Alaska Airlines SVP — building an intentional career from healthcare to aviation
An insightful conversation with Diana Birkett Rakow on career, mentorship, and successful DE&I initiatives
Starting on October 10th 2022 and running until October 14th 2022, we are highlighting women in STEM in our week-long celebration of Ada Lovelace Day.
Diana Birkett Rakow is the Senior Vice President of Public Affairs & Sustainability at Alaska Airlines. Diana is an undeniable force driving the aviation industry’s transition to net zero through spearheading Alaska Airlines’ sustainability efforts.
Since joining Alaska in 2017, Diana has led the establishment and pursuit of the airline’s climate strategy and strengthened Alaska’s Environmental Social Governance program as a whole.
We first met Diana at the 2021 Boeing Innovation Forum in Glasgow where Diana spoke at the Building a Sustainable Future for UK aviation panel. We are so excited to share our conversation with Diana for Ada Lovelace Week!
What do you enjoy most about your role as SVP of Public Affairs & Sustainability at Alaska Airlines?
What I’m enjoy most is that the field is changing so fast. There’s always so much to learn all the time. And it’s a really exciting and dynamic time in the industry.
We’re also trying to make sure that we are continuing our history of innovation with things that are relevant to our customers today, both in terms of the guests experience, sustainability, and value.
Walk me through your career — how did you enter the aviation industry?
Sure, I don’t have years and years in aviation, the way that some people do. I followed my passion throughout my career, and certainly a love of learning, but have sort of meandered through public policy, public health, health care, and ultimately came to aviation, after working in healthcare for a long time.
I loved the company and that’s what brought me to Alaska Airlines. I was an MVP Gold elite traveller on Alaska and flew across the country and to California a ton. I also just really appreciated the ethos of the company, the people were so friendly, the company values seem very strong and it was well run.
It was sort of serendipity and the timing was right. I had just worked to sell the company that I’d worked for 12 years. And it worked out for me to move over to Alaska. And it’s just been a tonne to learn and really exciting over the last five years. There’s a lot of great women leaders at Alaska that I’ve certainly had the benefit of working with and learning from as well.
Amazing. It’s quite surprising that you came into aviation from healthcare. That’s something I haven’t seen very often.
The reason I got into healthcare in the first place was looking at the fundamental drivers of healthy societies. And the more I worked in healthcare, the more I realised that healthcare plays a critical role, but so do so many other things like education, housing, the environment, economic opportunity, and jobs. And so this opportunity in a few of those other areas felt purpose aligned to me whilst being in a different industry.
“What each of us can do and what others can do for us is give us insight into the spectrum of opportunities that are out there, or how different people have navigated situations themselves.”
If you could go back in time, what is one piece of tactical advice you would give your younger self on how to successfully build a career in aviation?
Good question. You don’t know what you don’t know. I would say me maybe two things. One, I have never really believed in the idea of sort of having a five year plan because and I’m probably biassed, but I’ve never ended up five years later where I thought I would. So I think it’s important to be open to opportunities.
But I also think it’s important to be clear why you do what you do, and what your criteria are for the kinds of companies or organisations or work you want to be doing. And to check in every so often on whether they’re still aligned with those criteria or those parameters. Because it’s important to be open to the twists and turns that a career may take. But it’s also important to make sure that you stay as intentional as possible along that path.
Mentorship — it’s a topic that’s not discussed often enough but could be pivotal in someone’s career. How can people make the most out of mentorship sessions?
It’s a great question. Largely by asking a lot of questions. The career advice that I just gave, I’ve followed it well myself at times, and not well, in other times. And so the advice is to myself as much as anything.
But one thing that does help is keeping your eyes open to possibilities, no one will make your career for you. No one will give you the recipe or the checklist to follow. So that’s on each of us. What each of us can do and what others can do for us is give us insight into the spectrum of opportunities that are out there, or how different people have navigated situations themselves.
And that perspective can be hugely valuable to help make sure that you’re being as self reflective as possible, make sure that you’re not missing opportunities, or that you’re aware of things that might be out there that you might not have known about. And just kind of keep your keep your eyes open. I think that’s what mentors or networking can do.
What are some diversity, inclusion and equity (DE&I) initiatives you’ve seen that’s been really successful?
So a couple of years ago, during the time in the United States after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and many others. We spent a lot of time talking to employees about where we, as a company needed to do more work. And while those conversations were more about racial equity, and racial justice, they related to other DE&I areas, such as gender or others as well.
The thrust of it was around how do you really listen to each other and understand different life experiences, different journeys, different perspectives, and create an environment in which everyone feels they can belong? And it wasn’t formulaic, but the consciousness that was raised around different people coming to the workplace with different life experiences and perspectives was really important.
And then our employees helped us craft a three part strategy to address some of these issues. One was around some very specific and concrete goals around diverse leadership representation. The second one was more broadly around culture. And the third one was around public leadership, which was surprising in a way, because we’re not ones to be showy about anything. And we didn’t want to be showy about this while we still had our own work to do. But what folks reminded us was, we want you to lead in the public domain, because it means that you’re proud to be doing this work.
And so that looked like a variety of things, including supporting policy in the DEI realm, as well as actually painting an aeroplane with the profiles of 14 young people who were the children and grandchildren of our black employees. And there were there was a quote on each side, one is from Martin Luther King — the time is always right to do what is right — and the other one by Nelson Mandela — education is the most powerful weapon that can be used to change the world. And the aeroplane will fly under that paint scheme for, a decade as a consistent reminder to us to live into these commitments.
Thanks Diana!
We hope you can join us for Ada Lovelace Week — use #AdaLovelace and #WomenInTech on socials to shout your support and celebrate the women you respect. You can follow the content we’re publishing this week via the #AdaLovelace tag here on Medium.
Ada Lovelace Day, celebrated on the second Tuesday of October every day, is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It aims to increase the profile of women in STEM and create new role models to encourage more girls into STEM careers and support women already working in STEM.
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