Elena Gomez, BS 91 - Passionate About Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

OneHaas

Today we're joined by Elena Gomez, Chief Financial Officer of Toast, a cloud-based, end-to-end technology platform purpose-built for the entire restaurant community. Before Toast, she served as the Chief Financial Officer at Zendesk, where she helped scale the company to over 1 billion in annual revenues. Currently, she serves on the board at Haas School of Business and The Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco.

Elena talks about her origin story, rich culture, what inspired her to go into finance and accounting, and her vast career experience in different tech companies. She also shares why she is deeply passionate about and committed to advancing diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace.

Episode Quotes:

One reason why being a Latina and a female is important to her in her career

“I was always looking up trying to see if there was someone that looked like me. And then I realized how important it was that, in fact, I had a responsibility to kick butt in the job, because I wanted to show them that, not only am I Latina and I'm a female, but I'm going to crush the job. I want to do really well for the next generation, so people can see that. Give us an opportunity and you'll see we're going to crush it.”

On getting a job that is aligned with your values

“It really helps you every day, because you're going to spend all this time working 14-hour days, 12-hour days, etc. And so, for me, the fact that we (Toast) could be in communities and, really, our mission-driven company to help small businesses really resonated with me. So, that alignment of your values with where you work, I think, is really powerful if you can find it.”

Show Links:

• LinkedIn

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