60 Seconds with WITS Southeast Speaker — Erin Renzas
Erin Renzas is the Head of Marketing and Growth at Branch International (Formerly Square). Her session at WITS Southeast is Disruption through Diversity: How Technology’s Inclusion Problem Has Crippled Innovation (And How It Can Right the Path).
Why is speaking at WITS important to you?
Successful businesses successfully hire and encourage diverse, inclusive workforces. Meaningfully tackling tough challenges through technology and innovation necessitates positively fostering a corporate culture that embraces the best and brightest minds from every background. Speaking at WITS is an important opportunity to share ideas and learn from other women in technology as to how we most effectively build world-changing, big businesses through inclusion.
What inspires you?
I spend much of my time working and traveling abroad, and I am always inspired and motivated by the common experiences that so many women share around the world. The settings and practicalities may be deeply varied, but the challenges, perseverance and drive to overcome obstacles is pretty universal — and that’s an incredible thing to see.
Most useful article you’ve read in the last month
My work centers on building high-growth companies in emerging markets, so I was excited to read Clayton M. Christensen’s recent book The Prosperity Paradox.
When you were a kid what was your dream job?
Growing up, I dreamed of becoming a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist — a modern-day Frances FitzGerald of sorts. I went to school for journalism and started my career in publishing, but my professional aspirations quickly evolved. Still, one of my favorite parts of my work is getting to break down really complex issues into digestible actionable parts, which was also one of my favorite parts of journalism.
Tell us something about your session
A lack of diversity in technology’s top firms isn’t just bad for a company’s public perception — it’s created a myopic attitude and a limited point of view that has shifted tech from being the innovators to being the tired institutions.
