Championing Disability Inclusion: Mike Liebman's Mission to Transform Corporate Culture at Bloomberg

What drives a leader to champion disability inclusion and transform corporate culture? Meet Mike Liebman, Bloomberg's ERG lead for the United States, as he shares his compelling journey through personal health challenges and his relentless efforts to broaden Bloomberg's disability ERG, BeAble. From dissociative disorders to PTSD and a degenerative spinal condition, Mike's experiences have fueled a passion to expand ERG discussions to encompass mental health, neurodiversity, and chronic medical conditions. Tune in to hear how Mike navigates the intricate landscape of representing diverse communities within ERGs, ensuring balanced attention to various disabilities, and fostering inclusive dialogue that keeps members actively engaged.

Discover the strides Bloomberg is making under Mike's leadership towards a more inclusive tech environment. We spotlight Bloomberg's pioneering initiatives like the disability in tech conference, created in collaboration with Lime Connect, which highlights the critical contributions of individuals with disabilities, especially in AI advancements. Additionally, get a glimpse into the empowering Grace Topper event, which serves as a vibrant recruitment platform connecting talented women with corporations keen on diversifying their workforce. With these forward-thinking initiatives, we share our excitement for the potential lasting impact on diversity and inclusion in tech and beyond.

Chapters

• 0:01 Employee Resource Groups for Disability Inclusion
• 14:19 Bloomberg's Mission & Tech Inclusion
• 28:26 Empowering Women Through Recruitment Events

Transcript

Neil Milliken: 0:01

Hello and welcome to AXS Chat. I'm delighted that we're joined today by Mike Liebman, who is Bloomberg's ERG lead for the United States. Mike and I met a few months ago through one of my colleagues and we're talking about the work he was doing Immediately invited him on to AXS Chat and it's taken a few months for us to get around to making it happen. So really glad to have you here today, Mike, making it happen. So really glad to have you here today, Mike, can you tell us a little bit about your background, what you're doing at Bloomberg and particularly what you're doing at Bloomberg with relation to disability inclusion, because I know Bloomberg are big on this topic as being early adopters and signatories of variables valuable for them?

Mike Liebman: 0:42

Sure, thank you for having me. So yeah, I'm Mike Liebman. I've been with Bloomberg for 21 years now and I'm a senior engineering manager out of our Princeton office and my day job I head up business intelligence, data warehousing, data management, data governance, risk operation and a few more things. I have a global team and I have been the ERG lead well past my two-year mandate. I think I'm on about six years now. So I'm one of the US co-leads for our disability ERG called BeAble. I am also the executive sponsor for our disability and tech group. So the executive sponsor for our disability and tech group and I got involved because I have a dissociative disorder, complex PTSD, all of the anxiety disorders, a degenerative spinal condition and a brand new heart condition, which is really fun and scaring me, but I'll work my way through that, so you're human, for sure Okay.

Mike Liebman: 1:45

I am human, yeah, and actually when I you asked earlier about the story, so I hit rock bottom, you know, seven or eight years ago, and went off to some really intensive you know mental health support and group therapy, came back into Bloomberg and was looking for how do I get involved and how do I give back, how do I kind of create that group therapy experience for thousands instead of just 10 people in a room? And that was really kind of the impetus that drove me forward.

Debra Ruh: 2:18

That's very interesting.

Neil Milliken: 2:19

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Neil. I'm curious. So I mean you were wanting to apply technology, or was this in terms of you wanted to apply that sort of collective healing process by creating the ERG?

Mike Liebman: 2:34

Yeah, more the collective healing process, the ERG, existed. It had been around a few years before I got involved, but I think the focus had been more on physical disabilities only early on in the process and I think I came in and brought that mental health and neurodiversity focus to it, which when that happened, it really started to take off.

Neil Milliken: 2:56

Yeah, so we've seen within our own ERG Antonio and I both work for the same large organization seen within our own ERG Antonio and I both work for the same large organization that when you start opening up the ERG to the topics of mental health, neurodiversity, the conversations soon expand and the interest grows exponentially. So I know Deborah's got a question.

Debra Ruh: 3:22

I do have. It's something that I've been thinking about lately and I've heard people complain about it and I, mike, am also near a diverse Probably you figured it out the second you met me. But what's interesting is I'm really first of all grateful that you took a very, very difficult time in your life and walked it, processed it, but then wanted to give back to others with this really huge experience that you had. So I want to applaud that first of all. I also think it's interesting what you said. You know they had an ERG group because I see it a lot of times, but it wasn't really active, more focused on physical.

Debra Ruh: 4:06

But then you brought in the neurodivergence and the mental health, the PTSD, which so many people I believe are actually dealing with PTSD right now, certainly here in the United States For years, I think not just in the US, any of us that walked COVID right. I think people are a lot more traumatized than they realized. But at the same time, what I've also seen is sometimes when you bring in different communities, it sort of takes the entire conversation, and I've seen that happen. I'll give you an example to ground it because, once again, don't disagree, I love all of this, but I remember hearing less of criticism when we started focusing on making sure people with autism could be included in the workforce more effectively. We had a lot of brands step up and say, well, we want to hire people with autism, they make great technologists, they make great quality control. Wow, these are wonderful people and, by the way, that's actually true.

Debra Ruh: 5:07

Sap was a leader in that many other groups as well. But then I started hearing complaints saying, yeah, but what about the rest of the community that also represent sometimes the intellectual disabilities or the cognitive disabilities like Down syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome or cerebral palsy in some cases, just depending. And so I think what's interesting is, yeah, but these conversations are so powerful and needed so much, and some of it is because we're such a gigantic, diverse community. But so I just wanted to set up what, the way I was thinking, mike, but how do we make sure, with our ERGs, that we really include our entire community when our community is so big and diverse and complicated and also doesn't want to always identify? I'm not saying you know that entire answer, but I just am curious how you know how that some of that has unfolded at with your efforts. Bloomberg.

Mike Liebman: 6:14

So what we cover the kind of four main pillars for us is mental health, neurodiversity, physical disabilities and chronic medical conditions. So I don't want to leave that one out. And overall, you know, in our organization we have about 3,000 members, which is about 12% of our overall community, which is really good. And compared to all of the other ERGs you're right, it is much wider and much broader and the stigma still exists into talking about it. And so what we did was, progressively we ended up breaking down the problem. So we do have, like, our large community, but created a number of sub-communities so that we could pull the people together that really wanted to see themselves in other people, other people. So some of the areas that we pulled out, we have something we call an accessibility task force which is focused on, you know, the physical disabilities and the accessibility challenges and how can we improve our entire environment there. You know, in no particular order. Like, eating disorders was an area that we focused on, like I said, the medical conditions.

Mike Liebman: 7:21

Mental health we separated what we found was in the neurodiverse community. There were actually two communities in there. There were the professionals that were living with neurodiversity and there were the families that were supporting it. So we kind of broke those two apart to give support in both of those areas and I do have an autistic son as well who's 24. And then also some other areas like mindfulness and meditation, which is a stuttering community. So we really looked for they couldn't go too fine, because what we found is if the community was too small, it didn't get enough engagement. So we tried to keep it at a high enough level where people could contribute and create constant communication, but not too small, where it's just kind of fizzle. And I do hear a lot about like, oh, what can we do to start hiring people with neurodiversity? And I keep saying what do you mean start?

Mike Liebman: 8:18

Right 250 to 300 people in our you know, in our neurodiverse environments. We're here.

Antonio Santos: 8:27

That's quite a common situation where sometimes organizations we need to hire but they forget to see who is already there, sometimes for many years. Communities and the ERGs support the organization to create more products and solutions that are accessible not only externally but also internally.

Mike Liebman: 8:52

So what we found? Hopefully I'm answering your question on this, but what we found, compared to the other ERGs, which are focused primarily on recruiting, hiring, retention, promotion, kind of standard areas that DRG focuses on, our focus was just naturally extended into supporting our clients, supporting our products, supporting our facilities, working with legal, ensuring that we have appropriate accommodation, like I mentioned before, working with families, even as a media company, being able to work with our communications teams on the best way. So what we do try to do, especially through our accessibility task force, is ensure that our employees have a voice in all of those components, which includes our product. I'm not sure if I answered your question.

Neil Milliken: 9:42

So I think maybe I'm going to go to the flip side of Antonia's question, because I think what you're doing is right and ERGs are just going to produce all of this value for them, while the members of the ERGs are having to do this on top of their day jobs. So how do we balance that so that the benefits are equally balanced for the employees but also for the employer? We're creating win-win situations.

Mike Liebman: 10:31

I wish I knew the magic answer to that one, because it is a pack and play for people who are involved in our ERGs to drive forward things that they're they really care about in an organization. You know, measuring impact is really really hard because it's, you know, a lot of our I think leaders across you know any company are looking for what's the ROI on any of this type of work and it's very difficult to measure because it's a long game right. What you're trying to do is create a culture over time where you get to hire and retain the best people, and that's a hard thing to measure and show the ROI on. We are working pretty hard to ensure that we give credit to everybody who is highly involved in these, to the point of kind of capturing who's getting involved, ensuring that we as leaders are sending messages up their reporting chain to say you know their involvement is helping and here's how it's helping. Recognition is right now the best way to kind of encourage continued participation to drive forward these types of events.

Neil Milliken: 11:42

Sorry to ask quite a loaded question but as as someone that's been spent a lot of time engaged with the ergs as well, I know that, and particularly when it comes to disability ergs and it is driven by passion. You know, everybody that's engaged is highly engaged and highly motivated to do stuff. But there's also the fact that we're in this because we already are having to put in extra effort because we have a disability, and so some of this is my question is sort of framed around the idea of burnout and making sure that the spoon theory, making sure that we're not using up all of the ERG spoons doing all of this extra work on on top of the day job. So it's also sort of that balance that I think is, as you say rightly, quite difficult to strike sometimes because quite often we'll put in more effort than is good for us because we care about this stuff.

Neil Milliken: 12:38

Devra yeah yeah, I know your question if I, if I, if I?

Debra Ruh: 12:46

if I start it, it is a very interesting point that you made, but I also want to take it just a little bit differently because I'm an American. So I know Bloomberg really well and I think a lot of our audience will know Bloomberg. But I actually, in the background, mike, I was asking ChatGBT, what does Bloomberg do? Because I know Bloomberg is about finances and I know you're the media, but what it told me, some of the things it told me, I did not know, and so I think it would be also interesting for the audience if you could just tell us a little bit more, because what you do for Bloomberg is very interesting and part of me would not have realized that they would have had employees like you doing those services. Just because I'm naive about what Bloomberg really is, because you know, I know it's a family name as well and you know.

Debra Ruh: 13:40

But I was first of all, I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about just who Bloomberg is, and then I thought what's interesting to me is I'm thrilled that Bloomberg is in these conversations as just a parent, an individual, an American, a global leader. I'm just really glad Bloomberg is in here, because y'all do have a very powerful voice in here, because y'all do have a very powerful voice, and so, as you're telling us who you are a little bit more, I think it'll show the audience why what you do is so important to our movement of true inclusion and accessibility. So I was just wondering if you would talk about that a little bit.

Mike Liebman: 14:19

Sure. So Mike Bloomberg is the founder of the company. It was founded about 42 years ago now and it was all about creating transparency in the financial market. So 40 years ago, the dawning of the PC era, very early 80s I'm probably older than all of you, so I remember it well. So the main product that Bloomberg has is the Bloomberg Terminal, and what that does is it kind of it is a software product. In essence, we are a technology company. We have over 9,000 engineers that are helping to build our solutions to provide that data and transparency to the rest of the world, that are helping to build our solutions to provide that data and transparency to the rest of the world. We have offices in probably 128 countries, 90-some offices globally, and really that's what we're doing is providing this data transparency. We're normalizing it. So financial statements from the US versus China versus, I think, south.

Mike Liebman: 15:28

America you know, come in different languages and they use different terms and different measurements. So we have a large data team. That job is to normalize this data so that you can look at it equally across any kind of organization, and we simplify the process of getting access to the data that you need to make financial decisions. So we don't trade for you, but we provide a trading platform. We provide data that people can use to run their businesses. What is Bloomberg really?

Mike Liebman: 15:59

To me, it's a you know, and Bloomberg is a private company and almost all the profits of the company go to the Bloomberg Foundation and luckily, in my role, I get to work with the Bloomberg Foundation to help them analyze their data. Really, it's all about giving back $2, $3, $4 billion a year to causes that really matter to me personally. So everything from climate control to gun control, to education, to the art, to improving the the life and health of everybody globally. So like that's really the mission of bloomberg and we're we're really encouraged to get involved in all of those activities to give back and and help out the community last year I'm not going to make it this year, but I got to 100 hours of volunteer. To me, that was a milestone that I could give back that much no-transcript. So that's kind of the way that I turn the way that we're empowered to give back into something that also matters even more deeply. Yeah that's.

Neil Milliken: 17:06

that's a great explanation of the, the complexity of the organization, but also the, the reach that you have, right and and you can actually not just use the money of the organization, but it's the data and the informed decision-making to actually build better, more inclusive services and so on. I know also that you were planning on putting on an event to bring together people from outside of Bloomberg as well, so do you want to tell us a little bit about the work you've been doing on that?

Mike Liebman: 17:49

Sure, this is one of the things I've been most excited about over the last couple of years, so different from most organizations that I've run across. Because we're a technology firm. We, in addition to having ERGs across all of the various C&I domains, we also have in-tech communities across those domains. So we have women in tech, black in tech, latin tech, out in tech. So when I became, I actually helped start up our disability in tech organization, which also has close to 300 people in it.

Mike Liebman: 18:24

I was the executive sponsor of that organization and figured as the executive sponsor I should go out to the disability in tech conference Because I know women in tech have the Grace Hopper conference and black in tech have Afro Tech and NSBE and there's Latinos in tech and out in tech and all of these things exist and I could not find the disability in tech conference. There's lots of tech for people with disabilities but there is no disability in tech conference. So I figured, well, let's make it. And it took me a few years to kind of get it all put together and kind of sell it up the line. We partnered with an organization called Lime Connect, which is our disability partner in New York City that works with a lot of US-based organizations and we're rolling it out.

Mike Liebman: 19:12

So the conference will be we're going to host the first one and it will be in New York, april either 29th or 30th we haven't kind of settled in on that date and we've started to advertise it on the feature. But the goal of this is not for it to be a Bloomberg event. It is for it to be a disability community event and trying to create a uh, an environment where other corporations or institutions can come together and help continue to drive this forward. That's my uh, that's my exciting thing that I've been trying to do for a few years now.

Debra Ruh: 19:47

That's amazing, amazing.

Neil Milliken: 19:50

Yeah, and I think it's really exciting because, you know, this is an area where we disproportionately contribute to the world of tech. We disproportionately contribute to the world of tech. I'm just in the process of doing a presentation at the moment and talking about it, so I'm building my slides to do this. From time to time, I'm building up the slides talking about how disability is essential in the innovation process and the evolution of tech, and so on. Now, all of the stuff that everybody's excited about for Gen AI right now. You know the foundations of that.

Neil Milliken: 20:34

The only reason that it survived the last AI winter was because there were three user groups that persevered when everyone else had abandoned it, and that was doctors, lawyers and people with disabilities. And so if people like myself and others hadn't continued using speech technologies, maybe we wouldn't have the natural language interfaces that we now have, that are transforming the way that we work. So having a conference where disabled in tech, I think it's great. I'm really excited about the prospect, about the prospect and understanding the prospects for innovation, for engaging with this group of people, and I'd love to say community at the moment, because you're forming it, it's a need to do it, it's a community at the moment, and I hope that it becomes a thriving one, because I think that that's an area where we, as you rightly say, there hasn't been one. I know Antonio's got something to say.

Antonio Santos: 21:52

I think I'm going to adjust to the timing of the conversation that we are in now on accessibility or inclusion, how we can somehow avoid a kind of a trap where we are talking to ourselves.

Mike Liebman: 22:08

Yep, that's why, picking the content is going to be really important, right? So I want to really make sure that this is not just people with disabilities talking about accessibility. I want this to be people with disabilities talking about their technical accomplishments. Whether it's building airplanes or doing great things in AI and machine learning, it doesn't really matter, but it's really kind of the same thing, the same goal of the ERD, which is people need to see themselves in others and having amazing accomplishments so that they can be driven to be one of those people, be the next person with an amazing experience.

Debra Ruh: 22:48

I think that's so powerful too, because so often we are asked to speak. I haven't worked for corporations in many years, but I definitely was part of the corporate world for 25 years and I think a lot of times when we're talking about stuff we're like you said we're going to talk about something else, maybe something we're really passionate about, but to be able to talk about my work as a technologist you know, I don't I personally don't usually talk about that I am a woman that was a programmer when you didn't see many women in programming, and so I had to really fight to create a technology company as a woman in a still male-dominated world. But even at the time, mike, I didn't realize I was neurodiverse. I had not been, you know, I hadn't been diagnosed, but it's interesting because often we ask them to talk about certain topics. I think it would be very powerful. Just tell me about your technology, tell me about what you do, tell me about how you're using technology to really, you know, perform your work. I mean because technology is so exciting anyway. But I also really appreciate the efforts that you're making. I'm creating Billion Strong.

Debra Ruh: 24:05

For years I've been working on Billion Strong, which is to bring more than a billion people with lived experiences together with pride. It's so hard to do these things because often people still don't want to identify that they are part of the community, and I understand why they would not want to. But I think initiatives like you're talking about is very powerful as well because, by the way we are, you know, all of the in-depth groups are also part of the disability community. Because we're so, you know, we're everywhere. We're all here. Because we're so you know, we're everywhere, we're all huge. So I also want to join Neil in applauding those efforts and let us know how Access Chat can continue to tell the story and help promote it on social media.

Debra Ruh: 24:52

Help you, you know, with speakers. But it would be nice that it isn't just another Disability 101 conversation. It would be nice to see diversity diversity of who we are, diversity of what technology is. There's a friend that we've actually had on. His name is Amit Gauss and he is a person that has facial differences because of what he was born with A lot of. He gets a lot of all of a sudden. I'm blanking on what you call it, but he, you know he has facial differences Well, but he's also done a lot of work, working with people that are working in technology on facial recognition because he has a very different face than a lot of other people because of what he was, how he was born. So it would be interesting, as you go down this path, to see if you could pull in some speakers that are talking about these things from very different, innovative ways, instead of always the same conversations we're hearing at most of the conferences, which are just sort of starting to discourage the community.

Antonio Santos: 25:55

So, mike, how can people know more about the event and the information that you can provide? People know more about the event. Any extra information that you can provide?

Mike Liebman: 26:02

Sure, I can. Right now we're in the process of surveying people who are interested in attending and potentially speaking at the event, so I can send you a link or a QR code that will help to advertise it. We have a few hundred who have already kind of reached out. So, yeah, I'll provide you all that information.

Debra Ruh: 26:26

Happy to yeah, let us know how we can help you. We would love to help. That's what we do.

Neil Milliken: 26:30

Thank you, and we appreciate what you're doing too, mike excellent and it's the intent to starting in, I think I think you said New York, which is your headquarters to then take it on tour because you've got lots of great locations. I mean, one of the things that and I know you said it you didn't want it to be a Bloomberg thing, but one of the things that Bloomberg does have is really good locations all around the world, including London, right.

Antonio Santos: 26:59

Neil.

Neil Milliken: 26:59

Pardon.

Antonio Santos: 27:00

Including London.

Neil Milliken: 27:01

Yes, including London.

Mike Liebman: 27:02

I was in New York, I was in our London office last week. Yes, yes Again, the goal is to hopefully, coming out of the first event, create a kind of a board or a committee to help drive it forward for the next one and figure out how do we continue to have it grow and move around the world and get more involvement. Maybe I have big dreams, but you know, Grace Hopper was in Philadelphia this year, which is like I'm just outside of Philadelphia. I think it had 30 to 35,000 attendees. So I'm shooting for, you know, a hundred in person and maybe a thousand for the first one, virtually. You know 100 in person and maybe 1,000 for the first one, birth week. You know, 10 years from now we can get double the size of it. I'd be really excited.

Debra Ruh: 27:58

And don't be surprised if it's a lot higher than that, especially the virtual part, because we see when, for example, and a couple of thousand in person, because that becomes part of the exclusion as well is that not everybody can travel, not everybody have big corporations behind them with budgets, so a lot of our community doesn't get to come out and be heard in the same ways because you know, just the funding, it's just the realities and stuff that we all deal with.

Neil Milliken: 28:25

Absolutely.

Mike Liebman: 28:26

The other aspect of it with. You know what's a big part of Grace Topper is that recruiting opportunity as well. So, you know, thousands of women are coming to be able to talk to corporations and get jobs. And you know, while I don't want this to be again a recruiting event, the opportunity yeah, it't want this to be again a recruiting event. The opportunity yeah, it's a benefit to the community to be able to have a way to connect with these other organizations that are looking for amazing talent.

Neil Milliken: 28:52

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited. I can't wait to see how this pans out. I think that you're right to dream big. I think that your dreams will probably come true, because this is an unmet need. So thank you very much, mike. It's been a pleasure talking with you today. I need to thank our sponsors and supporters, amazon and MyClearText, for keeping us on air and keeping us captioned and accessible. Thank you, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.