
Back to All News
Inclusion Takes Root at Netflix: Our First Report Vern Myers
VP of Inclusion Strategy
Play Video
Play Video
Social Impact
13 January 2021
GlobalUnited States
Listen to the audio version here
The night before my eighth birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and I saw my father cry for the first time. My family and community were rocked, and I can trace back my calling to work on inclusion and equity to that night. I decided to live King's dream.
I eventually became a beneficiary of that dream, so I made sure it wasn't in vain. For decades, as a consultant, I helped companies remove barriers for people from underrepresented and excluded communities. That path finally led me here to Netflix in 2018, when I joined forces with a company that had so much influence on which stories get told and by who.
We started by listening to Netflix employees about how it was to work here. The company added inclusion as a cultural value in 2017, but here's what we found: we weren't as great as we thought we were, or aspired to be. And over these last two years, our inclusion team has been building a foundation, sowing the seeds for inclusion to take root within the company.
Today, we're sharing what we've been working on with Netflix's first inclusion report. Here, we'll provide a snapshot of representation within the company, how we plan to increase it, and how we cultivate a community of belonging and allyship.
What inclusion unlocks
Let's begin with why inclusion and diversity matter at Netflix. A lot has been written about our culture of freedom and responsibility. Yet the most important thing we've learned is that when you pair that culture with diversity and inclusion - it unlocks our ability to innovate, to be creative, to solve problems. It breaks up group think. It brings different lived experiences and perspectives to a problem, so that we're no longer solving them in old ways. And, we're able to better entertain our current and future members.
Our inclusion strategy team can't do this alone. We need everyone to contribute. Each employee needs to look at every issue, decision, and meeting, inside and outside the company with inclusion in mind. We call this an inclusion lens, where employees ask questions like, whose voice is missing? Who is being excluded? Are we portraying this authentically?
When we get that right (more on that later), magic is possible. We're uplifting stories about Black British lives. We're chronicling the life of a gay man with cerebral palsy on TV, a first. We're moving some of our cash into Black banks. Inclusion is at the heart of so many of these moments, and we've asked employees to tell you how they came together in this video. Please take a look:
Illustrations by Ndubisi Okoye. Featured in order of appearance: Vern Myers, vice president of inclusion strategy; Ted Sarandos, co-CEO and chief content officer; Bozoma Saint John, chief marketing officer; Kabi Gishuru, director of inclusion recruiting programs; Aaron Mitchell, HR director for Netflix Animation; Rochelle King, vice president of creative production; Aaron Lynch, creative marketing manager; Frances Abebreseh, communications manager; Haydn Palmer, creative assistant; Gena-mour Barrett, editorial and publishing manager; and Cole Galvin, director of content acquisition.
The examples in this video only scratch the surface. We'll create more of them if more of our employees come from different backgrounds. As our co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos explains: inclusion on-screen starts with inclusion in our internal community. This report will cover the work we do internally at Netflix, and it starts with being transparent about the numbers.
Representation by the Numbers
Since 2013, we've published diversity data quarterly on our jobs site. Here's the current snapshot:
Women make up half of our workforce (47.1%), including at the leadership level: directors and above (47.8%), vice presidents (43.7%) and senior leadership (47.6%).
Nearly half of our U.S. workforce (46.4%) and leadership (42.0%, director level and above) are made up of people from one or more underrepresented racial and/or ethnic backgrounds, including Black, Latinx or Hispanic, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Pacific Islander backgrounds.
The number of Black employees in the U.S. doubled in the last three years to 8% of our workforce and 9% of our leadership (director level and above).
Data as of October 2020, at approximately 8,000 full time streaming employees. Leadership is defined as employees in director, vice president, and executive officer roles. Illustration by Ndubisi Okoye.We've made good progress over the last three years. You can dig into the trends in the footnotes. But let's be clear, we're not where we want to be and we need to do better. We have a lot of work to do to attract more underrepresented folks to our company. So we've created a team and plan to do that.
Increasing Representation
We rely on every recruiter, every leader, and every employee to invite more voices into Netflix. But it takes coordinated effort to do this well. Kabi Gishuru heads the inclusion recruiting programs team at Netflix, which helps us look at gaps in representation and find ways to narrow them now and in the long term. Some of the highlights of this work:
Hiring more inclusively: Recruiters play a vital role in finding candidates, interacting with them, and advising hiring managers. The inclusion recruiting programs team built a training curriculum to do this more inclusively, with topics like: spotting bias in the interview process, sourcing candidates in non-traditional ways, and helping hiring managers identify the perspectives missing on their teams. More than 200 people o
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
08/04/2026
The deadline to enter the 18th Annual SVG College Sports Media Awards in association with NACDA is rapidly approaching! Submit your entries to this year's c...
08/04/2026
The Pittsburgh product helps lead more than 100 annual ESPN broadcasts as part o...
08/04/2026
Dynamic ad insertion, AI-based technologies, programmatic advertising are some o...
08/04/2026
Seven Fellows Selected for Second Year of Residency in Honor of Social Justice L...
08/04/2026
On March 7, Bad Bunny made history with his first-ever performance in Asia, taki...
08/04/2026
El 7 de marzo, Bad Bunny hizo historia con su primera presentaci n en Asia, subi...
08/04/2026
New channel strip plug-in revealed
The latest plug-in to be added to the Fuse Audio Labs line-up emulates a selection of vintage hardware units, combining c...
08/04/2026
Guitar & bass multi-effects software overhauled
Blue Cat Audio's flagship guitar and bass multi-effects software has recently received a significant upd...
08/04/2026
PanNoir mixer integration, Dolby Atmos Renderer & more
Merging Technologies have just launched Pyramix 16, the latest major update to their renowned DAW sof...
08/04/2026
Applicable Products Part number Description
QUARTZ-22-LTE (EU) Dual Port Dual SIM LTE Router (EU)
QUARTZ-COMPACT-11-LTE (EU) Single Port Compact LTE ...
08/04/2026
The September 19, 2025 YEP Newsletter highlights a group visit to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, where participants explored exhibits showcasing the art...
08/04/2026
The L3Harris HBTSS satellite is proven on orbit, successfully demonstrating trac...
08/04/2026
Image Credit: NASA. Artist rendering of a space communications satellite in orbit, representative of the resilient, multiband infrastructure supporting mission ...
08/04/2026
Latest evaluation validates image quality, Inertial Navigation System performance and long-range tracking in operational flight conditions....
08/04/2026
New Gracenote study finds behavioral change well underway, but trust in AI-gener...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Integration eliminates ingest bottlenecks by ensuring content is immediately usable across cloud and hybrid editorial workflows. See it at NAB 2026.
Nevada Cit...
08/04/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the commercial availability of Dalia, its media-aware, agentic AI...
08/04/2026
Leading video software provider Synamedia today announced Senza Ignite, a cloud-based platform that transforms existing connected devices through a single firmw...
08/04/2026
Modernised architecture increases operational control and agility, while reducing cost and simplifying nationwide media transport across affiliates and news bur...
08/04/2026
Company to Feature DMX Dual Relay, High-Density 48-Channel Relay Panels, and New Private Label Power Program
LynTec, a leading manufacturer of innovative ele...
08/04/2026
Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE), a European media technology and services partner, today announces a technology partnership with BCNEXXT, a Netherlands-based c...
08/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media today announced the expansion of its Master Control Room (MCR) facility in Riga, Latvia, establishing it as one of the most advanced and...
08/04/2026
Leading video solutions provider Synamedia is back at The 2026 NAB Show with innovations that connect tomorrows audiences today. On display will be a range of t...
08/04/2026
COW Jobs: Director Needed for WWII Indie Docudrama
Brie Clayton April 8, 2026
0 Comments
Director Needed for WWII Indie Docudrama
March 17, 2026COW ...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/04/2026
Marshall Electronics introduces its latest POV camera with the new CV376 Compact NDI |HX3 HDMI POV Camera at NAB 2026 (Booth C8339). Designed for versatile 4K c...
08/04/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, enables interoperable live video workflows across multi-vendor environments, helping broadcast...
08/04/2026
All episodes available on Thursday 30 April on Sky Atlantic and NOWWednesday 8 A...
08/04/2026
Back to All News
Agent from Above' Celebrates Divine Ascent to Global Rank...
08/04/2026
Back to All News
Official Poster Revealed for My Two Cents, the New Animated Se...
08/04/2026
ICG is gearing up for a busy day on 14th May in Manchester.
First up, we'll be joining the Northern Marketing Festival as one of the event's marketing ...
08/04/2026
The Teatro Col n in Buenos Aires is not a venue that tolerates compromise. Built in 1908 and routinely ranked among the worlds finest concert halls, it has an a...
08/04/2026
Young Forever: The Death of Ageing? airs Monday 13 April and 20 April on RT One and RT Player
Around the world, the race to beat ageing is on. From cutting ...
08/04/2026
Scripps Research scientists uncover new mechanism cancer cells use to survive DNA damage Discovery reshapes understanding of how tumor cells repair broken DNA, ...
07/04/2026
Ikegami USA will launch a refinement to the UHK-X700 and UHK-X750 3-CMOS -in. UHD cameras in the UNICAM XE series plus two new 7-in. viewfinders at NAB 2026 in...
07/04/2026
The NAB Leadership Foundation and NAB PILOT will host a career mixer for technology students at NAB Show 2026 on April 18, 5-6:30 p.m., North Hall, Room N225/22...
07/04/2026
Audinate Group Limited and Futuresource Consulting have published results from a...
07/04/2026
Eluvio has announced the commercial availability of its Content Fabric Bucharest...