Activision Blizzard Appoints Kristen Hines as Chief DEI Officer

Activision Blizzard Appoints Kristen Hines as Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer
In a new press release today, Activision Blizzard has announced the appointment of Kristen Hines as its new Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer. Starting on Monday, April 25, Kristen Hines will report to Julie Hodges, Chief People Officer, and will join the company’s senior leadership team.
Originally Posted by Activision Blizzard
Hines joins Activision Blizzard from Accenture where she most recently led the Global Inclusion, Diversity and Equity practice, and sat on the firm’s global leadership team for the CEO Transformation practice. In that role, she helped organizations establish and strengthen their own DEI strategies and capabilities, ensuring success through integration with the business, data-driven accountability and continuous feedback loops between leaders and employees. She brings over two decades of experience across a variety of clients and industries, and has focused on large-scale enterprise and culture transformation, talent strategies, and mergers and acquisitions for clients across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

“I’m excited to join a company that is prioritizing its commitment to DEI and making progress on the ambitious goals it has set for itself. In an industry with historical underrepresentation, I’m looking forward to leading the company’s efforts to further build a workplace that values transparency, equity, and inclusivity,” said Kristen Hines. “Gaming has amazing potential to connect communities around the world and showcase heroes from all backgrounds. I am looking forward to playing a part in expanding the landscape of talent who brings these compelling experiences to a broad base of players.”

“Activision Blizzard has ambitious goals to become the most welcoming and inclusive company in the gaming industry. We have already made significant progress ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees, and we are excited to have Kristen join our leadership team to help drive even greater improvement,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “Kristen’s success leading complex transformation with measurable results makes her the right person to ensure we deliver on our diversity, equity and inclusion commitments and build a model workplace aligned with our values.”

In this role, Hines will strengthen work underway with the company’s leadership team and its Employee Resource Groups to implement programs and policies that foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace environment. Hines will also partner across all gaming teams to ensure diverse and inclusive perspectives are included in game design, including storylines, character development, gameplay and community interaction.

Hines will play a crucial role in furthering Activision Blizzard’s commitment to increasing the percentage of women and non-binary people in its workforce by fifty percent over the next five years. More information on progress to date can be found on the Activision Blizzard website as of Q4 ‘21 and Q1 ‘22.

Prior to Accenture, Hines worked in corporate strategy for RSM Robson Rhodes, based in London, and investment banking for CIBC World Markets, based in New York. She received a BA in Political Science from the University of Michigan and an MBA from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Activision Blizzard Appoints Kristen Hines as Chief DEI Officer started by Lumy View original post
Published on 2022-04-11 10:54 PM
387 Comments
Comments 380 Comments
  1. exsanguinate's Avatar
    I better say nothing
  1. ablib's Avatar
    Why are Diversity officers always people of color? Can a white person fill this role? If not...that's weird. Yea?
  1. Soeroah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ablib View Post
    Why are Diversity officers always people of color? Can a white person fill this role? If not...that's weird. Yea?
    Generally harder for a white person to fully understand the experiences and nuances of people of non-white backgrounds
  1. Kiwijello's Avatar
    On one hand, that's great. On the other hand, it's sad that it's needed...
  1. Mysterymask's Avatar
    Today on MMO Champion is going to end up banning 20 people in 1 thread
  1. uuuhname's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by matheney2k View Post
    Is this the position that was open because the last female blizz placed there left because it was admittingly done so just because she was a female for good PR and all that?
    I think that was a higher position? because she was a co-something but still had a lower salary than her counterpart.

    or that might in fact be another event all together.... Jesus Christ this fucking company.
  1. TheRevenantHero's Avatar
    I can't wait to see what this devolves into. The bigots have been summoned.
  1. ablib's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Soeroah View Post
    Generally harder for a white person to fully understand the experiences and nuances of people of non-white backgrounds

    I agree with this. So...does that mean, corporate America has invented a position that only a person of a particular race can be? If so, that's weird, and maybe illegal. But oddly necessary.
  1. Low Hanging Fruit's Avatar
    Kind of sad you have to higher people to explain to people.. "hey that person is different from you so you cannot treat them worse or oddly for whatever reason"
  1. TheRevenantHero's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Low Hanging Fruit View Post
    Kind of sad you have to higher people to explain to people.. "hey that person is different from you so you cannot treat them worse or oddly for whatever reason"
    I mean.....the USA is built on a foundation of bigotry. So it is sad and also a constant reminder that the country still has a long way to go when it comes to equality.
  1. Skirdus's Avatar
    Imagine thinking Blizzard offers an equitable work environment after everything that's happened in the past year
  1. Rendark's Avatar
    That title made me laugh, good job blizzard.
  1. Tatakau's Avatar
    I saw the picture on twitter and thought it was a joke until I read the headline.
  1. Th3Scourge's Avatar
    I like how they go out of their way to rearrange the DIE acronym away from how people say diversity inclusion and equity. Almost as if it's a sign of what these neo-marxist policy positions mean for companies and industries at a whole.
  1. Hotmail's Avatar
    Hines will play a crucial role in furthering Activision Blizzard’s commitment to increasing the percentage of women and non-binary people in its workforce by fifty percent over the next five years.
    Why is this important? Shouldn't Actiblizz be aiming to increase its percentage of qualified, competent and non-bigoted people in its workforce?
  1. Soeroah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ablib View Post
    I agree with this. So...does that mean, corporate America has invented a position that only a person of a particular race can be? If so, that's weird, and maybe illegal. But oddly necessary.
    It's unfortunate, but people need to be willing to listen to other's experiences and accept that they themselves may be blind to certain biases, and want to change that. The problem is a lot of people don't like being told they're wrong, or bigoted, when they don't feel they are openly bigoted - even when they fight to keep minorities on a lower rung simply by thinking stuff like diversity hiring is 'backwards racism' or 'not needed'. They might not be racist but they're not helping to deal with racism.

    I believe there was a time when an orchestra somewhere started having interviews where HR couldn't see the person performing because being deprived of seeing WHO was playing the cello caused an uptick in diverse hiring, because it eliminated that visual bias. But then it started creeping back in as they started listening to the type of shoe walking behind the curtains and made assumptions about male/female, etc...

    Probably the best way to hire for positions based on merit is to completely hide any identifying factors during the resume and interview process, and only get to meet the recruit once they're hired. But then, what company would want to do that? You can't really get a good idea of how a person would fit in with a company if you can't hear their voice or see their non-verbal cues. So diversity hiring is the next best thing.
  1. icy1007's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TheRevenantHero View Post
    I mean.....the USA is built on a foundation of bigotry. So it is sad and also a constant reminder that the country still has a long way to go when it comes to equality.
    Every country is founded with bigotry of some kind. The USA is no worse than any other.
  1. Sughs's Avatar
    Isn't this getting out of hand? In a few years, non white people and females will have identity crisis because they don't know if they got where they got because of talent or gender / color. White people with talent will blame them and that will generate even more racism.

    - So, she was the best one for the job?
    - No sir, there was 3 more qualified people but they were Caucasian males.
    - Ok! Good job then.

    Imagine this conversation 20 years ago.
  1. uuuhname's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sugho View Post
    Imagine this conversation 20 years ago.
    it would be the exact same, because one thing is certain; there will always be a group of people who need to convince themselves they're the hypothetical victims of the things they have done to other people.
  1. unbound's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ablib View Post
    Why are Diversity officers always people of color? Can a white person fill this role? If not...that's weird. Yea?
    They could. But try actually thinking about it a bit.

    "Our company is very serious about diversity. Here is a middle-aged white man in charge of diversity to explain." Not really showing much seriousness in diversity after all, are you?

    BTW, I am a middle-aged white man...and I was asked one time to talk to new recruits about diversity initiatives that I help with. I told them "No" specifically for that reason. While my co-workers understand that I work to support everyone equally, new hires aren't going to understand that. There are plenty of other individuals in my company that could (and should) do that talk at least as well as I could.

    A white person could perform in the role acceptably, but an actually diverse person with the same skill sets will do better because they don't just *think* they understand the challenges, they've actually experienced those challenges. While I emphasize and support others, I don't fool myself into thinking I understand nearly as well as those that have experienced those challenges.

    This is no different than having someone with my relative experience in an unrelated thinking that they can be just as good as I am at my job. They may bring interesting new ideas and do well overall, but they aren't going to be better than me overall running all the activities because I have knowledge from experience that they have yet to learn (and may never learn).
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