Despite a culture that promotes disruption, there are times when the technology industry finds itself in the spotlight for actions or positions that are not positive. When an internal Google memorandum that said that the firm’s attempt to create a more gender-balanced workforce was hurting the company leaked out, a public firestorm erupted and the writer was fired. Allegations of sexual discrimination and harassment by Uber Technologies Inc. executives forced out the chief executive officer earlier this year and triggered a months-long investigation.

These are just two recent examples of issues in the technology community that point to need for a change in attitude, in this case from the “bro culture” to one that recognizes women and their contributions on equal terms. “All of these things coming out in the press give us that entry to say, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ It’s allowing us to have these conversations which are uncomfortable,” said Vicki Mealer-Burke (pictured), vice president and chief diversity officer of Qualcomm Technologies Inc.

Mealer-Burke stopped by theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with host Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed the importance of recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, the need for managers to delegate equally and taking a re-engineering approach in an engineering culture.

Brightest minds needed for 5G deployment

The evolving role of a corporate diversity officer is anything but a “feel-good” position. Successful enterprises depend on being able to hire the brightest technology talent, regardless of gender, which means the company must be able to recruit and retain those people. Qualcomm’s major initiative to move its 5G technology into the wireless world depends on that.

“We need all kinds of bright minds looking at this from all different directions,” said Mealer-Burke. “That’s the diversity piece of it.”

One of the obstacles to diversity found in many corporate cultures is an unwillingness to spread responsibility to others. This takes a willingness to change attitudes and overcome reluctance on the part of managers to risk an unsuccessful outcome by letting employees take on new responsibility for the first time.

“Many managers just go back to the people who have been successful year after year,” Mealer-Burke explained. “What we’re trying to do is disrupt that.”

As recent news stories about gender discrimination and the contentious debate that followed have shown, the technology industry still has a long way to go before corporate diversity officers see the results of new approaches and initiatives.

“We understand re-engineering problems,” said Mealer-Burke, who came to the position after a lengthy career in business development at Qualcomm. “This is the biggest problem I’ve ever been tasked to solve.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Photo: SiliconANGLE