Tech Entrepreneur, Former CEO of Reddit, and CEO of Project Include
Ellen Pao: Biography at a Glance
- Ellen Pao is the former CEO of Reddit and the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning diversity and inclusion nonprofit Project Include which uses data and advocacy to accelerate diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.
- A long-time entrepreneur, tech investor, and activist, she is the former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Kapor Center and a former venture capitalist for Kleiner Perkins and Kapor Capital.
- As CEO of Reddit, she made notable changes to the site and company structure to address harassment and protect privacy, banning revenge porn, unauthorized nude photos, and harassment among other things.
- Her memoir, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, was shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey “Business Book of The Year.”
- The book follows Pao’s workplace discrimination suit against a powerhouse Silicon Valley venture capital firm where she exposed the toxic culture and homogeneity.
Biography
Tech investor and activist Ellen Pao is the former CEO of Reddit and the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning diversity and inclusion nonprofit Project Include. A long-time entrepreneur and investor, she is the former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Kapor Center and a former venture capitalist for Kleiner Perkins and Kapor Capital. Her memoir, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, was shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey “Business Book of The Year.”
With over two decades in the tech industry, Pao is a frequent advisor to tech leaders and keynote speaker at women’s and tech conferences. She draws from her own gender discrimination suit to offer practical and effective solutions to promote diversity and inclusion.
Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change follows Pao’s workplace discrimination suit against a powerhouse Silicon Valley venture capital firm. For the toxic culture and homogeneity she exposed, Pao was hailed as “the face of change” by TIME. Named “Best Fall Book” by both Elle and Bustle, Reset “has blown open a conversation about the status of women,” according to The New York Times.
Following her departure from Reddit, Pao went on to found Project Include with seven other women from the tech industry. Aimed primarily at startups, Project Include uses data and advocacy to accelerate diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.
Pao joined Reddit as Head of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships, running its mobile, growth, and business development efforts. She went on to become the interim CEO, where she made notable changes to the site and company structure to address harassment and protect privacy. Pao was the first head of a major social media platform to ban revenge porn, unauthorized nude photos, and harassment.
Before moving into tech, Pao practiced corporate law in New York and Hong Kong for Cravath, Swaine & Moore. She received an MBA from Harvard Business School, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, where she also received a certificate in public policy. She is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow.
Her writing has appeared in WIRED, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Lenny, and Recode.
Topics
Project Include: Diversity & Inclusion At Work & Beyond
According to Ellen Pao, the benefits of true diversity include better teams, better innovation, increased financial returns, improved companies, and, inevitably, a better world.
As CEO of the diversity non-profit, Project Include, Pao’s mission is to give everyone a fair chance to succeed. Using a holistic approach informed by data, Pao brings audiences a breakdown of the most effective ways to accelerate diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry. From inclusion to comprehensiveness and accountability, Pao will outline practical, inspiring, and achievable goals for a better future.
Reset: My Fight For Inclusion & Lasting Change
Ellen K. Pao sued a powerhouse Silicon Valley venture capital firm for workplace discrimination in a lawsuit that rocked the tech world—and exposed its toxic culture and homogeneity. By taking this action, she revolutionized the conversation at tech offices, in the media, and around the world.
In this speech, Pao tells her full story, from growing up the daughter of immigrants and earning multiple Ivy League degrees to working at top startups and rising in the ranks — only to be excluded from decisive meetings, uninvited from networking events, and undercut by male executives.
As Pao spotlights the troubling issues plaguing today’s workplaces, she shares her own efforts to find solutions, such as her progressive actions at Reddit to change the status quo for the company, banning revenge porn and unauthorized nude photos, and shutting down harassing subreddits.
