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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) Influencers

The DE&I Influencers list honors individuals who are advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within their organizations and across the workforce solutions ecosystem at large. 

2024 DE&I Influencers

Angela Westhead

Manager, Contingent Workforce and BPO | Zendesk

Honoree profile

Angela Westhead has made an impact at two organizations’ DE&I programs. At Zendesk, where she is procurement manager, contingent workforce and BPO, she has focused her efforts on providing opportunities to minority-owned businesses by optimizing the company’s supplier program. The results: 80% of competitive bid suppliers being minority business enterprises. Westhead’s work has also resulted in the doubling of minority spend over the past year.

She also led supplier optimization efforts at Twitter (now X), where she worked prior to Zendesk. The initiative led to 50% of vendors being minority business enterprises.

Still, one of the things that she’s most proud of is her work with parents.

I like the idea that we can make space to support single parents in this area because it will just lead to greater outcomes for our children and for ourselves.

Westhead’s work in DE&I started when she faced challenges as a single parent during the pandemic. Although she was able to work from home, she knew she was lucky, as not every parent has a job that allows them to stay with their children during the day. Additionally, the high-tech industry is known for providing good pay and benefits, but it’s also notorious for being very difficult work and very high stress, Westhead says. She sought to “give a voice to [the parent] experience and make a space for other working parents to be themselves at work and be caregivers and still be productive members of the workforce,” she explains.

To that end, Westhead created a subcommunity of single mothers at Twitter to share ideas and connect during the workday. She also led a parents’ initiative that included a holiday story time for children where workers of all backgrounds read books to the children about their cultural holidays, and she created inclusive content for parents during Parents’ Week at Twitter, which included topics such as body image, nutrition and stress management.

“I like the idea that we can make space to support single parents in this area because it will just lead to greater outcomes for our children and for ourselves,” she says. “That’s what I’m most proud of.”