Arthur Woods

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. These three are an often overlooked yet crucial component in any company or organization. That is why Arthur Woods created Mathison, the first tech platform offering tools for companies to increase, measure, and manage Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion in a whopping 12 different dimensions. With the likes of Accenture, 23andMe, TripAdvisor, and many more companies using their product, the path to a more inclusive and diverse workforce is hopefully getting clearer with the help of Mathison.

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Driven by his own experience of not feeling safe in his workplace, Arthur founded Mathison with the goal of helping employees feel included, safe, and empowered. In this episode, Arthur shares his entrepreneurial journey, the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens, and how he powers through, including a neat tip on how to end everyday on a good note and his perspective as both an experienced founder and investor. Listen to this episode to find out more.

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Arthur’s key lessons and quotes from this episode were:

• “That sense of urgency and that sense of rush and impatience as entrepreneurs is sometimes really a strength, and other times, you have to eat your own medicine in terms of knowing when to slow down.” (24:29)
• “As entrepreneurs, we're constantly charting a new path. We're going into territory no one's explored before. And by the nature of doing that, we're making progress.” (28:02)
• “Even in the days where it feels like we're going three steps forward and four steps backward, those three steps, we still need to celebrate.” (30:27)

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In this episode, we also talked about:

• A rundown on DEI in the workplace (6:02)
• Arthur’s advice for founders hoping to build a culture of DEI in their company (17:15)
• The most painful lesson Arthur learned (24:12)
• The role of investors in promoting DEI (35:25)

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Transcript of the episode

Maiko Schaffrath  00:00

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You are listening to Impact Hustlers, and I am your host, Maiko Schaffrath. I have made it my mission to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to solve some of the world's biggest social and environmental problems.

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And for this reason, I am speaking to some of the best entrepreneurs out there who are solving problems such as food waste, climate change, poverty, and homelessness.

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My goal is that Impact Hustlers will inspire you, either by starting an impact business yourself, by joining the team of one, or by taking a small step, whatever that may be, towards being part of the solution to the world's biggest problems. 

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In today's episode, I speak to Arthur Woods, founder of Mathison. Mathison is a platform helping organizations taking diversity, equity, and inclusion seriously by allowing them to set a strategy and track progress towards their goals.

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Mathison also provides really tangible tools such as a text analyzer, which helps eliminate non-inclusive language from job specs, anonymize LinkedIn profiles to eliminate bias, and also help recruiters plan their interviews based on best practice interview questions.

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Mathison is now used by companies like Sonos, Accenture, and TripAdvisor, and many, many more. I'm very excited to have you on the show, Arthur. It's a topic that's close to my heart, and thanks for joining me.

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Arthur Woods  02:56

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

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Maiko Schaffrath  03:00

Absolutely, yeah. So, let's start with your personal journey. You're an experienced entrepreneur. This is not the first organization you're founded. You're an entrepreneur. You're a community builder.

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I'm really excited to cover your journey a bit, but I'd like to understand what drives you to solve this problem of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Why is this important to you?

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Arthur Woods  03:24

Yeah, well, first of all, it's a wonderful question. I'm personally driven in this work, because I grew up in a very rural town, in a single parent family. I came out in the LGBTQ community halfway through college, and I actually experienced bias in the very first job interview that I had right after college.

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I overheard an interviewer use a homophobic slur, and it really shut me down. In many ways, it caused me to think," I'm not safe to be myself in this new job. Maybe I can't come out," early in my career. 

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And so, even just experiencing that small experience of not feeling safe, not feeling included to me was just an indication that, for so many people in their daily jobs, work is not a source of empowerment. It's not a place that you feel included and a sense of belonging.

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And the more that we can create environments where people are their best at work their best, in a hiring process, the better it is for everyone. 

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So, I really became fascinated with this idea of focusing on how we innovate in the workplace to bring out the best in people to create inclusive environments, how we can rethink the whole way that we build equity in our hiring process and rethink the way that we go about recruiting to be more inclusive and representative of so many different communities that aren't typically on the radar for companies. That's what really fuels me in this work.

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Maiko Schaffrath  05:07

Amazing. Let's talk a bit about the problem. Me having worked a little bit in that space as well as a freelancer, as a consultant and advisor, I think my impression is that probably by now, you won't find a big corporate at least that doesn't commit to diversity and equity and inclusion.

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It's almost like the sustainability pledge. It's accepted, so to say, but then the problem is actually implementing it, and that's where there are just massive differences between companies. 

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It's always nice to have nice claims on diversity, but then what do you do day-to-day? So, can you give us a bit more of a sense of your feeling on how far we've come in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion and what's the state of this at the moment?

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Arthur Woods  06:02

Yeah, well, the first thing I would just say is that, without a doubt, this body of work has gone from being an elective to an essential category. In many ways, there's no question as to whether an organization needs to basically invest in this.

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I think everyone understands the business case for the work. I think people are really struggling with how to go from intent to impact, and the challenge is that the great resignation has now led a lot of people to have this rush and this sense of urgency in this work, and it's led a lot of teams to not have a lot of capacity to drive it. 

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And so, basically, what we're seeing right now is that a lot of organizations have made these huge public commitments to advance their DEI work, and they haven't made enough progress, and they're struggling with a lack of resources. They actually, in many cases, don't know where to focus.

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They don't know where their gaps are, and our big focus as a platform has been to give organizations the insights and the analytics and the understanding as to how they can really mobilize a DEI strategy so that they know, in the limited capacity intention that they have, where they can actually focus that limited purview. 

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And so, we have a whole analytics platform that helps organizations better uncover where they have gaps in their systems, where they have bias in their talent processes, and the whole view there is to give organizations a roadmap as to where they need to focus.

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Maiko Schaffrath  07:43

Got it, and explain to us how that solution actually works. What are the inputs that companies need to give you and what are exactly the outputs that your product gives them?

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Arthur Woods  07:54

Yeah, yeah. Basically, the cool thing about the way that we're approaching this work is we're giving organizations a framework for how they can basically assess their talent systems. We've created this assessment called our Equity Index.

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It gives organizations a set of measures for where they where they have gaps in their hiring processes, where they have a chance to shift policies and practices to be more equitable. 

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And rather than make this a multi-month process, this system enables them to input their current activities and practices, and it turns around a set of insights and recommendations for how they can improve. What's great is that this whole process is an ongoing assessment.

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And so, organizations that are trying to really take real action and they don't know where to start, this gives them a bit of a heat map as to where they need to focus.

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Maiko Schaffrath  08:55

Got it. From my limited experience, I would say, very often, some diversity policies, or maybe not the policies, but the actual implementation tends to become quite one-dimensional sometimes. For example, saying, "Okay, we want to get more female employees," into a sector that's male-dominated. 

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And then, you end up with a diverse organization that's more female employees in there, but maybe all of them white or majority white. I think a lot of times, either organizations think about this very one-dimensional or they almost put it into different buckets.

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How do you think about the very definition of diversity? What is it that you're advocating with your customers? What's the definition of diversity? What dimensions does it have for you?

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Arthur Woods  09:50

Are we looking at, yeah. Our thought leadership, our work was all about dimensionalizing diversity across 12 different underrepresented communities, ranging from people with disabilities, the older experienced worker community, the formerly incarcerated community, the neurodivergent community.

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What we found is that a lot of leaders look at diversity in a very myopic way based on very limited insights, limited knowledge. What happens is, essentially, they leave out entire communities that should be included and empowered in our strategies.

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So, by taking this approach of looking at 12 different dimensions of diversity, we're essentially focused on how to help leaders cast a wider net, how to help leaders build advocacy of different communities that they didn't typically have on the radar, and to ensure that they're being mindful of all of the different viewpoints of communities that maybe they didn't typically notice or see on LinkedIn. 

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What's happening in our space is that a lot of people are using visual ID to try and guess a person's diverse dimensions by looking at their picture and their name on a place like LinkedIn, and that really creates challenges in this work because, as we know, there are so many different dimensions of diversity that we can't always visibly see. Diversity can be intersectional. We might be part of multiple communities. 

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Also, we can't assume based on limited knowledge of a candidate or a team member the expense of their full background and their experience.

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And so, this is really where we want to create an environment where: a) we're aware of different dimensions of diversity, b) we create psychologically safe environments where everyone can speak up about the different communities that they represent, and we hold the space for these communities, not only in the way that we source, but also in the environments we create for people in the hiring process and in the team that we're creating.

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It's a whole different kind of holistic and systemic way of thinking about this work.

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Maiko Schaffrath  11:58

Got it. I love that. I love those dimensions. Do you think there [are] companies out there that are doing this really, really well? Are there like some best practices already that others can copy?

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Or, is this a lot of original work that you have to do and be like, "Nope, there are some good examples, but maybe not great examples"? How do you think about that?

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Arthur Woods  12:22

Great question. Well, I would start by saying that, first of all, there are companies doing this work really well, and I would say bright spots at work, it's going well.

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I look at groups like 23andMe that created these pillars of their DEI strategy that have made DEI not just about how they're hiring, and how they're engaging their team, and how they're reducing bias in their systems, but also about the product that they're building externally.

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We see groups like Horizon Media that have made DEI really an organizational-wide effort. They've really mobilized the broader team in these efforts really successfully. 

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We see groups, honestly like Pixar, that have shifted the way that they're fundamentally designing their product and the way that they're designing the experience that they deliver in their products for equity, and that's really exciting. Same with EA Games.

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EA Games has essentially changed the way that they're looking at the way they build their video games to be representative. It's actually changing the experience they create for their consumers.

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The way that DEI is really manifesting in different unique ways, not only from the way that we hire, but also the process we deliver. That, to me, is what makes this all really strategic and really exciting.

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Maiko Schaffrath  13:51

Do you have the feeling things are moving in the right direction? I mean, it seems like at least the big forward-thinking, tech companies, big corporates, they seem to be sometimes way too slow moving in the right direction.

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On the other hand, you have this constant back-and-forth in certain parts of society and regulation and politics. You live in Florida. There's been the Don't Say Gay bill that's been in the news recently. What's your thought about that?

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Are we gradually moving into the right direction, or is this a constant battle that's still being fought with some parts of society?

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Arthur Woods  14:31

It actually has. I think there are areas where there are huge moments of progress and then setbacks. I think we see some of the legislation that's happening in places like Florida and places like Texas that are creating major barriers for the LGBTQ, the transgender community.

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To me, it signals that there are many leaders that are not on board for this work, and that's directly influenced the policy. It also is creating a pathway where the private sector, where organizations that have autonomy to make decisions that are right for their people, for their workforce can make a huge impact. 

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For us, sadly, this is a movement that involves people on very different parts of the journey, some that are extremely resistant and leading with a lot of fear and hatred and others that are actually pushing the boundaries and doing really noble work that's working.

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Our goal is to focus in on the areas where leaders have a lot of intent to make progress, and they're just lacking the tools to do it. Hopefully, that means that for the rest of the workforce, we have people coming on board and engaging in the work and creating communities of practice to advance the work in new exciting ways, too.

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Maiko Schaffrath  15:53

Got it. One of our biggest groups of listeners to this podcast is entrepreneurs that want to build companies that make a difference in the world, solve social and environmental problems.

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One theme that I've been keen on having seen quite a few startups from the inside or as a friend or advisor on the outside, I think sometimes the challenge I see, especially with early stage companies, is that there's such a pressure to move fast that, sometimes, topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion can be not ignored maybe, but deprioritized versus, "We've just got to get whoever is applying first and is a great candidate. 

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We should just get them in." So, I'm sure you would argue that it's important to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion from day one of building your company, and I'm sure you have lots of advice to share, because you've built companies from scratch.

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You're on both sides of the equation. So, what would be your advice for founders when they're just starting out to build a culture and build processes that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion from day one in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming, maybe as well, just practically speaking?

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Arthur Woods  17:15

Yeah. So, first of all, I think the earlier an organization can embed this work and invest in this work, the better and easier it is. The hardest part of this work is when organizations wait to mobilize the work.

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They end up waiting until they're big, and they're having to reverse engineer a lot of practices, and it means that, honestly, they haven't embedded DEI in their DNA, and they're having to do a lot of culture change and systems change at a scale when they're just not as agile, so the earlier an organization can essentially get this into the daily vernacular of the way that they're growing. 

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What we think is that that means founders and their founding teams having a conversation about, "What does diversity mean to us? Why does it matter to us? What are the ways we're committing to being more equitable in the way that we hire?

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What do we want our team to resemble and why?," and having these fundamental philosophical questions and conversations upfront sets the organization to have much more intention in getting diversity embedded from the beginning. 

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That's exciting, because if we think about it, an organization that is growing rapidly, that is trying to do this work, but honestly is facing constraints and facing a lack of capacity, it will only get harder as they continue to grow.

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We have a lot of conversations with early stage entrepreneurs trying to get the work embedded early, trying to give a roadmap to organizations that can get the work started early. 

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Part of how we sell our system as an end-to-end DEI tech platform is we don't want early stage organizations growing to have to choose between sourcing, reducing bias, training your team, building your DEI roadmap. You should be able to do all of that in one effort.

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And the more that we can be this end-to-end partner for you all to do the work early on, we believe it makes the work much more possible.

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Maiko Schaffrath  19:28

Got it. Amazing. If you look at existing solutions out there, let's say, if you ignore Mathison, what do your clients tend to use already? What's the best alternative to Mathison at the moment, and how does Mathison then make a difference to those customers?

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Arthur Woods  19:52

Yeah. Well, our space right now has a lot of single point tools and solutions. Some tools, their only function is to help you measure your gaps. You have other tools, their only function is to help you write inclusive job descriptions, others who only do sourcing, others who only do training.

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It ends up becoming this pretty large tech stack and solution stack of these different things, and it also means that, in many cases, it ends up being a very expensive proposition for the organization that wants to do this work.

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We find that we're uniquely coming in by threading these different disparate pieces together, making it accessible for organizations to basically have a holistic strategy. 

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The whole value proposition there is that we're collecting a tremendous amount of data and giving organizations insights that they don't typically have. And so, there are larger enterprises, I would say, that sometimes want to choose a single point approach to the work.

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We don't really find that to be always the case for that high-growth earlier stage organization just because, honestly, it becomes challenging when you as an earlier stage organization is trying to do everything honestly has to choose between one thing or another, and so us having this end-to-end approach makes the work much more sustainable.

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Maiko Schaffrath  21:35

Hi, it's Maiko here. I want to interrupt this episode briefly to make you aware of two exciting things that are going on here at Impact Hustlers.

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First of all, if you are a founder solving social and environmental problems, and you're looking to connect to like-minded founders like yourself, you're looking to learn from some of the most experienced entrepreneurs, experts, and investors in the world, and you want some support and actually fundraising for your startup, we've built the Impact Hustlers Community. 

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We are now about 100 entrepreneurs and founders, and we're growing every month, with more founders from all over the world joining us, and we're really here to support each other. Our goal is to build the most supportive ecosystem for impact-driven founders. So, if you're a founder, head to impacthustlers.com/community to learn more. 

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And if you're not a founder, but you want to work for impact-driven companies, we have also recently launched something really exciting for you, and that is the Impact Hustlers Talent Collective.

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This is a group of some of the most ambitious and talented individuals in the world that want to use their talent to make a difference in the world and work for some of the most innovative impact-driven companies. If you're keen to join the Talent Collective, this is all free of charge, obviously.

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You can submit your application to the Talent Collective on impacthustlers.com/jobs, and what will happen as a result is that companies will start approaching you through our Talent Collective and share job opportunities with you. 

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We'll also share our Weekly Jobs Update with you where you see relevant jobs in the field of impact, including from all the previous podcast guests, so you will actually see opportunities from companies that have been covered here on the show and also companies that are members of our Impact Hustlers Community.

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So, go to impacthustlers.com/jobs If you're looking for a job, or if you're a founder and need some support, go to impacthustlers.com/community. Okay, let's get back to the episode now. 

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Got it. Let's dive a bit deeper into your entrepreneurial journey. We covered it very briefly in the beginning, but I'd really like to extract some lessons learned from you for founders that are just starting out. You've been on the entrepreneurial journey a few times now.

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What has been the most painful lesson that you have learned on your journey so far?

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Arthur Woods  24:12

Yeah, I would say the most painful lesson I've learned on the journey is that Rome wasn't built in a day, that while having impatience to act and to create progress, some things do take time.

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That sense of urgency and that sense of rush and impatience as entrepreneurs is sometimes really a strength, and other times, you have to eat your own medicine in terms of knowing when to slow down, so I think that's been a painful piece. 

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Another piece I would just generally say is that there is a moment right now where not everyone, especially when you're doing soulful work that has a mission driven component to it, there are times where it's going to be just the case that not every leader is ready for what you have to offer, or not every leader is philosophically bought into what you have to offer. 

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That might mean that you're early. It might mean that you're talking to the wrong person. It's a painful thing when you have something that is very deeply rooted in your values that you share with someone and they don't align to those values. I think that's just something to also think about.

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It's just the fact that sometimes, we're not always going to have that connection to someone who really sees the world in the same way we do, and we have to be ready for that. Not everyone is going to be a good target, a good partner.

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Maiko Schaffrath  25:55

And how do you deal with that rejection? I guess, as an impact-driven founder, especially, we've had a bit more than 100 episodes, and it's just everybody that I interview is just so mission-driven, really cares about the problem that they're solving.

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Sometimes, these moments can come about where you feel like almost everyone rejects you, and you just have this massive backlash or at least disapproval? Yeah, it's some sort of rejection coming when you're trying to convince people. How do you deal with that psychologically, but then also practically?

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Arthur Woods  26:35

Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think it's a few things. One is that we have to just be resilient and remind ourselves about why we're doing this work and our original theory of change, because honestly, there are just moments in this work where things are not going to work out.

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We're going to be working on something that faces headwinds and where it's not constantly working smoothly, and we need that grit and resilience and willpower to keep going. 

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I'm reading this great book by Dan Sullivan called The Gap and The Gain. And as entrepreneurs, the whole notion is, and it's largely with the spirit of entrepreneurs, we oftentimes are living in the gap. It is the difference between where we are and the ideal state, and we measure ourselves against, what are we not doing?

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What more could we be doing? How are we not comparing to others like us? And we drive ourselves sometimes very crazy living in this gap mindset. His whole point is to focus on the gains. Where have you made progress? What have you learned maybe about what hasn't worked that you can translate into what you do next? And a very different mindset. 

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It's a bit of a glass half full versus empty mindset, but it goes even beyond that, because as entrepreneurs, we're constantly charting a new path. We're going into territory no one's explored before. And by the nature of doing that, we're making progress.

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Even when we're hit with a bush or a branch on our new path into uncharted territory, we are still making progress, and we have to measure ourselves against the progress that we're making on a daily basis. So, I really love that mindset. 

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One of the things I'm doing on a daily basis now that a really dear friend and fellow entrepreneur recommended that I do is at the end of every day, I am writing down three things that were the gains for the day, three wins, three areas where I made progress.

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It could be three things I learned today, and then three gains I'd like to make tomorrow. It's a really interesting practice. It takes less than two minutes every single day, but it really ends every day in a very, I think, forward-looking, positive mindset, and it just constantly returns you back to celebrating the wins, celebrating that progress.

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Maiko Schaffrath  29:06

That's really good advice. I mean, especially, I can relate to this so much. I grew up in Germany. We tend to have a culture that we look at criticism, don't celebrate much, I think, especially my personality type as well. So, running Impact Hustlers, running this podcast, very much constantly being unhappy, "Oh, this wasn't great. This wasn't great.

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Ah, I should improve the production quality. Oh, this has to change. I need to make sure to ship my guests amazing microphones so that the sound quality is better," and also running a community of entrepreneurs as part of Impact Hustlers and constantly seeing what's wrong, what's not working, is everyone forgetting what's working, and how much value people get out of it. 

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Yeah, it's so easy to get into the mindset. Yeah, you brought a point home for me for sure to just constantly remind myself, "Listen. You don't need to be delusional of everything is great, all good, but it's important to see the progress and celebrate the progress." Be aware of anything you need to improve, but that's it.

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Arthur Woods  30:19

We need that. We need that, and that's what gives us the resilience. We are constantly making progress. There is always something we're doing. Even in the days where it feels like we're going three steps forward and four steps backward, those three steps, we still need to celebrate.

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We need to realize, what caused us to go back the four steps and what can we learn from that? Yeah, that's also a gain.

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Maiko Schaffrath  30:41

Did you have a moment in your entrepreneurial career where you were close to an "I want to give up" moment or moment where you lost hope or anything like that, or did you manage to build this habit of looking forward?

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Arthur Woods  30:58

Well, I'll tell you, I've had multiple of those moments honestly, and I've started a couple different companies, some of which are still around today, some of which are not right. I've had multiple moments where I've said, "Why on earth did I choose this path? This is really hard."

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At the same time, I've had multiple moments in the same journey and with the same organizations or the same ventures where I said to myself, "Wow, it's so fulfilling doing this work bringing something to life and hopefully helping people and hopefully creating economic stability." 

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The truth is, the nature of this work is that there are going to be challenges, and there are going to be days where you self-doubt. There are going to be days where you feel like things aren't working, and we just have to take those all in stride.

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What it means is that there's just going to have to continue to be a lot of resilience and not letting the things that aren't working to feed us. Otherwise, it just ends up becoming a painful process all along the way.

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Maiko Schaffrath  32:08

Yeah. I've spoken to some early stage founders, quite a few founders, like about this topic. Sometimes, especially in the early stages, where maybe you have a team of five people, 10 people, you're the founder, and you're going through a really difficult time where maybe you're heading towards losing hope, but you don't want to lose hope yet, because you believe in the mission, but it's very difficult and tough. 

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I think some founders I've spoken to, and I've definitely been there as well, find it really hard to manage that like, "Should I share that with my team? Will that now destroy morale and make me look weak as an entrepreneur? How should I actually deal with that?"

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Do you have any advice for founders, especially in the early stages, where you'd have such a small team and your team can kind of smell how you feel about stuff very quickly? How should you deal with that, or how did you in the past?

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Arthur Woods  33:05

Yeah, one of the biggest challenges, and I know you see this and part of why your community is so special, is entrepreneurs have very few people that they sometimes feel like they can talk to. You want to create stability and positivity on your team. You sometimes feel like you can't speak to your investors. Your board even sometimes is there. 

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You don't want to make anyone panic, but the truth is, and something I try to really tell myself as well is, we have to lead as much as we can with positivity and with also vulnerability and the ability to sometimes just be really direct about how you're doing and where you need help.

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I think people respond really well to transparency and positivity. Also, when they're brought in and they can be part of the solution, that really makes a big difference.

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Maiko Schaffrath  34:15

Hmm. Got it. Actually, we didn't talk much about that, but I'd like to cover maybe at least one question. You are an angel investor and advisor to startups as well. You've invested in the likes of Masterclass, Better, Brix, and loads of others actually.

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Maybe from both perspectives, both from a founder perspective that you've been in and from an investor perspective, what's the role of investors in contributing to solutions like yours? 

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And I'm thinking definitely about, sometimes, the biases that can be in the ecosystem. I imagine when you pitch Mathison to investors, there's definitely a group of investors that don't get it and may play it down and be like, Okay, is this even such a big problem?," or so.

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I don't know, but I've heard stories like that from people. How do you think about that? What's the role of investors and pushing the ecosystem forward, especially solutions like yours?

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Arthur Woods  35:25

Well, first of all, I think if you have an investor who doesn't believe in DEI or doesn't believe in the importance of diversity right now, then we think it's a non-starter in terms of a partnership with them.

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I think there are so many that understand the role that representation and equity play in this process, and how urgent it is, and how many organizations are struggling with it, and also just the business case for it. 

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I think we have enough investors that truly do believe in the philosophy of this work that I would say just focus on that. And for the other ones that aren't really on board, they might just be signaling that they are, I think they're going to come around.

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I think many of them are going to lose out on major opportunities because of that mindset. We're of the belief right now that, again, there are enough philosophically aligned folks right now, also many investors who understand the investment community itself is not representative. 

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Part of where a lot of ventures that are being backed are not very representative, so there's a whole trickle down impact of what's leading to a lack of representation that we think we need to really address. And so, that's really what we're at the heart of addressing here.

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Again, we're very blessed to have multiple underrepresented investors that are on our board that have backed us that truly believe in not only the major opportunity with DEI, but also the chance for societal impact in this work, and those are the types of folks we want to partner with. 

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Maiko Schaffrath  37:15

Got it. I've got one more question for you. If you think about the next 10 years, how does the world look like in 10 years' time if Mathison continues to succeed, I have to say?

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Arthur Woods  37:27

Yeah, I love that question. One is, embrace a much more holistic and representative definition of diversity and the different diversity dimensions embraced.

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The second is, organizations that are embedding this work at the very beginning of their journey in starting and feeling like they have the resources like ours to do that and the systems to facilitate it early, early, early.

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I think a vastly expanded set of DEI metrics that we all have access to, so we're not just looking at diversity among a couple of different data points, but we have a much more comprehensive way of measuring equity in our systems, of assessing the inclusive cultures that we're building. 

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Again, we're looking at different dimensions of diversity as well, so we're seeing a much more holistic picture of DEI. And then, finally, I think it means organizations overall, leaders outside of HR and DEI taking responsibility for this work and saying, "I'm a part owner. I'm accountable as much as you are."

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You as the Head of HR, Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion are not the only leaders that need to be driving this work. We really need everyone.

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Maiko Schaffrath  38:42

Got it. I love the mission you're on. I love the real tangible tools you've developed. This isn't about branding. It isn't about marketing. It's really about real, tangible progress with the tools that you've developed.

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So, anybody that's recruiting talent or even just trying to make a difference in their companies' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion journey, check out Mathison. I have been quite inspired by the solution you've created. So, thanks so much for joining me.

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Arthur Woods  39:14

Thank you so much. This was awesome. Thank you for building the community.

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Maiko Schaffrath  39:20

Really, really appreciate you joining us today. 

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Arthur Woods  39:22

Yes. 

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Maiko Schaffrath  39:23

Thanks, Arthur.

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Arthur Woods  39:24

Thank you so much.

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Maiko Schaffrath  39:25

It was good to have you. Thank you so much. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned some valuable lessons from today's guest. I want to share two things with you.

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First of all, if you're a founder and you're solving a social or an environmental problem with your company, there is something that we've launched recently to support founders like you and to introduce you to more founders that are like-minded and that are solving very difficult problems in the world, and that is the Impact Hustlers Community. 

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It is a community of over 100 founders that solve problems like climate change, education, the crisis in health care, and really pushing the boundaries on what's possible. And what we do as a community, we connect to each other, we run mastermind groups where you can connect to other entrepreneurs and founders.

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We bring experienced investors, entrepreneurs, and experts in to run workshops and ask-me-anything sessions, and you can also connect to others in our online community. And we have something for those of you that are actually fundraising.

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We have an investor matching tool where you get introduced to relevant investors based on the startup that you're building. 

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But, it may be the case that you're not a founder, and you just want to be part of the change, and you want to join some of these companies that you've learned about here at the Impact Hustlers podcast, and we've got something for you as well. We've recently launched the Impact Hustlers Talent Collective. 

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This is a group of some of the most ambitious individuals in the world that want to make a change and an impact with their careers, and you can join the Talent Collective, obviously completely free of charge.

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You can apply to it, and we will introduce you on a regular basis to companies recruiting people like yourself. You'll get access to exclusive job opportunities from companies that have been on the podcast but also beyond that. 

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So, make sure that you go to impacthustlers.com/jobs if you're looking for jobs in the social impact space. Even if you're not actively looking right now, you should still sign up and be part of our Talent Collective. And if you're a founder, don't forget, go to impacthustlers.com/community. Okay, thanks very much for listening and bye. See you at the next episode.

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