Didi Chuxing on Diversity in the Sharing Economy Business

Apart from enormous market sizes and fast-evolving technology capacities, Chinese internet companies seem to be outshining their Silicon Valley peers in an unexpected field - diversity and women’s career development.

Women played a pivotal role in China’s leap-frogging into the mobile internet age. Some estimates claim 50% of China’s internet start-ups were founded by women. Companies like Alibaba and Ctrip have long prided themselves in sustaining high levels of women employees and women’s health and maternity programs. Yesterday, Didi Chuxing, the Chinese rideshare platform that acquired Uber’s China operation, disclosed that 40% of DiDi’s 7,000 employees are women. In particular, at DiDi, women not only hold multiple senior management positions, but also account for over 37% of technology related positions including product managers, engineers and data scientists - much higher than Silicon Valley tech firms.

DiDi shared those numbers at the launch of DiDi Women’s Network yesterday in Beijing. Jean Liu, President of DiDi, said the project had taken three years since she joined DiDi. The current project of DiDi Women’s Network was developed in 2016 when DiDi spent four months to conduct two surveys among its female executives and high potential female leaders on challenges and advice. Based on the survey findings, DiDi launched the Women’s Network and put in place female leadership initiatives with different focuses, including the female leadership program and mentorship program.

The female leadership program includes a systematic training program where 15 outstanding female employees participate and receive intensive tutoring from senior executives. In addition, participants will rotate between different departments, experience different internal roles and take part in various cross-function projects, in order to gain invaluable insight and experience to improve their management skills.

This program seems to be the first formal organization dedicated to women’s career development among all China-based internet giants.

In a panel discussion at the launch, Cheng Wei, DiDi’s founder and CEO, together with Jean Liu shared their experience in a “dual-core” management structure where Cheng’s start-up entrepreneurial drive and vision complement Liu’s empathetic qualities and global view. The duo also responded to questions gathered in previous DDWN surveys, including how to plan long-term career paths and balance life and work in a highly competitive industry. Their conclusion is that beyond value pledges, women’s and diversity programs in general need to be “mainstreamed” into the recruitment, training and evaluation and that concrete organizational support is to be seen through methodical outlay of resources and clear definition of measurable goals.

Cheng Wei and Jean Liu discuss personal and organizational challenges of creating and sustaining a culture of diversity in a highly competitive industry.

Bob Zhang, DiDi’s CTO, shares his insights on leading a technology staff made up of 37% women with Jelly Huang, General Manager for DiDi Hitch, Stephen Zhu, VP for Strategy, Wenchi Yu, and Sean Fan, two leaders from Goldman Sachs’s women and corporate responsibility programs. (Left to Right)

DDWN members break out into sessions to outline work plans for the new organization.