Most often when an internal email from a CEO makes it out onto social media it is a sign of a company in turmoil. Today however I want to take the time to give a shout out to our CEO, Richard Parker for an email and blog post about our company values that he shared with us yesterday. I feel that his words are incredibly powerful so, with his permission, I would like to share them with you today:

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Subject: I’m proud of you.

It’s National Pride Month.

I’ve written a piece about it here, because it’s a topic I care about. I’ve also taken the small step of changing our website logo.

Diversity has been objectified over the years. Probably because it brings attention to inequality, and rightly so. But I hope that each of you, in whatever way matters most to you, recognise that, to me, you’re more than your ‘skill’. 

Whether you realise it or not you’ve all been hand-picked because we liked you. For everything you have brought to the table and for everything you have, and will, go on to achieve here.

It’s entirely up to you whether you wish to join our temporary rebrand to show support externally, nobody will judge you either way. And I want to be clear: you don’t have to sport the rainbow colours to be supportive (support doesn’t have to be overt!). But should you wish to, you may use the logo below to update your signature (please don’t alter our logo in any other way; use it as it is).

We’re a very small company. But it says it at the top of every single one of our policies: we care. And I care. 

And that’s the only reason I’m using my incredibly small platform to highlight why I’m proud of the team we’ve built and how, especially during this month, it’s important to celebrate all our people.

Richard Parker
CEO, Altitude Angel
www.altitudeangel.com

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Diversity matters

Finding this mail in my inbox this morning reminded me of the reasons that I “go to work” every day and energised me for the day’s challenges. Company culture matters and if you want the best people to work hard for you, it is important that they feel welcomed for who they are, for what they bring to the table rather than gender identity, race, religion, sexuality or even political views.

It is easy to imagine that as a stereotypical straight white male working in tech, such concerns don’t matter to me. They matter immensely and I am proud of the team that I work with every day.

We are still on-boarding the latest diverse group of hires but as we make the move from startup to scale-up recruitment is becoming a more or less continuous process. If you live in the UK and feel inspired to join us, feel free to have a look here at what positions we are currently recruiting for. We are based in Reading but happy to consider remote roles for the right people.