This story is part of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2022. Explore the full list of innovators who broke through this year—and had an impact on the world around us.
When Ifeoma Ozoma went public with her allegations of racial discrimination against Pinterest in 2020, she shattered her former employer’s reputation as the rare tech company committed to racial and gender diversity. Having worked in global public policy and governmental relations roles at Facebook and Google and as a public policy and social impact manager at Pinterest, Ozoma has now become one of the most prominent advocates for reforming the tech industry (and other sectors) by empowering employees to speak out without repercussions.
After breaking her NDA to share her experiences at Pinterest, Ozoma—along with fellow whistleblower and former colleague Aerica Shimizu Banks—helped draft and sponsor California’s Silenced No More Act, which bars the use of confidentiality agreements to silence workers who experience any kind of harassment or discrimination. Since the bill passed in California last year, the state of Washington has adopted (and enacted) similar legislation. To expand Silenced No More’s protections to workers in other states, Ozoma and other advocates have successfully used shareholder proposals to pressure companies like Salesforce and Apple into revising their employment agreements to enshrine workers’ ability to speak out.
Ozoma also uses her two-year-old consulting practice,...
CYBERJAYA, April 15 — The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is investigating an individual suspected of spreading false news that Malaysia supplied 329,000 barrels of diese...