The value of buy-in from leadership: How our CRG exec sponsors make Chime — and our CRGs — a better place to be
In many of Beth Steinberg’s jobs, she’s been the only or most senior woman on the leadership team. “It hasn’t always been easy or fun — it’s been very, very challenging,” she says. As our Vice President of People and Talent, Beth knows firsthand why having allies at work is so important.
Over the course of her career, her allies have helped her achieve more, get into rooms she otherwise might not have been invited into, and boosted her career. “They gave me the strength, the confidence, and the backup to help me feel assured of my own voice and abilities,” she explains. “It made an extremely positive impact on my career.”
Having had such strong allies who were bought into her success, it’s no surprise that Beth has stepped up as an ally herself — in the role of Executive Sponsor of one of our Chimer Resource Groups (CRGs), ChimeHers.
As an executive sponsor of a CRG, Beth doesn’t have a job description, but instead sees her role serving two primary functions: helping unblock the group by utilizing her resources to boost them and advising from a strategy perspective. “I’m not a decision maker,” she says. “I’m there to help them feel supported and to make sure that I’m doing whatever I can to advance the work that they are already doing.”
It turns out that Beth’s involvement — and that of our other CRG executive sponsors — matters tremendously for initiatives surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), like CRGs. Studies show that DEI improves business performance by encouraging innovation and resulting in employee retention — something many of us are familiar with. But a crucial component to the success of any DEI program is leadership buy-in — something we’ve recognized as crucial and have built into our CRG model by encouraging every CRG to have an executive sponsor.
Meet our executive sponsors
Our executive sponsors are the epitome of allies, constantly striving to take allyship a step further and be accomplices to all Chimers. The concept of being an accomplice comes from Willie Jackson and Ready Set, an ally skills workshop we offered at Chime. Being an accomplice is “putting allyship into action […] it’s the form that your allyship takes,” Willie says. “Thinking in terms of actions as opposed to identity is more psychologically and emotionally sustainable,” he explains. To be an accomplice is to move from agreeing and supporting to opening doors, pushing down roadblocks, and putting yourself out there in support of others, even if it is uncomfortable and difficult.
These executives ensure that CRGs — and the practice of being accomplices — are part of the culture, business, and our growth at Chime. Let’s meet three of our five executive sponsors:
Beth Steinberg, VP of People and Talent and Executive Sponsor of ChimeHers
ChimeHers is a supportive community of women at Chime; we leverage our unique strengths to learn from each other, empower one another, and come together stronger.
Brian Mullins, SVP of Risk and Executive Sponsor of OutChime
OutChime celebrates LGBTQIA Chimers. We empower people to live transparently and advocate for inclusion. OutChime is a place where everyone belongs.
Melissa Alvarado, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Sponsor of Chimigos and AfroChime
Chimigos welcomes the diversity of Latinx Chimers. Together, we create a community, celebrate our cultures, foster awareness of our differences, and find moments for fun.
Afrochime’s mission is to uplift and nurture the Black community at Chime through action, service, and development opportunities, and to champion Anti-racism efforts across Chime. It’s committed to growing a resilient and thriving Black community that seeks to educate, embolden, inspire and develop employees within Chime, and continue to champion Anti-racism efforts across the company.
Where to start
Though each of our CRGs has a distinct mission and serves a different community, they ground themselves in our company values.
Allyship is a core goal of each of our CRGs. “At any company, the best place for allyship to take root is in its values, Brian believes. While some companies pay lip service to their values, others choose to live and breathe them. At Chime, we believe that leadership plays a huge role in this. Brian explains that, “As leaders, we must hold ourselves accountable to our company values and be open to the entire organization holding us accountable, too.”
Brian has learned the value of living Chime’s values because he’s seen the results. “By living our values and being active allies, we open up channels of communication,” he explains. “Personally, I’ve seen this first hand when teams and individuals reach out to other leaders and me asking about initiatives that matter to them — you just don’t get that kind of authenticity when people are afraid of challenging an executive team. When folks are doing their best to live the company’s values and to step up as allies, then we should expect to be held accountable by everyone.”
Melissa has experienced this, too, in the active role she’s played in defining and evolving the company’s values. When she joined the company over six years ago, the values were one of her top priorities. “It was the first time I felt truly aligned with company leaders on the vision for culture and how a values-based organization would take shape,” she explains.
The reason Chime’s values have carried the company so far is that they were established intentionally, in a process that Melissa actively participated in. “In setting our values, we have always focused on whether they were actionable — are they things we could picture ourselves saying, doing, living?” Melissa says. Today, we use our values in presentations, in Slack, meetings, and more. “Our values are part of our shared vocabulary and have become deeply ingrained in our culture,” Melissa explains. Because of the intention put into establishing the values, they’ve become easy to live by — for Chimers, leaders, and every member of the organization.
“Chime was the first time I felt truly aligned with company leaders on the vision for culture and how a values-based organization would take shape.” — Melissa Alvarado
Our company and CRGs have laid a foundation of values to live by and hold each other accountable to. “Our values help allies and underrepresented groups know they are supported and encouraged to work together to improve the workplace and our product for everyone,” Brian explains.
Why CRGs matter to the business
As CRGs improve the lives of Chimers by connecting them to our values and each other, they also create space for learning and education, build empathy, foster innovation and creativity, and help Chime, the product, constantly improve.
For Beth, “The best companies are those that listen to and accept a broad set of ideas and support people who may look or think differently.” She believes doing so is critical not only to our company culture’s success, but also to achieving our business objectives.
And the fact of the matter is, we serve a wide variety of different people at Chime. Having empathy and understanding for the people we serve is critical to the success of our company. “We’re working to give Americans financial peace of mind — and diversity is the very definition of American,” Brian explains. “By acting as allies and embracing diversity at our company, we’re better able to build products to serve our members.”
When we strive to be better allies to each other, our company becomes an ally, and we can better serve our members and communities by providing them with the products and services that are truly aligned with their needs and our mission. Everyone wins.
CRGs and allies in the time of COVID-19 and global change
Now, perhaps more than ever, allyship — and our CRGs — are important to the individual success of Chimers and the overall success of our company. With shelter-in-place orders extending across the country, “It can be hard to feel connected and stay close to people,” Beth explains. “With our CRGs, we’ve been able to stay connected in many ways and build our allyship muscle from afar — they’ve been a huge benefit to the company while we’re all working from home.”
While our CRGs are thriving and helping Chimers stay engaged throughout this time, Beth, Melissa, and Brian all agree that there’s room to do more. To that end, they’re working with each CRG to find ways to stay connected, build allyship, and become more active accomplices in their day to day at work and at home. “The work towards inclusion and belonging is never done, and we can always be better allies,” says Melissa. We’re thankful for our leaders — and all Chimers — for staying committed to the work, together.
Interested in joining our team? Visit our careers page to see our open positions.
