Executive Spotlight: Anthony Onesto Talks Diversity, STEM, and Comic Books

Recruiter.com Magazine's Executive Spotlight features top executives, HR professionals, recruiters, and business leaders sharing their insights on hiring, management, and best recruiting practices.

This Issue's Spotlight: Anthony Onesto, Chief People Officer of Suzy, Founder of The Ella Project, and Creator of Ella the Engineer

According to a survey from market research software firm Suzy, 76 percent of millennial women think we need more women in STEM, and 27 percent of millennial women wish they had pursued a career in STEM but did not because they were not exposed to STEM early on.

To Anthony Onesto, Suzy's chief people officer and a committed advocate for diversity, this is an unacceptable state of affairs. In fact, Onesto is so invested in closing the gender gap in STEM that he created a comic book series to tackle it head-on. In Ella the Engineer, readers can follow the adventures of the eponymous heroine as she uses her tech know-how and coding skills to solve problems and avert disaster. Meanwhile, the comic book's concurrent Ella Project showcases the stories of real-life women in STEM to inspire young girls further.

Below, Onesto chats with us about his career so far, his best hiring advice, and the (only slightly) selfish origins of Ella.

What do you love most about your job?

At Suzy, I love making the connection of people to the business. I am given the autonomy by our founder/CEO, Matt Britton, who understands the power of culture on the business's bottom line, to extract and use data to inform those decisions. We test new programs using more of a designthinking approach by talking to people, rolling out programs, and then iterating on them as we get feedback and see the impact. We also look at the data, which is what I call combining "HeART and Science."

At The Ella Project, what is not to love? I create comic books with some of the most talented producers, writers, and artists on the planet. Those books have a great purpose: to entertain young kids and, specifically, to encourage young girls to pursue interests and careers in STEM. I also get to meet so many awesome women who have STEM backgrounds or are entrepreneurs with their own companies. I get to meet all kinds of folks, from those who have created mechanic shops run by women for women to CEOs of global consulting organizations.

What is your proudest professional moment?

Great question. I think most folks who have the number of years I do wouldn't be able to point to one moment, but a series of smaller events that ladder up into a larger career narrative. As you look at the journey that brought you to a specific moment, you can see it was a whole bunch of different moments and impacts that you had with various people.

I will say, in general, when I see the eyes of an executive or team member light up when I am coaching them and asking questions to help them solve a problem, that is the most fun I have in my work. I also love cheerleading the underdog and the contrarian.

Describe your ideal team. What kind of people are on it?

Diversity. Not just in background, color, or economic status, but also in thinking and skill set. I always look to [design and consulting firm] IDEO when someone asks me this question: a cross section of various backgrounds, skill sets, and experiences brought together to solve problems. I mean, that's what we do in HR, right?

Think of the Avengers, a team of people with great powers, different backgrounds, and flaws who are all brought together for a mission and greater purpose. This might include an innovator, a creative designer, a data scientist, an HR professional, a marketer, a community manager, a neuroscientist, etc. — a team that looks very different from the HR and people departments of today.

The purpose, at the end of the day, is to drive innovation, new ideas, and a bit of contrarian thinking across recruiting and people operations.

What is your must-follow hiring rule?

Coachability sprinkled with humility. You must be able to understand the things you know and the things you don't know, and you must want to learn and grow. I have been in HR for a long time, and I am still learning new things and bringing them into my role every day. No matter how much experience or knowledge you have, you must always be willing to learn something new and be open to contrarian ideas and viewpoints.

Ella the Engineer, the eponymous hero of Onesto's comic book series

Can you tell us a little more about The Ella Project?

The Ella Project was spawned out of the creation of Ella the Engineer. The project profiles some of the most awesome women in STEM and entrepreneurship.

I was creating a fictional hero in Ella the Engineer for girls so they would have someone they could look up to who solves techie-type problems. When I was creating this comic book, I started talking to all these real women in STEM and entrepreneurs to get their thoughts, and I realized how cool it would be to tell their stories — the real stories of these awesome women.

We also said that we would bring their stories into the comic book and even draw them into the issue. We continue to profile and interview more and more women and add at least one new profile daily. There are so many awesome women out there who have such great stories and perspectives.

This project is important because, truthfully, I was being selfish about it as a dad. I have two girls and a boy at home, and I wanted my girls (and all my kids) to be inspired by these awesome women and understand that STEM or entrepreneurship was an option they had in their lives. I also wanted my son to understand the impact women were having in this space.

Can you tell us a little about Ella the Engineer? Why did you create a comic book? Did you run into any challenges along the way?

Ella the Engineer is a comic book series meant to encourage young girls to pursue careers in STEM and entrepreneurship. It is a series of stories where our hero, Ella, who is a techie/coder, battles against her nemesis, Glitch. Glitch is a computer virus whose one goal in life is to mess with all the tech in Ella's world. In fact, he was once a boy Ella beat in a maker fair contest, and he got so mad he was sucked into his computer and became the Glitch.

Think of the Avengers, a team of people with great powers and different backgrounds all brought together for a greater purpose."

Each story entertains kids with a traditional hero and antagonist struggle, but that is underlined by tech concepts that teach readers how technology is intertwined with the very fabric of our lives, from GPS systems to delivery companies. We believe in this concept of "edutainment."

In terms of why it is a comic book — well, I was born in 1970. Yes, some of the best comic books and cartoons were created in the decades that followed. I grew up watching cartoons and reading comic books, so I knew I wanted to create a cartoon of some sort. In fact, our big dream is to create a movie, as we know that would have a more farreaching impact.

The comic book was more of a fortunate timing issue. I had met our producer, Ron Perrazza, for coffee to help him build his resume and coach him on finding a role in advertising. I am a big believer in connecting with folks and helping others out without any need for reciprocation.

In this case, Ron asked me about what I was doing, and I told him my idea for this cartoon. He was just leaving Marvel, and he suggested we do a comic book. He showed me that comic books were a medium whose readership was increasing 20-30 percent per year with young girls. I also loved the idea of having the reader hold a comic book as a differentiator in a very digital world.

In terms of challenges, yes. Try to convince the head of HR or CEO to create a comic book to recruit women in tech. It's not a conventional idea, but it gets to the fact that I love thinking a bit differently.

Imagine you walk into a women in tech conference, hand out your business card, and say, "I would love to recruit you for my company.

Please join us." I am sure it's a fine conversation and very conventional, but now think about handing that same woman a comic book and telling her the story of how your company sponsored this comic book that encourages young girls to pursue STEM, and then you ask her to hand it to a girl (or boy) she knows. Isn't that a better conversation and a very memorable encounter? The candidate would likely be more interested to work for a company that did something unique and powerful like that than for one that printed out business cards.

I was blessed to be surrounded by folks who supported the idea, and we were able to get the first issue published. That led to other great things and, eventually, our current partnership with Deloitte Consulting.

If you had to sum up your entire career to this point in one quote, what would it be?

"The more I help out, the more successful I become. But I measure success in what it has done for the people around me. That is the real accolade." - Adam Grant, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success.