Leading Diversity at Facebook

Leading DIVERSITY

at Facebook

Sandra Altiné, ’86, vice president, workforce diversity & inclusion at Facebook, learned at an early age the importance of spending time with people who looked, acted and thought differently than she did. Born in Haiti, Altiné spent much of her childhood in Cambria Heights, Queens. When she was 14, she moved back to Haiti and attended an American school. The school was predominately white, which made Altiné a minority at a school within her native country. “I was almost in the in-group because I spoke English and was from New York, but I was also part of the outgroup,” she said. “Even as a young girl, I realized there were differences and those differences can either make you greater or they can really hinder you.” Altiné returned to New York for her senior year of high school and started looking at colleges in the area. Although she wasn’t quite sure what career path she wanted to pursue, she was intrigued by business and economics. LIU’s reputation and location piqued her interest in the University. “Once I stepped on the Brookville campus, I really fell in love with it,” Altiné said. “Its beauty and its rich history in business drew me in. The campus was home.” The University’s international relations program offered a blended curriculum of business and political science, which proved to be a perfect fit for Altiné’s interests and gifting. “I knew I wanted to do something in global trade finance,” she said. “Even as a young adult, I knew what I wanted. I learned early on to trust my gut." With her eyes set on landing a job at a major financial company, Altiné started her professional career working at J.P. Morgan. Despite her lack of experience, she took on a management role early on, leading a team of 20 employees in global trade operations. After five years in that position, she moved to human resources and helped launch the company’s first diversity initiatives.

In 2005, Altiné accepted a position as chief operating officer at The FutureWork Institute, a nascent startup consulting firm only three years old at the time. She spent five years there, developing diversity curriculum for clients at Fortune 500 companies. While she loved the experience and excitement of a startup, Altiné was also balancing the demands of motherhood with young kids at home and decided to return to the corporate world. She became managing director – global head of diversity & inclusion at Moody’s in 2011, where she drove enterprisewide employee engagement. Eight years later, Facebook came knocking and Altiné was eager to take on the new leadership role as vice president, workforce diversity & inclusion, at one of the world’s foremost companies. Having begun the position this past January, she was grateful to complete her orientation before the coronavirus shutdowns and appreciates Facebook’s many distinctives. There is a shift in leaders that are more compassionate, more caring, and that understand the importance of having employees' mental-emotional state being very strong, and overall the employee wellbeing."

Sandra Altiné (left) at Practitioner Panel

culture and digging deep into the D&I strategy,” she said. “The Facebook campus is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It’s collegial, open space, high tech, and everyone has a voice. That is talked about and presented from day one.” Altiné is eager to help foster more growth at Facebook and, consequently, around the world, but is thrilled with many of the current workplace trends. The empathetic responses from employers to the challenges brought on by COVID-19 has been a silver lining of the pandemic. As Altiné described it, “There is a shift in leaders that are more compassionate, more caring, and that understand the importance of having employees' mental-emotional state being very strong, and overall the employee wellbeing.”