EP 16:  Katherine Johnson, Chief People & Legal Officer, Head of Compliance - Storj Labs

James Mackey  0:00  

Hi, and welcome to episode 16 of Talent Acquisition trends and Strategy. Today we are joined by Katherine Johnson.  Katherine, welcome to the show!

 

Katherine Johnson  0:19  

Thank you so much for being here, James.

 

James Mackey  0:22  

We're so happy to host you. And we have so many amazing topics to discuss today. And before we jump into it, it'd be great if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're working on right now.

 

Katherine Johnson  0:33  

Sure thing, thank you. So I'm Katherine Johnson, I use she/they pronouns. I am the Chief People Legal and Compliance Officer at Storj Labs. So, typical startup, I wear many hats. 

 

My day-to-day involves a lot of HR matters. We're an approximately 80-person company. We have team members across five continents. And in over 17 countries. We have both team members, or FTEs, and contractors, some part-time employees. So we've got a whole big mix of things going on as far as HR goes. 

 

In the legal and compliance world, we're quite busy as well. So Storj Labs is a decentralized Cloud Object Storage network, we use a storage token. So it's a digital asset that's used to pay people for unused disk drive space. So you can kind of think of it as like an Airbnb for disk drives. And so we use the storage token to make payments to storage node operators all over the world. 

 

This allows us to make rapid low-fee payments and to be able to have this wonderful storage network. So that's how we use the blockchain. Is with the storage network. The network itself is not on the blockchain. And I always like to clarify that a little bit. Because as we're moving into this web of three worlds of decentralization, some of it's still kind of new to people.

 

James Mackey  2:00  

Sure. Well, that sounds like a really cool product. You said you're currently at 80 employees. Are you growing quickly right now?

 

Katherine Johnson  2:07  

Yes, we are. We've got several roles open. And, continuing to add, we just added a Chief Revenue Officer. So it's an exciting time to be at Storj Labs, a lot of good growth happening.

 

James Mackey  2:21  

Oh, it sounds like it. How long have you been there?

 

Katherine Johnson  2:24  

It'll be three years in September. And before that, I was an Advisor.  I was an advisor to the company for about six, or seven months, and got to know the team. And actually, when I started there, I had just left Coinbase, I moved to the Midwest. And I was planning on taking a sabbatical, which I felt ready for because I was at Coinbase, during the Bitcoin run-up years 2017 to 2019. And so I was ready to just take a little break and spend time with my family.

 

Then the CEO reached out to me and said, Hey, we're ready to hire our first general counsel. How do you feel about that? And I really couldn't say no, honestly, because I had been working with the team for a while and had gotten to know them, and really got to understand the company, its values, and its personality. And so my sabbatical went out the window. And I jumped in. And it was the first time that I was in a People Ops role. I had done employment law before but had never actually dipped my foot in HR itself. So that was all new to me. But you know, I had great support and foundation to build it out.

 

James Mackey  3:35  

Very cool. I saw that you owned your own law firm for several years. So it was that when you were doing the advisory for all these different companies when you had your own firm?

 

Katherine Johnson  3:44  

Well, a little bit of both. So before Coinbase, I was actually out east, I was in New York, and I worked for Ernst and Young. And I was in anti-money laundering largely and compliance, bank secrecy, act work, you know, counter-terrorist financing. And I was working with a number of big, large banks, most of whom had some regulatory issues. And so I was helping them sort through that. And then I also had a legal practice. 

 

So my professional career, pre-tech straddled legal and compliance, had a little bit of securities had a little bit of compliance regulatory, and so it did set me up well, both from having my own practice to be in the startup world, but then also in being exposed to and working in that regulatory world. To understand what are regulators looking for, what they expect of programs, and then to be able to take that into crypto was very helpful because there especially in the years when I was starting out, you know, it was important to be able to explain crypto to the regulators and explain regulators to you know, the folks who didn't have exposure to them before?

 

James Mackey  5:02  

Sure. Wow. Well, and I know right now you're actually writing a book, right?

 

Katherine Johnson  5:06  

Yes, I am. Early stages, but I felt compelled to do it. Because, you know, we're moving into this huge opportunity with web three, to essentially get right, what web two got wrong. And there's been a lot of discussion about what went wrong. Issues around data privacy and ownership, problems with algorithms not being built or designed by people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds. And that has negative impacts largely on people who are already marginalized, communities of color, people who've been left out of tech already you know, women engineers.

 

So what I saw was that, if we have the right diversity of perspectives at the table, when we're building the technology, there will be a lower likelihood of the products that we build, having negative unintended impacts, or consequences. And so, I've been talking for a while about regulation, and in crypto, and why it matters. And my perspective has largely been from someone who came from a socio-economically disadvantaged background and seeing cryptocurrency and digital assets as a way to provide a more level playing field for people and to be able to, open up financial systems and financial opportunities for people all over the world. And, for people who are unbanked or underbanked, you know, including here in the US. 

 

And so that was kind of what got me into this world. But then, what I've grown more and more interested in, especially working with a company like Storj Labs, that's an open source company and has built its values around open source values, transparency, openness, etc, you will own your own data, I've seen even more how technology had an impact in ways that it, you know, either they weren't intended, which I think is the case with a lot of the algorithm issues. Or they maybe weren't intended, as I think was the case with a lot of the data issues. 

 

So now is a really important time to look at it. Okay, so that didn't go well, right? And web two, and it had these impacts, what can we do now to not repeat those mistakes or as needed, even look at, you know, regulation, potentially, to address that. And so there's a lot to mind there, including the interplay between government and private companies, and where the responsibility lies.

 

James Mackey  8:03  

That's really interesting. And one of the reasons why I'm so excited for this conversation today is to get a little bit deeper into the science and psychology behind the D&I. And what types of processes and policies can be implemented in order for companies to truly make progress? 

 

I do have an opportunity to speak with a lot of CEOs and executives, primarily startups and growth-stage organizations. And, I think there's a general understanding that, of course, D&I needs to be a priority within the organization. But I think that a lot of people out there would love to hear a little bit more about, okay, where do we really get started? And how can we actually make sure that we're making the progress we need to make? And, also specifically for companies that have a similar size to Storj, right? 

 

Because a lot of people are employed by SMBs. Right. So it can't just be enterprise companies that are doing this because such a large percentage of America is employed by the SMB market. So SMBs really have to step up and think about these things and implement change. Right? I know one of the topics we discussed was job descriptions and unconscious bias. I don't know if that's a good place to start. Or maybe that's too tactical. Maybe we need to zoom back in a little bit and then dive into it. What do you think?

 

Katherine Johnson  9:30  

Well, first, I just want to completely agree with you, the responsibility is on all of us, regardless of the stage company that you're at. You're never too small. You're never too new to get started. In fact, a drum that I've been pounding for a long time is that it's important to get it right early on and to build D&I values into your framework because I've seen too many places, how hard it is to turn the ship around if that hasn't happened, and the amount of effort and cost that it takes at that stage, can be really daunting. 

 

But there were three things that you said in your question that I just want to hone in on because I think they're really important. You said processes, policy, and progress. And I love that you said processes and policy because those are words that everybody's familiar with, right? We apply that to some parts of our company. 

 

And I think it's important to take the skills we already have, that we already use in other parts of our companies and organizations and entities and apply them to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Because of course, there's no doubt, everybody wants diversity, I mean, who's going to say, Oh, we don't want diversity, that's not what they're going to say, you know, what you hear is? Well, you know, we don't have the resources, we don't have the time, it takes too much effort, we need to focus on the business, etc, etc, etc. 

 

However, anyone who even scratches the surface of it, and does research already knows that there is a wealth of resources and research that will show you that D&I is good for business, right? Not only is it good for business, but it's also just the right thing to do. So if you apply the skills that you already have, and one of them is building out processes and policies, then you've got a great start right there. It's not worth a whole lot of debate. In my opinion, just get started. 

 

And so what we've focused on is we've focused on a structural framework for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Storj. And I think I've brought my sort of compliance hat here because in compliance, what we do, when we look at anti-money laundering programs, for example, if we take it and we break it up bit by bit, wherein each stage of the process or the thing prone to risk? You know, what is that risk? And are we able to mitigate? Or are we able to control it? Are we going to live with it? And if we live with it, what are the consequences? And have, we looked that in the face and said, okay, yeah, that's a risk. And we can live with it for now. And then it can always change. But by taking that, and really looking at everything,  that helps you know where you can put your resources. 

 

So that's what we did with our hiring practices. Over the last two years. Storj has really refined its hiring practices and actually done the exercise of breaking it apart and looking at every stage from beginning to end. And looking just at that one process. So the job description is one, you know, who's writing it? Who's reviewing it? Where are we posting it? And then the writing of it? If you haven't, this is you know, issue with having places that lack diversity is that you know, you're likely to have someone maybe who's not diverse who's or who's not from, you know, who's not a person of color or not an underrepresented person of color or not a woman writing it. And so there may be language that they use that they're used to, that they don't even know can be off-putting to people who are underrepresented. 

 

And so what we did, there was somebody within our company, a team member, white man, who took it upon himself to do research on that and put together a training so that other people who are looking at job descriptions or writing them will know what some trigger languages that can be off-putting,

 

James Mackey  13:31  

Is this training publicly accessible? Could we get a link to some kind of document that was put together or something like that, because I think that would be incredibly valuable!

 

Katherine Johnson  13:42  

Let me look into that it was actually tied into the video recording that we have, was also part of it included some things that were very company specific. And so we record a lot, we do record a lot, though. And then what we do is, we don't have to redo the training every time just when somebody joins, before they join any hiring team, we say take this training, and so they take the training so that we're all on the same page, and the job descriptions themselves then going through a 24-hour review with the D&I council. So it goes into the Slack channel and whoever can grab it, grabs it and checks it off, and says okay, I've done this. 

 

Now meanwhile, my people ops team has written all of this out step by step, so that we've got it and that's an internal doc for people ops, but it's very specific so that we can have processes that are repeatable. And what we're aiming for is we're aiming for the candidate experience to be the same candidate to candidate to candidate. And so after the job description gets the D&I review, then it's posted. When we put together our hiring teams. We make them intentionally diverse because we represent the company and we want to show that we encourage people billets introduce themselves with their pronouns, one of the things that that does is that it indicates to the candidates, this is a place that values that kind of inclusion. And it's a two-way street, not everybody is going to be comfortable with that level of inclusion. And it's a way to kind of tip our hat or, you know, tip our cards for them so that they know, that's what kind of place it is. 

 

Now, conversely, I also like to focus on inclusion being broader than most people think of it. This means that not everybody is going to think the same. Not everybody is going to be progressive. You know, inclusion doesn't mean everyone is liberal. What it means is that we make space and we make sure that everybody here feels welcome, no matter how different their viewpoints are, their background, their perspective, what have you. And so it's an act of practice, in addition to the processes and policies,

 

James Mackey  15:58  

So curious to dive into that a little bit. Because, being inclusive isn't about just being liberal, for instance, right? How do you balance that? Right? Because, obviously, you know, somebody has very different values, as it ties to some of the topics that are important to us and the D&I. That is an interesting topic, I think.

 

Katherine Johnson  16:19  

Yes, I think it's a tough one to navigate. And I think that's a good sign. Also, if we were doing things that were just easy, then I think we probably aren't pushing ourselves enough. But what I do,  let's just say, for example, um, there are people of certain religions that don't like swearing, they don't like to be exposed to it. And there has been a time when we reminded people that it's important to be able to express ourselves, but we also have to be mindful that for some people, it's off-putting, it's upsetting to them. And in order to have good productive conversations, and to truly have inclusion, it's important that we have that. 

 

There was a candidate who was a very strong candidate, and you'll love this person's background, though it was great. And the person picked up on how inclusive we are, and said, You know, I'm not really comfortable with referring to someone by their pronouns that aren't aligned with their biological gender. We had a couple of long conversations with this candidate and said, you know, that's diversity, also. And we said, Yes, I agree, that it is, however, we also prioritize a sense of safety of the people who are here. And so what we don't want to introduce is someone who is going to have difficulty interacting with them because of their views. 

 

And so we had, like, a couple of hard conversations with this person. I did personally and JT Olio, our head of engineering is absolutely amazing, did as well. And, sometimes you have to make hard decisions. And ultimately, that person as much as we respect that person for being open and candid, and having those discussions with us, that person it's not at Storj.

 

James Mackey  18:48  

It's not going to be a cultural fit, ultimately.

 

Katherine Johnson  18:56  

We want that person to be comfortable too.  So it's really tough. It really is, and a lot of times there, there aren't really easy answers. But we've always been remote first. But we provide a lot of opportunities to talk to each other and share thoughts. It's a very open kind of place. 

 

Every Friday, we have a PLC open office hour, where we're just there and anyone can pop in and ask questions, and when we have new people joining, we use it as a time to welcome them. And we just open up and have conversations about whatever is not work-related, you know, just to get to know each other. So, I tell everybody, it's been my favorite place to work. I've had a long career, but it's both been my favorite job and my favorite place to work.

 

James Mackey  19:47  

Well, sure, I think I can see it. I mean, three and a half years in the growth stage is not easy every day. Six months, it's like you're getting up there. I mean, maybe not quite that but you know, three and a half years is a long time. 

 

 I just want to circle back to one thing you were talking about: the kind of compliance and regulatory framework that you use as a lens to look into processes and see where the risk is. And okay, what does that risk mean? What is our actual exposure? Or where can it break down? How could that impact the organization? 

 

I think that's really brilliant, almost I don't know, knowledge is the right word, but it makes it so applicable to every process that you can build out for a business, isn't it? Whether we're talking D&I, customer success or employee journey, client journey, or contractor.

 

Unknown Speaker  20:35  

Yes. Culture, morale.

 

James Mackey  20:38  

Is that framework going to be in your book, I feel that's super valuable. 

 

Katherine Johnson  20:47  

I am going to share that. And we've also shared that a bit in the D&I report. So going back to the very first question, when you mentioned progress, how do we measure progress? That was a really important part of how we built out our D&I program because we recognize that, if we're not looking at it, we're not looking at the data, we're not looking at the numbers, we're not going to know whether the inputs are having an effect, right, are having the impact that we want. 

 

So we also have an annual report every year, we started last year, and we're working on the current one now. And the first one was pretty lengthy, 50 pages, but some of those are a little bit of text, and there are some graphics, and there are some appendices, and one of the appendices is the Storj hiring practices guide. So it actually lays this stuff out and includes very tactical things, using, when we're talking about candidates using non-gendered pronouns, just they, you know, to avoid if there are unconscious biases to avoid triggering those. 

 

But yes, I think that because I've heard so often we want more diversity, but oh, there's a pipeline problem, or, you know, we want to but we don't know how to do it? Yes, using the compliance approach, you know, so to speak, is something that is going to be touched on for sure in the book.

 

James Mackey  22:19  

And I want to talk a little bit more about specific hiring policies that your team is implementing. Could you share with us what you do, everything from when candidates are applying or when you have a slate of candidates, different parameters you put in place to ensure diversity? Could you tell us about some of the metrics and some of the policies?

 

Katherine Johnson  22:45  

For sure, for sure. Well, one of the things that we do that I think is fairly unique, is the use of the Rooney Rule and parity pledge and how we use those two tools. So the Rooney rule came about in the NFL, and it was in response to the criticism that you have these teams where there are a lot of players of color, but then when you get into the leadership ranks, you're not seeing so many people of color. And so the Rooney rule says that, well, you know, you're not going to hire somebody if you don't bring them in for an interview, right? So we're not going to extend an offer, unless and until we've had at least one person of color interview for this senior role. And actually, the Rooney rule became a little more well known and popularised early in the Obama administration, when there was a day when they looked at what different people in the industries are doing with regard to hiring, that are good practices. And so this got a little more exposure then. 

 

And what we did was we took that and we said, Well, okay, we're not going to do that just with the senior ranks, we're going to do that with every role. So with every roll at Storj, we do not make an offer unless we've interviewed. And then what we did was we doubled it, not just one, but two underrepresented people of color. So this means underrepresented in tech. And the reason that we went to two is because there was a study that was done in the Harvard Business Review that showed that if you bring in two candidates from underrepresented backgrounds versus one, the chances are exponentially greater that you're going to hire a person of color. 

 

And so we applied that to the Rooney Rule. And then which, you know, which we track. And then we applied it also to something called parody pledge. So parity pledge it's an organization that was started that had the same kind of approach as far as women in senior roles and said, Okay, I interview at least one woman for these senior roles, and then you make the parity pledge and you sign on. 

 

We've applied that to every role. In the company, same as with Rooney Rule, and again, doubled it on because of that research that showed the greater likelihood of bringing in, you know, a person who's underrepresented.

 

James Mackey  25:11  

Well, that's really great. Can you share with us a little bit about outcomes and progress that's been made? Since you've implemented these changes?

 

Katherine Johnson  25:20  

Yes, I am going to have to pull up our report, because we have it, we lay it all out there. And like I said, we are now working on the current version, so we'll have even more updated numbers. And working on the report was really rewarding. And I do recommend it to any company that wants to put in a little time. 

 

We don't have a D&I team, we have a D&I Council, which is very loose, we have meetings every other week, and people drop in, they show up, and get a lot of different people there. The reason that we've chosen not to have a D&I team per se, is because we really believe that everybody is responsible for D&I efforts, and everybody benefits from them. 

 

The outcomes are not restricted to underrepresented people or people who have been underrepresented, but rather everybody, you know, the mentorship program, for example, came about from our looking at, hey, what can we do better? Or what are we not doing now that we could be doing better? We keep the questions really simple. When we look at the program, it's usually, what are we doing well now? And what can we be doing better? Just those two questions. 

 

And then we do roundtables, and say, Okay, what do you think is working well, and then we take all of those answers, every single one of them, and we categorize them. So it's a data-driven approach to how we're going to run our program.

 

James Mackey  27:06  

Sure. Where do you store all this data? Is this just like in a big Excel file? Or is this an HR solution?

 

Katherine Johnson  27:17  

So we did the analysis of it, and then we put it on Confluence, so anyone can see it. And that's completely in line with our values. So as an open source company, as I said, we really value transparency and openness. So all of our work, you get to see everything of you know, how the sausage is made. And I think that's really important because it helps when other companies are saying, I just don't know how to do this. Well, here you go! Here's, some ideas, and we want people to, take it, use it, while it may be a competitive advantage, because we've got an extraordinarily high, you know, engagement enps scores, and then just, you know, anecdotally, you know, I talked to a lot of people, and, people do remark on how unique our culture is, and how much they love it.

 

Of course, we can always do something better, and not saying I'm perfect, but I don't want to, hoard that information, what we're doing, right? I want to make a difference in the industry, I want more companies to be the kinds of places where people really want to be.

 

I mean, I've had so many challenges throughout my career, just like, I don't like going to an office. And for many years, it was just, like, unheard of to work remotely. And I remember thinking to myself, how am I going to survive this? I can't stand this, so much of my life, if I wake up in the morning, I get dressed up in this monkey suit, I get on the subway, I'm reading The Wall Street Journal, I'm walking in. 

 

There were things about my job that I loved, otherwise, I wouldn't have been doing it. I'm a programmatic thinker. And, I like things to be databased, I like things to be analytical. I like things to be clear, crisp, and that's kind of a thing about being aware, too, then you can get to the subtle stuff, and the more, you know, challenging sorts of things that you have the same baseline, you know, but the work itself, like the process of going into an office and sitting inside all day, drove me crazy. I didn't know what I was going to do, or how I was going to survive my own career. 

 

And so now I love that people are rethinking work and it's like, yes,  there's so much cognitive diversity in the world, and you're going to get the best out of people, if you give them the ability to say how they want to work, where they want to work and, largely, when they want to work. Working across time zones, we do have a number of hours where we try to fit in, you know, the meetings to accommodate everybody. But other than that there's a lot of flexibility in the timing. 

 

But so in our D&I report, the first appendix is the analysis of, you know, how did this go? What was the impact, and I will say, some of the highlights of the impact of the efforts. And again, this is our D&I  report that we've published for the time period that ended the first quarter of 2021. Our next one will be in the second quarter of 2021 through the first quarter of 2022. So this is even dated, I'm excited to look at our numbers now in the new report. 

 

But to the previous report, 58% of people who were hired in that period were people of color. 54% of people who were hired in that period were women. 46% of our managers and directors are women in that time period. 45% of our managers and directors are people of color 33% of the C suite are black or African American, more than 25% of engineers are people of color, and 13% of team members are LGBTQ plus. And so that's in that time period, we need, you know, the new numbers will be updated, but we were seeing impacts even then.

 

James Mackey  31:25  

Wow, that's incredible. So it seems like it's definitely working. And I'm excited to hear the new stats when you have the new report to share. We're coming up on time, we got a little under 10 minutes. 

 

I would love to know any kind of playbooks or anything that you would feel comfortable sharing as it pertains to people ops or D&I. I think the way that you're going about doing this, and what you're implementing is really helpful. And it's really working. And what I like is it's not just this high-level strategy, right? These are the trends we're seeing and what you're really getting into, this is how you implement it and actually get the results that we're after.

 

So anything that you're willing to share. I guess we might just have to wait for the book, but I would like to review or, even if it's not a public document that we can share with other people, I would just love to get a sense of some of your playbooks because it just seems really impressive stuff that you're doing right now.

 

Katherine Johnson  32:27  

Well, thank you, thank you very much. I have to be honest, and say, it's a pretty hodgepodge. I do like the research that the Harvard Business Review comes out with. I read Wired, Twitter, you know, here and there, I tried to not damage my attention span. So I try to keep some of the social media limited and read. I do like podcasts, I like podcasts, like this. Employee cycle has one that I like checking out here and there. And, then, just going to different panels and presentations and things largely in the, you know, web three realms, but also in kind of the regulatory world.  I find that helpful, and then just align myself with different organizations that are working on things that are harmonious with what we're working on. And there's a lot of that in the Twin Cities, it's really been a fantastic, ecosystem to get to know  since I moved here a few years ago,

 

James Mackey  33:35  

One person I'm actually just thinking I should introduce you to is Janine Yancey, she runs a company called Emtrain. And she actually has a similar background to yours. And she started off as an attorney and had her own firm. And she's still an attorney. But, she started off with her own firm and started to do a lot of advising primarily on tech companies. And now, basically, she's converted a lot of her compliance. And people focused advisement into a product company that basically is focused on D&I and on the health of growth stage organizations and enterprise companies, cultures, and how to remove workplace harassment and unconscious bias discrimination from the organization. 

 

I think you both would have a very interesting conversation and a lot of shared experiences. So yes, hopefully, I'll be able to introduce you both this week via email, because I think you guys, you'd really hit it off.

 

Katherine Johnson  34:43  

That would be really, really great. One other thing that I wanted to mention is the Storj Institute, which we stood up this year. And it's designed to help educate people about the benefits of decentralization and also help underrepresented people get a foothold in tech. And so there are a lot of really fantastic projects that have been started, that are, you know, looking at how we can use technology to address, some of the social and justices, and to right the wrongs and to provide tools for people, especially in BIPOC communities. 

 

We want to highlight those projects, and we're working with Storj Inc, which has a grant program to help fund some of those projects. And so we're just getting off the ground this year. But I'm really excited about what Storj Institute is going to do as well.

 

James Mackey  35:43  

Very cool. I'm looking forward to hearing more news on that. And, another question, we got a couple of minutes here. You mentioned 80 people, five continents, and 17 countries. Any advice to people, leaders out there that are working in several time zones, and multicultural teams? 

 

What are some of the biggest lessons learned, working with an international company, from a people perspective, tonne acquisition perspective? And even just a just working perspective, right, just being effective working in several different time zones, and these types of things? Do you have any takeaways from your experience doing this?

 

Katherine Johnson  36:26  

Yes, so some of it is concrete as I mentioned. Just talking with your team about what are the best times to have meetings. And what time should be and? And how is that going to work? What do we do when people don't honor or respect that? And what are the tools that we have to try to enforce that block off certain times have meeting-free days, that sort of thing? 

 

But then some of it is a little more cultural? And there's a book called the Culture Map by Erin Meyers. And we brought her in to speak at an all company last week, and it looks at, you know, how do people communicate based on there, of course, there's always going to be this is not going to apply to everybody, but generally speaking, What are the different styles of communication geographically around the world? And how do you work with that, if you're not from that culture, what do you need to understand about it? And so we talk a lot about culture and communication. And we got that book, and gave it to everybody before Erin came and spoke to us. 

 

So we've got this kind of common language to talk about things. And we try to do that, as much as possible. And a lot of ways we do it is through the speaker series. So at every oil company week, we have a speaker come in, we're going to be having Brian Solies at our upcoming one in July. And then we also in between have the speaker series changes, the alternates focused on wellness and then focus on D&I, typically D&I and tech, we have been featuring some of the projects that I mentioned, that have been, coming out of, you know, the difficult years, the Twin Cities has had. There's one called Turn Signal that addresses some of the issues around law enforcement encounters with everybody, but especially with people of color. 

 

Rachel Cash has a company that is looking at data privacy, how can we take back ownership of our data and monetize it if we want to, so she came in as a speaker. Elaine Rasmussen came in and recently talked about financial wellness, and like, especially if you're from a background where you weren't well off, what is the impact of that? How do you think about it in your own life? How do you address that, you know, the trauma that can come about from being raised in poverty?

 

James Mackey  39:09  

Are these sessions recorded and accessible to people if they wanted to hear about, to listen in? Or is it just private for your organization?

 

Katherine Johnson  39:20  

They are recorded and posted internally. We haven't yet posted them externally, but we certainly can look at that. They're really amazing there. We try to make sure to stay connected with how all of our team members are and provide them with resources like this and provide an open space where people can talk about especially as we're coming out of the pandemic, and, you know, a whole bunch of global trauma. We have a Ukraine team and people live in really extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and continue working and contributing. And, obviously we owe it to everybody to support them any way we can. So we do try to be very thoughtful and, you know, also, again, kind of data-driven. 

 

And what we do right now, one of my team members is wrapping up a company-wide one-on-one tour, just checking in and seeing what people think in terms of what's going well, and how we can do things better. I do think we pull out the stops, and it helps build a better product, it helps build better teams, stronger teams, and you know, going back to my selfish thought, you know, it makes like, hopefully, makes people have a happier work life

 

James Mackey  40:47  

One thing that continuously proves itself to me is that generally when you do the right thing, it's the right thing for business. A lesson that I keep learning over and over again. So I agree with everything you're saying. But we are up on time, if people want to engage with you or follow your content, how can people find you online?

 

Katherine Johnson  41:07  

Sure. Okay, so the first Storj website is storj.io. And then on Twitter, I'm at I'm the Katy J. 

 

James Mackey  41:33  

Cool Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This was incredibly valuable. So I know the audience is really going to enjoy tuning in. This was great. And we would love to host you again in the future if you're up for it.

 

Katherine Johnson  41:46  

I'd love it. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this and love what you're doing.

 

James Mackey  41:50  

Thank you and to everybody tuning in. Thanks for joining us today, and I'll see you next time. Take care.