Hootsuite Appoints First Chief People and Diversity Officer

Hootsuite announced this week that Tara Ataya will fill the newly created position of Chief People and Diversity Officer.

In her new role, she will elevate Hootsuite’s focus on the employee experience—as the company grows and scales its business, and navigates a new distributed global workforce. Ataya will orchestrate Hootsuite’s diversity strategies to rapidly implement them company-wide and will represent employee voices in the C-Suite.

“Tara’s appointment to Chief People and Diversity Officer is a testament to the tremendous impact she’s been able to make throughout her career in people, leadership, culture and talent management,” said Tom Keiser, CEO of Hootsuite. ”We believe that our customer experience and growth as a company depends on highly engaged, empowered, and skilled employees (owls). With Tara at the helm, we’re ensuring that these voices are heard throughout every aspect of Hootsuite’s organizational structure.”

Ataya, who joined Hootsuite less than one month prior to the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, has since shaped the company’s focus on the employee experience, fostering an environment of choice around how and where its people work and the benefits they receive.

“An empathetic leader, deeply committed to an outstanding and equitable employee experience, Ataya will serve as a devoted custodian of Hootsuite’s people experience, fostering progress and belonging within a new virtual, global landscape,” said Keiser

In a career that has spanned human resources and people development, performance management, and HR technology across SaaS and professional services businesses, Ataya earned her chops as a veteran people leader through several high-profile industry mergers, divestitures, and acquisitions. She has also held regional and global roles for Vision Critical, Sierra Systems, and Deloitte.

“At Hootsuite, we help our customers engage with their stakeholders on social—but first and foremost, we seek to enhance the power of human connection,” said Ataya. “By putting our people first, we’re sipping our own champagne. We can’t encourage customers to foster deep and meaningful connections on social without leading the charge internally ourselves.”

Ataya will seek to diversify the growing company’s global employee base and champion diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives organization-wide. The new role formalizes Hootsuite’s commitment to DE&I, ensuring the work is prioritized by design.

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