To celebrate Black History Month, Glassdoor will highlight several influential Black employees within our BUILD ERG (Blacks, United, In Leadership and Development) across the customer success, content, engineering, product verticals throughout February. These leaders are diverse, passionate, and driven and are incredible examples of Black Excellence.
Meet Alicia Brown, a senior aggregation operations technician in the engineering department at Glassdoor. Brown has been with Glassdoor for three years, having spent two years in the Mill Valley headquarters before relocating to the Chicago office. As part of her job, she helps maintain the inventory of jobs on Glassdoor’s website, helping to make Glassdoor the best place for job seekers to find jobs. Additionally, Brown serves as co-chair of Glassdoor’s Black employee resource group, BUILD.
We sat down for a Q&A with Brown to learn more about her career trajectory and thoughts on what Black Excellence means to her.
Q: Speak a bit about your cultural background. How has your heritage shaped your professional and personal journey?
My parents taught me early on that I would need to be comfortable learning & working alongside people from cultures outside of my own. I learned to value the perspective of others without minimizing or changing my own identity as a Black American. When I approach my career, I maintain the same mindset. One of the reasons I’ve stayed at Glassdoor as long as I have is because I’ve been able to be myself at work more than I have other places.
Q: Do you feel that Glassdoor has celebrated and supported your cultural identity and surrounding community, and if so, how has it successfully done that? If not, how could it do so better?
Glassdoor has supported my cultural identity and surrounding community by creating space for us to celebrate our identity openly. The company’s support of the BUILD employee resource group has given us an opportunity to cultivate community within the company. Senior leadership has been very active in engaging with us and listening to our concerns. I get the sense that Glassdoor wants to do more and is consistently looking for ways to support us even more.
Q: What does Black History Month mean to you, and how are you planning to celebrate this year?
Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate and pay tribute to the Black Americans that made it possible for me to have the opportunities that I have. I recognize the continued accomplishments of Black Americans, not just those of the past. This year, I’ve been tuned into “Black People Tell Black History” by Ericka Hart on Instagram. I think it’s important that Black Americans tell their own history rather than looking to others to tell us who we are and what we’ve contributed to this country.
Q: This month’s Black History Month’s theme is Black Excellence. How do you define Black Excellence?
Black Excellence is about overcoming the odds that are often placed there due to systemic racism. It’s a term we use to celebrate those in our community that are striving to be the best version of themselves. Black Excellence is important because it inspires us to keep pushing the culture forward. When we see what others are accomplishing, we set our goals higher and dream bigger.
Q: How do you feel about being the Co-chair for Glassdoor’s BUILD ERG? How is BUILD positively impacting Diversity & Inclusion at Glassdoor?
I’m honored and privileged to work alongside the incredible minds on the BUILD ERG leadership team, as well as the other ERGs at Glassdoor. BUILD has made a great impact on D&I at Glassdoor since we launched last year. There hasn’t been a way for our collective voices to be heard until the ERG was formed. We’ve been able to give input on several company initiatives, and we already see improvements both internally and externally. We’ve consistently set high goals and expectations for ourselves, and so far, we’ve been able to execute them.