Today, PubMatic released our seventh-annual Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) Report. It has been incredible to see the progress we’ve made over that period from both a demographic and inclusive culture perspective. These achievements have been the direct result of intentional investment and dedication from countless individuals across our organization – from the board and executive team, to the employee volunteers who lead our employee resource groups, and from each individual who sat on an interview panel for new hires. Not only have these DE&I efforts benefited the employees involved, but they are also crucial building blocks of a long-term competitive advantage for our company.
Diversity Fuels Innovation:
At PubMatic, we are proud of our ability to solve some of the industry’s largest and most pressing problems. Doing so requires not only a customer-first mentality, but also unparalleled innovation and engineering excellence. We have maintained our leading role in the industry by prioritizing creative problem solving—a task best accomplished with a corporate culture that welcomes different points of view.
Our 2023 DE&I report highlights a milestone achievement: one in five members of our technical and engineering teams is a woman for the first time since we began reporting. PubMatic has made focused investments to increase the representation of women at our engineering hub in Pune, India through various channels, including a campus hiring program focused on universities with high female STEM student populations and a leadership training program to retain top female employees.
Fostering diversity of thought across our teams is proving to have positive business benefit. This year alone, we have released two innovative new products to market that disrupt the traditional digital advertising supply chain: Activate brings new levels of efficiency and control to the CTV and video media buying process, while Convert streamlines and simplifies commerce and retail media transactions. Together, these two products have increased PubMatic’s total addressable market by over $75 billion.
Equity of Opportunity Fosters an Environment of Excellence
In last year’s DE&I report, we highlighted a need to focus on driving more diversity among management, particularly at more senior levels. Over the past year, we have made progress toward this goal. We grew gender diversity among both senior and middle management (representation of women was up 0.9 points and 4.3 points year-over-year, respectively). We also increased by 2.4-points Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) representation among middle management in the US, though continued focus is needed at the most senior levels.
This focus on diversity and inclusion among management can unlock significant business benefits. Research shows that companies with diverse management teams delivered 19% higher innovation revenue. To foster this environment of excellence, we are committed to not only providing employees with the opportunities but also the tools and resources necessary to learn and grow. Through our DE&I program, we offered employees custom training on receiving feedback, conflict resolution, and speaking up with confidence. We also rolled out a revamped sales-focused learning and development curriculum to uplevel our increasingly diverse go-to-market organization.
All of our stakeholders benefit when each individual can deliver his or her full potential; colleagues have more opportunities to collaborate with and learn from one another, customers get the best customer service, and shareholders ultimately see outsized returns.
Inclusion Cultivates Connection:
The effort we’ve taken to foster a culture of inclusion has resulted in a high-trust, high-performance workplace. With over a year of hybrid work under our belts after the pandemic, we are seeing some of our highest levels of collaboration and coordination across teams and regions.
Not only are employees working more closely with one another on solving business challenges, but we also understand the importance of building community on a more personal level. Nearly a third of our global employees are members of an employee resource group, where they can build connections based on shared identity, purpose, and impact. As well, employees around the world are engaging in company-sponsored charity and volunteer opportunities with local organizations and non-profits to give back to the communities in which they work and live.
Collectively, these efforts create an environment where people want to stay and grow their careers at PubMatic. This strategy is yielding results, as we had 82% global retention in 2022 and are on pace to achieve 93% in 2023.
Our achievements over the past few years have provided both validation that the efforts we’re making are having an impact, and motivation to accelerate our DE&I initiatives. As we look towards 2024, we will continue to hold ourselves accountable to both our employees and our communities as we maintain our focus on building a diverse team and inclusive culture that maximizes outcomes for our customers.
