Julian Gutierrez, Program Manager of Culture and Social Impact at Segment, joined us for our latest episode of Changemakers from Within. It’s not to be missed!
Before landing at Segment, Julian worked at Code2040, a nonprofit in the Bay Area. In his time there, he was able to give back to the community while heavily ingrained in the tech community, which was a natural path to working in social impact for a tech company.
No Lunch Donation Program
Among the many notable impact programs at Segment, one of our favorites is their “No lunch donation” program. Ideated by a Segment employee, the company gives up catered lunch on Fridays and donates the unused money to nonprofits they select each month. It was such a successful program, that they launched it across all 7 of their offices.
How are nonprofits selected? Julian loves rallying social impact champions across the company, and so these nonprofits are selected during monthly meetings put on by local office champions each month. Employees can come and nominate a nonprofit and the group votes, allowing for a new nonprofit to be the recipient each month.
Citrus Partnership
Julian’s continued passion for getting people together and empowering them to take on social impact led him to recruit a committee of 10 people to lead their Citrus Partnership program.
The partnership goal was to “work closely with an organization supporting systemically disadvantaged communities” New Door Ventures, focused on transition-age youth and their career development and education, is their first partner.
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
The team at segment prioritized their DE&I work prior to when many companies started recognizing it’s importance over the summer. By then, Segment already had most of their initiatives in place and had the infrastructure to build on the work they had started. One of those initiatives was to upskill managers with inclusive leadership training.
Segment also started implementing anti-racism open forums: discussions among team members and employee resource groups.
ERGs are really important at Segment and have been a big part of their culture. You can read more about their DE&I work and be sure to check out some of their fun employee resource group names here.
We had a blast talking to Julian and are so excited to continue to watch their program build-out further!
And a huge congrats on the Twilio acquisition! Can’t wait to see what’s to come!
