'Crypto Bros Are Certainly a Problem': Ripple Managing Director

Solving the long-standing issue of diversity in the crypto industry demands more than just “one magic bullet,” says Ripple’s Sendi Young.

By Ryan S. Gladwin

Solving for diversity in the crypto industry has historically been an uphill battle. Image: Shutterstock.

The crypto bro stereotype comes from the unfortunate truth that the crypto industry isn’t quite as diverse as it could be.

Ripple's managing director Sendi Young wants to fix that.

"Crypto bros are certainly a problem," Young said at the Financial Times's Crypto and Digital Assets Summit. "You look at a lot of people coming [to] crypto are either from tech or finance or everything in between. And those historically have diversity challenges."

As a direct response to this issue, Ripple is deploying several strategies to increase diversity and representation within the company.

"There are loads of ways to do it. Obviously, it's not one magic bullet," Young said. "We look at diverse slate, for example, in the recruitment process. To make sure there is representation of, at least, two underrepresented groups in every single role"

Diverse slate is a popular approach to hiring that can help boost a company's diversity and inclusion efforts. Recruiters and hiring managers are required to consider two or more candidates from a minority group when hiring for a position.

This approach was popularized by the NFL in 2003 with the Rooney Rule. After its implementation, the league saw the number of Black head coaches increase from 6% to 22% over a four-year period.

"I think it's very important to have role models for everybody else at the senior levels," Young said.

Ripple is treating diversity and inclusion as "any other sort of business challenge." Internally, they've set clear objectives and goals, looking at metrics to understand where the business is today and where it wants to be in the future.

"If you don't measure it and if you don't set tangible objectives around it, you can't achieve it," she said.

Alongside improving diversity standards in the industry, Young also added that crypto’s more libertarian roots have made it challenging for adoption at the institutional level.

"The space has moved a lot from the original very revolutionary, libertarian undertones. There's still that maximalist school out there," she said. "The origins of where [crypto] came from, I wouldn't say it completely disappeared, but now there are more balanced different schools of how business is in the space."