Most Important Skills For a DEI Manager at SoundCloud Inc
Tamura, a DEI Manager at SoundCloud, emphasizes the importance of "owning your learning journey" and "being proactive" in this constantly evolving field, highlighting the need for problem-solving, project management, and strong emotional intelligence (EQ) skills to effectively lead initiatives and connect authentically with diverse teams. The ability to "be a self-starter" and innovate is crucial for success in a DEI role.
Problem-Solving, Project Management, Communication, Leadership, Emotional Intelligence
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Tamura Davis
DEI Manager
SoundCloud Inc
Loyola Marymount University
N/A
Business Management & Admin
Arts, Entertainment & Media, Technology
Human Resources (HR)
Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Greek Life Member, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. To succeed in a DEI role, you must develop the ability to separate your personal feelings from your work and commit to continuous learning and self-improvement.
2. Problem-solving, proactive, resourceful, and self-starter are essential skills for a DEI manager. Be innovative and take the initiative to identify and address diversity and inclusion gaps.
3. Strong project management, leadership, and emotional intelligence (EQ) skills are crucial for managing multiple projects, communicating with various teams, and connecting with people effectively. Excellent communication skills are also important for this role.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
Here's the cleaned transcript:
Three things I've learned and now consider skills in my job are: first, you have to make sure you're not taking things personally. I had to learn that skill very quickly within DEI.
Also, own your journey. It's easy for people to think, "You're the DEI person, you're supposed to know everything." But you have to make sure you take the time to do the research and own your own learning journey.
And finally, just show authenticity in everything. I guess these could be translated to skills, but if we're talking about normal, quote-unquote, let's say, other skills that come to mind for me, I would say you need problem-solving skills.
You need to know how to be proactive and resourceful, to be a self-starter. Things are always changing, so you can't sit around and wait and ask, "Hey, do you think this is a good idea?" Or if you see something happening, like, "I noticed we don't have any programs for our women in the company. I noticed we don't have X, Y, and Z." Be that self-starter, be proactive, and come up with those programs, come up with those initiatives. Be innovative.
Project management skills are also helpful in DEI. You're handling a lot of different things; you're communicating with a lot of different teams. You're talking to a lot of different people on different projects, workshops, trainings, whatever it may be. So, project management skills are helpful.
Leadership skills are important because you should totally be a leader in this space. And I'll also say EQ skills. Just being personable, obviously, having communication skills, but I think EQ skills are really important in DEI. It's about connecting with people again; it's going back to that authenticity and being personable and bringing that personal experience in real life to DEI.