Michelle De La Isla has impressed members of the Boston tech scene over the past year with her leadership and energy since she took over as chief executive of the nonprofit Hack.Diversity.
But until last Thursday night, few knew she could also belt out a beautiful rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” like the tech sector’s version of Etta James, her voice reverberating into the rafters of the sanctuary auditorium of the Museum of African American History on Beacon Hill.
The surprise song drew a massive ovation from the audience filling the pews of the sanctuary, originally part of the 1806 African Baptist Church of Boston, where Hack.Diversity held its annual celebration and fund-raiser last week. Since 2016, the group has helped more than 600 students, mostly of color, from community colleges and overlooked colleges and universities, train and get internships at tech companies including HubSpot, Rapid7, and Wayfair.
De La Isla, who took over the top job from cofounder Jody Rose a year ago, said she was drawn by the twin challenges of helping students gain the skills to break into tech companies while also helping tech companies nurture and retain a diverse workforce.
“What I want to build … is figuring out how to really equip people to be successful regardless of the color of their skin,” she said at Thursday’s event. At the same time, De La Isla said, the goal is to ensure that tech companies “actually understand how to receive this new talent that is coming in, and understand that it’s new talent.”
That can involve everything from discussions of language and wording to modeling how to give and receive feedback on the job. Companies also may need to go beyond telling workers about job requirements to also include explaining the company’s implicit preferences and traditions, De La Isla said.
The recent backlash against DEI programs is in part because workers have left after companies failed to adapt to having a more diverse workforce, she said. “There was new talent that didn’t understand the language and they felt alone, and because they felt alone, they left,” De La Isla said. “So we work with our host companies and prepare them for these things.”
Despite the efforts of Hack.Diversity and other groups, Black and Hispanic or Latino people each accounted for only 4 percent of the tech workforce in Boston last year, while women made up just over one quarter, according to data from CompTIA, a trade association focused on the IT industry. In the total Boston workforce, Black people made up 8 percent, Hispanic and Latino people 11 percent, and women 51 percent.
The idea for Hack.Diversity arose in 2016 after Bloomberg Businessweek published a story about the struggles of graduates from Howard University, a historically Black school, who took jobs at Silicon Valley tech companies. Venture capitalist Jeff Bussgang sent the article to Rose, who was then executive director of the New England Venture Capital Association. Together with Tech Connection founder Melissa James, they hatched the idea for a program to train candidates from underrepresented groups to intern with local tech companies while receiving mentorship from people in the industry.
Asmeret Petros, who works as a software engineer at Dell Technologies, joined the Hack.Diversity program in 2021 after studying computer science at Bunker Hill Community College and interning at Liberty Mutual Insurance. The experience “was nothing short of transformative for me,” Petros said at Thursday’s event. “Hack equipped me with the technical and social skills that I needed to pivot my career.”
This year, the group placed more than 100 interns in Boston and about 20 in New York, where it has been expanding in recent years.
At Thursday’s event, Bussgang credited De La Isla for stepping in after Rose.
“We said we need a new leader who can take us to the next level, and we need somebody who can continue the magic and grow the magic,” Bussgang said. “Michelle checked every box.”
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.