Building & Managing a Diverse Team in the Age of Social Distance by Prachi Gupta, Minal Mehta
The global pandemic has changed the way we live, work, and collaborate together. Effectively building and managing teams remotely has gone from an aberration to the norm, and is now more critical than ever.
Join a discussion between Prachi Gupta, Discord’s head of engineering and former head of LinkedIn’s feed, and Minal Mehta, head of product management for Next Billion Users (NBU) at YouTube, as they talk about taking over the “virtual” reins of a distributed workforce, her approach to building diverse teams, and her mission to make tech a place where women and people of color thrive.
Prachi Gupta
Prachi Gupta heads engineering at Discord. With close to two decades of experience in consumer technology companies, she is responsible for leading the strategy and execution of a highly scalable and distributed technology stack that powers millions of conversations. Prachi enjoys building engineering teams and defining culture and processes that enable teams to grow and succeed in a repeatable and predictable manner. As an entrepreneurial engineer at heart, she enjoys prototyping ideas and conceptualizing, designing, and delivering impactful software. She is an active supporter of diversity in STEM, co-founded LinkedIn's Women in Technology initiative, and is an alumnus board member of Women's Audio Mission. Prachi holds a Master's in Computer Science and has significant experience in working with startups to explore innovative solutions to real-world problems, from socially-driven consumer websites to enterprise business intelligence & analytics software. Gender (from Speaker Records)
Minal Mehta
Minal Mehta is the Head of Product Management for Next Billion Users (NBU) at YouTube. She leads a suite of products that serve the next billion users in emerging markets at YouTube, delivering growth while serving the distinct needs of users in these high-growth markets. She also influences across Google, ensuring that teams across the company are building for this key segment. Prior to her current role, Minal was a Group Product Manager at Google, where she built brand new ‘NBU-first’ products, and led Google’s investments in Indonesian ride hailing app, GO-JEK and in the Indian on-demand service, Dunzo. Minal has previously led PM & design teams at LinkedIn and Amazon as well as in earlier stage companies. She has a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Outside of work, she enjoys yoga, improv, and the craziness that an 8-year old and a 5-year old bring with them.
