If anyone has a good perspective on success it’s Evan Goldberg. As founder of NetSuite and the Executive Vice President of the Oracle NetSuite, he has achieved more in his career than most people can dream of. So what’s his take on it all? “My education, as well as my career, have shown me the indisputable value of a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives in being successful.”
Raised by a Jewish family and educated at Harvard, Evan graduated Summa Cum Laude in applied mathematics. Right after college, in 1987, he came out to work for a then much smaller Oracle. He was excited by the idea of delivering everything needed to grow a business, all in one place. “I started NetSuite with Larry [Ellison, Oracle’s founder] specifically because I saw a need for entrepreneurs to have great tools to run their business. I still see that need being unfulfilled for hundreds of thousands of fast-growing businesses and organizations all over the world.”
When asked about his leadership philosophy, Evan says it comes down to two things: Keep your eyes on the prize, and think different. “Having a vision, a north star that you always keep in mind in everything you do, is how to achieve maximum results,” he adds. “And it’s your differentiation with others trying to do similar things that is your greatest strength. The easy path is often doing what everyone else does. But if your organization can think about how we can solve this problem differently and uniquely because of who we are, that is a huge competitive advantage. And that’s where diversity really shows its value.”
Oracle NetSuite’s aims to attract and retain talented people from all walks of life. “Our customers cross all groups and we need an employee base that reflects that,” Evan explains. “We also believe that our leadership team should be reflective of this strategy. So once we have attracted a diverse group of employees, we need to make sure they are all successful and there are no barriers to anyone achieving their potential.”
When it comes to fostering a diverse and inclusive work culture, Evan sets a lot of store in the importance of upskilling. This comes in the form of unconscious bias training, in partnership with Cook Ross, which is being rolled out to all GBU employees. “The best wisdom I saw in the training—and one that is applicable to all of our activities—is to make it a practice to constantly engage in empathy. Try to walk a mile in that other person’s shoes. That approach creates the best culture and the best products.”
Oracle never stands still when it comes to advancing their diversity recruitment efforts. Programs like the Oracle Veterans Internship Program and our HBCU Partnerships, make a big difference for a lot of previously overlooked people. “We partner with various groups focused on promoting women leadership programs such as Oracle Women’s Leadership’s (OWL), Linkage Women in Leadership Institute, Grace Hopper, and many others. We were also one of the sponsors of the HITEC (Hispanic IT Executive Council) Fall Summit at HQ this past October,” he lists.
Evan wisely concludes that achieving true diversity is a journey, not a destination. It requires years of commitment, mentoring, and changing habits. “Change is not instantaneous,” he says. “But over the coming months and years, as we focus on this as a key component of our success, we will see major change that will make working at Oracle—and the products and services we deliver—better than ever.”
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