthly All Hands and regular town hall meetings to discuss the state of the business. We also understand the need to connect on a more personal level, and have enjoyed a segment in our monthly All Hands in which colleagues share how they’re staying sane in isolation.

We also recognize through our work with COVID-19 that diversity of thought and backgrounds has never been more visible or urgent. This disease and others disproportionately impact communities of color and people over the age of 65—both of which are groups often overlooked by traditional clinical trials. In our work with the FDA and other groups on COVID-19 research, we feel the urgency to know how treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics work in real clinical practice. And we recognize that we need diverse teams to help drive this research forward. 

Cathrin: There have been a lot of important discussions recently about systemic challenges that people of color face. What is your company doing to support and advance women of color?

Carolyn: Recent events have inspired us to look more deeply at what we can do to support Black communities at Aetion and beyond. 

Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion workgroup has been at the forefront of these efforts, reevaluating our recruiting practices and assessing how best to support women of color in their daily work. The team has set concrete goals around these efforts: We’ve committed to posting open roles to diverse industry groups and networks, and partnering with HBCUs to source candidates from their STEM programs. We are also conducting an audit of our job descriptions to ensure we’re using inclusive language, and setting requirements for diverse interview panels.

Our DEI team is also hosting a range of trainings for our employees, including unconscious bias, interview, and manager sessions, and bringing in an external facilitator for a company-wide discussion on race and racism.

A group of colleagues have also founded a Black Lives Matter at Aetion employee resource group, which works in consultation with the DEI, People, and Executive teams to advance practices and policies that support Black employees, and educate non-Black colleagues on how to address racism in the workplace and beyond.