Twitter Hires New Head Of Diversity From Apple

   (FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 12/30/15) 
   By Yoree Koh

Twitter Inc. recruited a new head of diversity from Apple Inc. in the face of criticism that its workforce, like many of its Silicon Valley peers, is mostly white men.

Jeffrey Siminoff, who is a white male, tweeted on Monday that he will begin next month as Twitter's vice president of diversity and inclusion. Mr. Siminoff held a similar role at Apple for the past 2 1/2 years.

He succeeds Janet Van Huysse, who over six years had built the company's human-resources department as Twitter's head count grew from fewer than 100 employees to thousands. Ms. Van Huysse announced her departure on Twitter on Monday.

A Twitter spokesman didn't comment beyond the tweets sent by company executives announcing the hire.

Mr. Siminoff joins Twitter as the company and the rest of the tech industry attempts to make diversity more of a priority. Technology companies including Twitter, Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Yahoo Inc. started releasing annual diversity reports in recent years. The picture looks largely the same: a predominantly male workforce that is mostly white or Asian. There is a severe lack of other minorities and women, particularly in engineering and senior management positions.

Twitter's diversity is on the lower endamong tech companies that have reportedtheir numbers. Women accounted for 34% of its overall staff world-wide, according to the company's most recentdiversity report released in August. But when it comes to "tech" roles, women made up 13% of those jobs and less than a quarter of leadership positions, among the lowest percentages among its peers that have reported.

Underrepresented minorities such as blacks and Hispanics have fared worse at Twitter. In the U.S., underrepresented minorities working at Twitter fell to 10% as of August 2015, down from 12% the previous year.

Twitter is one of the few companies that have laid outself-imposed goalsto increase diversity at the company next year. But an essay that ran on digital publishing platform Medium by a former senior engineer in October pointed to the kind of biases among the upper ranks that tend to slow diversity efforts.

In one instance, Leslie Miley, the engineer who wrote the post, described an alleged incident where he asked the senior vice president of engineering what steps the department was taking to increase diversity. Mr. Miley, who is black, wrote that the executive's response was, "diversity is important, but we can't lower the bar."

Responding to Mr. Miley's post, the engineering executive, Alex Roetter, wrote on Medium that the comments attributed to him weren't accurate. Nevertheless, he apologized and said, "I realize that we have blind spots, myself included."

Mr. Miley was laid off in October.

Mr. Siminoff in the past has promoted the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the business community. He is a founding member of Out Leadership, a strategic advisory firm that works toward the inclusion of LGBT in senior leadership posts.

But the company's decision to hire Mr. Siminoff frustrated some on Twitter. "Not saying a white guy can't be head of diversity but for a company that hires a majority of white guys it sends the wrong message," Mark Luckie, a former Twitter employee who is also black, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 30, 2015 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

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