WHM Interview #6: Jacinda Chislum Pearson - Woman Mentors, Privilege, Screening In

To coincide with Woman's History Month (WHM)?- I’ve been interviewing a number of woman leaders from a variety of backgrounds:

Interview 1: With?Dali Sanghera, MD at Accenture

Interview 2: With Sital's Mum! My 84 year-old mother's story and wise advice

Interview 3: With?Uma?Thana Balasingam?- VP & GM at VM Ware. Co-founder of the Singapore?#LeanIn?community. Founder of Lean In Asia's?#WomanInTech?community.

Interview 4: With Shoon Lim, Consultant and DE&I Development at Russell Reynold Associates

Interview 5: With Anna Green, Head of SMB at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

For the 6th part of the series today, I'm delighted to share an interview with Jacinda Chislum Pearson from Microsoft.

Jacinda joined Microsoft in 2012 as a member of the Global Diversity & Inclusion (GD&I) team in Seattle. She first provided programmatic leadership and guidance for Microsoft's Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and Employee Networks (ENs) as well as Microsoft's DigiGirlz program. Later, she partnered with Business and HR Leaders to design and lead D&I strategy for two of Microsoft's Engineering groups, as well as five Microsoft field locations (China, India, Israel, Boston, and Silicon Valley, CA).

Jacinda subsequently moved to HR Business Partnering and HR Consulting leadership roles with global remits.

Then in September 2020, Jacinda had the privilege of answering the call to move to Singapore and lead the Microsoft Asia Talent Acquisition teams. Jacinda and her teams are responsible for acquiring talent in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

Before joining Microsoft, Jacinda spent seven years in various HR roles at Air Products in Allentown, PA. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Yale University.

In her free time, Jacinda enjoys spending time with her husband, her 6-year-old daughter and mentoring young women of color.

Sital: Jacinda, thank you for making time! In these interviews, I'm keen to understand what shaped the individual's career and outlook. Can you please start by sharing any experiences or influences from your childhood or early career that have?shaped your career and some of the things that you're involved in today.

Jacinda: Thanks Sital. My maternal grandmother (who is holding me up in this photo) passed away when I was ten years old, but she remains the most influential woman in my life. She was a generous person and had very little but volunteered her time to help others. She was a huge part of creating pride in our community. My grandmother was a brilliant woman who didn’t have access to higher education and resultant opportunities. She paved the way for me to have the access that she didn't.?

The impact of brilliant women has been the jet fuel for not only my personal life, but also my career. Case in point, I was brought to Microsoft by an amazing woman, brilliant HR Leader, and DEI Visionary:?Shinder Dhillon.?Shinder was a mentor, sponsor, and skip level leader for me at our prior employer, who left for Microsoft and brought me along a few months later.?In addition to Shinder, I have had amazing mentors and sponsors, most of them other women, who took the time to invest in me and open doors for me to walk through.

I am forever grateful and indebted for their investment, and it gives me the greatest joy to pay it forward by investing in the development of others.?

Sital:? Having moved through a variety of HR roles in the US - you then moved to Singapore and Asia during the pandemic - what was that like? I'm sure it came with many challenges - and maybe some uplifting moments too?

Jacinda: One thing I learned through my experience of relocating to Seattle from the Northeast of the US upon joining Microsoft was to focus on and enjoy what the experience?is, vs. lamenting what it is not. So, yes, we moved during the pandemic, but we had never been to Singapore before our move, so we knew nothing different.?

Comparatively, things were restricted but open in Singapore, which was a much better situation that the US where everything was shut down – for example, our daughter was able to start school immediately after we got out of quarantine.??

Sital: I hope you don't mind me asking….but what was it like moving to Singapore and Asia as a black family?

Jacinda:?This is a great question! When we were considering moving to Singapore, we were very concerned about our experience as Black people, and especially our daughter’s experience as a black girl/child, because we had never even visited Singapore before moving here.

We did a ton of research on the Black experience in Singapore and were shocked to hear first accounts from Black people and Black families that was heavily weighted towards being an expat and/or an American as the primary factor of identity impacting their experience, vs. being a Black [fill-in-the-blank].?This was almost unfathomable coming from the US, where, for us, being Black was by far the most impactful dimension of our identity that shaped how we navigated society – good, bad, or otherwise.

We were even more flabbergasted to find that our lived experience was very similar to what learned from our research. While no society is perfect, Singapore is?so?diverse and?so?cosmopolitan, and being of a darker hue is not necessarily an anomaly.?And as mentioned earlier, while there are certainly stereotypes assigned to us, we have found that those are more about us being expats and/or American.

Most importantly, our daughter’s experience has been phenomenal – she has friends from all over the world, speaks Mandarin, and has an amazingly broad, global perspective that we hope she will maintain through her life.

Long story short, we have had an amazing experience.?It will be very difficult for us to reacclimate to the US, where we will need to carry many burdens every day, that we have been relieved from carrying here in Singapore.

Sital: It's great to hear that it's been a welcoming transition for the family.?

The tragic death of George Floyd in 2021 and the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement quite rightly triggered many conversations and learning in the workplace during Black History Month (BHM) 2021. What are some of the things?we?could all?be doing beyond BHM to increase our awareness and deepen our learning??

Jacinda:?Thank you for asking this question, Sital.?George Floyd’s death was absolutely tragic, and created an inflection point for a broader discussion across America – unfortunately George Floyd is one of so many people, especially people of color who have met a similar fate.?Even the fact that it was caught on video was not a net new phenomena.??I share that to say that it is critical for us to use this inflection point to create sustainable behaviors for change, or we are bound to keep repeating these cycles.

So, I think the biggest, most sustainable thing that we all can do is to continuously work on increasing our self-awareness, including reflecting on where we are on the privilege/oppression spectrum or pendulum, both systemically and/or situationally, and to remain curious to others’ perspectives and realities.

Once we get in the practice of doing this, we can then pivot to how we can leverage our privilege to help others, and frankly start to grant each other, and ourselves, grace for our learning journeys. Doing this is not just about Black Lives Matter, but any dimensions / poles of privilege and oppression.?This is critical for men to be allies to women as well.

One of the things that makes me most proud to work at Microsoft is that the journey we have been to transform our culture and create sustainable, ever-maturing DEI behaviors, building the above muscles and practices have been key.

Sital: I'm glad we discussed this important topic Jacinda - your guidance here is invaluable.

Let's talk about Woman's History Month - and International Women's Day (IWD). The theme this year for IWD was?"Embrace Equity" - what does this mean to you?

Jacinda:?I really like this theme, because embracing and achieving equity is hard?work, and it creates a path to sustainable access and opportunity if done right.

While it may be obvious, equality and equity are not the same thing, but often these terms are used interchangeably, so it is really important to distinguish the two.?Equality is focused on the front end (e.g., are we giving everyone the same thing?), whereas equity is focused on the outcomes (e.g., are we creating the environment for all to have the same access to opportunity?).

Embracing equity inherently requires self-awareness, curiosity, and empathy, and as I mentioned earlier, reflecting on where we are on the privilege/oppression spectrum or pendulum, both systemically and/or situationally, and understanding others perspectives, realities, and headwinds, then meeting everyone where they are to empower them with what they uniquely need.

Sital: With your global experience - and now living / working in Asia?- what are some of the nuances of Asia that you?feel create particular challenges - or indeed, opportunities?

Jacinda: I think most Multinational Companies (MNCs) have no idea how US-centric / Western-centric they are in terms of their view of the world, view of work, in pretty much everything.?While not intentional, much of their non-US engagement is reflective of viewing Asia (or the rest of the world) as a monolith.?I think the biggest challenge that Asia (and the Middle East and Africa) have to overcome is debunking this perspective, to create equity in opportunity, ideation, talent development, et. al.…

Speaking uniquely about the US, our country and culture is a relative baby – cultures in Asia, Middle East and Africa have been in place for thousands of years, are deeply entrenched, highly nuanced, and phenomenally different from one another.?If one has not lived outside of the US, it’s hard to understand this, especially as US media is so insular and Americans tend to travel domestically.

Asia has more potential “unicorns” than anywhere in the world, and such depth of talent and skill, and unfortunately without intention and strategic intervention, this can often and easily be overlooked.?Circling back to leveraging our privilege to empower others, being an American who from our Corp HQ with ties to many of our leaders at Corporate HQ, I have been on a journey to create more visibility, awareness, and potentially influence decisions to this end since taking on my current role.?

I am committed to continuing this well after I may have moved out of the Asia region and strive to be an ally for the RoW (Rest of the World), beyond Asia as well.

Sital:?When you look at the progress the Microsoft Talent Acquisition (TA) team has made on diversity - what makes you most proud? What have been the key learnings that you can share?

Jacinda:?While I can certainly speak to the amazing outcomes our TA team has delivered in terms of diverse external hires – women globally and in the US Black and Latinx, and they are amazing – I am most proud of the work we have done as it relates to “Screening In.”

Screening in is not about achieving any specific diverse hiring outcome, but instead, influencing Hiring Managers and Hiring Teams to shift their mindset and their behavior in selection:

• It’s about moving from “Culture Fit” to “Culture Add”: to accelerate our cultural transformation, for every open role, we have the opportunity to screen in and select?people who exhibit inclusive behaviors and ultimately add to?the organization we aspire to be.
• It about recognizing that “the knowledge and skills a team needs today?is most?likely not what?they will need?a few years?from now”, so an interviewer needs to focus not only on the?skills and?experience?a candidate they will?need for the role they are being hired for today,?but also?their capability to?learn?continuously.

Our Global TA Excellence team did an amazing job of creating Interview Guides aligned with this transformation, as well as on ramping for our Global TA delivery teams, HR partners, et. al.

I am most proud of this creation of our Screen & Select work (though I had little to do with creating it! Shout out to?Alexa Marenghi who led this work for our Excellence team!), and our results, including increasing our own and Hiring Managers / Teams recruiting capability to this end.

Accordingly, I think our biggest opportunity as a TA organization at Microsoft to influence DEI and our cultural transformation is to remain steadfast on this path, to continue to fine tune our consultative skills to influence Hiring Teams and Hiring Managers to “screen in” especially when those conversations are difficult.?

Sital: Let's look forward. As a mother - what's your hope for the future?. What's the kind of workplace environment do you imagine your daughter growing up into?

I hope Canada (my daughter) has the privilege to work for a leader who believes in her potential, demonstrates care and empathy to understand who she is, gives her space to be her authentic self, and holds her accountable and provides feedback to empower her to meet her potential.

Ultimately, I want Canada to recognize that, typically, she can achieve more as a part of a team than she could do on her own.?I hope she is a part of a work environment where she feels a sense of belonging and inclusion as a team member and is inspired “the why” behind every decision, the implications to the broader system (beyond just what she can see) and, ultimately to have the self-awareness for her intentions to match her impact as much as possible.

Sital: If you could have a huge billboard anywhere, metaphorically speaking, to get ONE message out to millions or billions — what would it say? A few words, a paragraph or maybe a quote you live by?

Jacinda: "Be the change you want to see"

Sital: As we wrap up, for readers who want to deepen their learning around DEI and Black History Month - have you any resources that you'd suggest?

Jacinda:?If people want to understand deeply the depths of institutional racism in the United States, I strongly encourage reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”.?It is a bit of an academic read, and certainly is politically charged, but it explains?a lot

• Link to Wikipedia Overview
• Link to “The New Jim Crow” book website

Sital: On a lighter note….I know that you love music and dancing. Throughout history there have been some amazing black woman singers. Who is your favorite black female musician of all time?

Jacinda: I don’t really have a favorite!!! I love music and I have a very diverse music taste, so it all depends on my mood.?There is such awesome music in the world, it’s hard to choose just one (or 5 even!)

Sital:?Ha! Ok :)?Thanks so much for your time, Jacinda - and sharing your views with such openness and authenticity. What's the best way for readers to connect and follow your thinking on these important topics ?

Jacinda: Thanks Sital! The best way to connect is via?my LinkedIn profile

Upcoming Interviews

This is part if a series of interviews to coincide with International Women's Day and Woman's History Month. During March, we'll be sharing more interviews on my LinkedIn stream with further discussions on how we can collectively make progress creating a more equitable workplace. Feel free to follow this on LinkedIn

Previous Interviews

Interview 1: With?Dali Sanghera, From humble beginnings and a battle to get herself educated, Dali has gone on to build a successful career with?#Accenture?over the last 30 years - where she is a Managing Director based out of Singapore.

Interview 2: With?Sital's Mum!?My 84 year-old mother shares her personal story and the vital importance of educating girls. She offers advice to woman and men on how we build equitable workplaces. She also shares her Wellbeing habits – something which we could all learn from. ??

Interview 3: With?Uma?Thana Balasingam?- Starting from humble beginnings at a Malaysian school where she “..lined up in a separate queue with the poor kids to get 2nd hand books.” Uma now leads?#VMWare's business across 48 markets - and is regularly being nominated on global and regional lists of the most influential woman in technology. In 2022 she was named in LinkedIn’s Top 10 Voices in Gender Equity. Co-founder of the?#LeanIn?community in Singapore.

Interview 4: With?Shoon Yin Lim?- Having led the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (#DEI) initiatives at?#Shell,?#Microsoft?and?#Givaudan?-?Shoon?is currently with Russell Reynolds Associates where she focusses on the development and growth of DE&I as a key proposition for business performance globally with a focus on Asia Pacific.

Interview 5: With Anna Green - Having been inspired by her mother's commitment to lifelong learning, Anna has taken herself outside her comfort zone to learn - and keep learning. Her career spans across 3 different sectors in 7 countries. A qualified lawyer, Anna transitioned from Law to Financial Services to Cloud Technology with #AWS - Amazon Web Services