Williams, 35, will get her chance as she joins a Silicon Valley boardroom for the first time. Online poll-taking service SurveyMonkey announced Williams’ appointment to its board on Wednesday, along with Intuit CEO Brad Smith.
”I feel like diversity is something I speak to,” Williams said in an interview with The Associated Press. ”Change is always happening, change is always building. What is important to me is to be at the forefront of the change and to make it easier for the next person that comes behind me.”
The AP said that Williams didn’t offer specifics for what she would do in her new role but that she sought to help push the company and industry in a more diverse direction. Williams said that she was disappointed that most of Silicon Valley’s high-paying jobs were filled by white or Asian men.
Silicon Valley’s lack of diversity has become a recurring source of embarrassment in a region that has long sought to position itself as an egalitarian place that doesn’t favor one gender or ethnic race over another.
Yet that philosophy hasn’t been reflected in high-tech workforces, despite the efforts of companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook to fix the problem. Not much progress has been made since diversity became a hot-button topic in Silicon Valley three years ago.
Williams has been hanging around Silicon Valley more frequently now that she is engaged to high-tech entrepreneur, Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of the online forum Reddit. Like many other African-Americans, she says she’s disappointed that the vast majority of high-paying technology jobs are filled by white and Asian men.
Williams’ appointment is part of the solution, according to SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie. ”My focus is to bring in change agents around the table who can open our eyes,” he said.
STEPPING STONE
Racism is something Williams confronted and overcame at an early age when she began playing a predominantly white sport. She grew up to become the top-ranked female tennis player in the world.
Diversifying Silicon Valley isn’t the only item on Williams’ agenda. Like a lot of rich athletes, she is interested in becoming more involved in the business opportunities amid the high-tech boom in Silicon Valley. She says she is already exploring other opportunities in the area, but isn’t ready to provide further details yet.
The online polling company’s own diversity efforts aren’t having much success. Twenty-seven percent of its technology positions are occupied by women, and only 14 percent of its total employees are African-American, Latino or multiracial, based on numbers provided to AP.
SurveyMonkey is hardly an outlier. Major firms such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others have struggled to make their work forces less homogenous.
Her connection to SurveyMonkey came through her friendship with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and another member of SurveyMonkey’s board. Sandberg’s late husband, Dave Goldberg, was SurveyMonkey’s CEO before he died in 2015 while the couple was vacationing in Mexico.
”I have been really interested in getting involved in Silicon Valley for years, so I have been kind of in the wading waters,” Williams said. ”Now, I am jumping into the deep end of the pool. When I do something, I go all out.Â
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981)Â is an American professional tennis player. The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has ranked her world number one in singles on eight occasions, from 2002 to 2017. She became the world number one for the first time on July 8, 2002. On the sixth occasion, she held the ranking for 186 consecutive weeks, tying the record set by Steffi Graf for the most consecutive weeks as world number one by a female tennis player. In total, she has been world number one for 319 weeks, which ranks her 3rd in the Open Eraamong female tennis players. Williams’ accomplishments and success in professional tennis have led some commentators, players, and sports writers to regard her as the greatest female tennis player of all time.
Williams holds the most major titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles combined amongst active players. Her record of 39 major titles puts her third on the all-time list and second in the open era: 23 in singles, 14 in women’s doubles, and 2 in mixed doubles. She is the most recent female player to have held all four major singles titles simultaneously (2002–03 and 2014–15) and the third player to achieve this record twice after Rod Laver and Steffi Graf. She is also the most recent player, together with her sister Venus Williams, to have held all four Grand Slam women’s doubles titles simultaneously (2009–10).
She has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles with her sister Venus, and the pair are unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals. As a team, she and Venus have the third most women’s doubles grand slam titles, behind the 18 titles ofNatasha Zvereva (14 with Gigi Fernández) and the record 20 titles won by Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver. Williams is also a five-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships in the singles division. Serena has also won four Olympic gold medals, one in women’s singles and three in women’s doubles—an all-time record shared with her sister, Venus. The arrival of the Williams sisters has been credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women’s professional tennis.  Williams was the highest paid female athlete in 2016, earning $28.9 million in prize money and endorsements. She has won the Laureus Sportswoman of the Year award three times (2003, 2010, 2016), and in December 2015, she was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine.
