In this week’s Now, Ten, Ten podcast, co-host Nicola Mendelsohn talks to the Vice President of Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, Vernā Myers.
For decades, Vernā has guided some of the world’s biggest companies, helping to remove the barriers for underrepresented and excluded communities.
On the podcast, Vernā shares that Netflix is “very serious about diversity, inclusion and equity” with the ambition of changing the narrative when it comes to commissioning content: “Our focus is to share local stories. Hollywood’s great, but there’s so much more,” says Vernā.
Exploring how this emphasis on local narratives plays out practically, Vernā says: “As employees, we apply an inclusion lens to everything we do. This means looking at stories and identifying, what are we learning and what aren’t we learning? What kinds of stereotypes do we want to avoid?
“We identify that there’s so much to do because quite frankly, we’ve basically been producing the same content over and over again, by the same people.”
Implementing Netflix’s first inclusion report, Vernā shares why it was so important for it to be released publicly to show transparency. She says: “This work is about tilling the ground, planting the seeds, watering, nurturing, and weeding, before you can really see a manifestation and a transformation of equity, inclusion, and diversity.”
On the podcast, Nicola and Vernā also discuss unconscious biases, and what fundamentals have to be put into place to come together as a community to truly advocate for inclusion and diversity.
Now, Then, Ten is available on Apple, Spotify and all major podcast platforms.
