National Native American Heritage Month Hero: Matthew Yazzie

November is recognized as National Native American Heritage Month when we remember the legacy, culture, and heritage of remarkable indigenous people. One specific individual we would like to highlight is Navajo rights advocate, tech leader, and behavioral scientist Matthew Yazzi.

Yazzi’s dedicated efforts focus primarily on workplace trauma, discrimination, and harassment while promoting inclusion and equity in tech fields. He has been quoted as saying, “It’s important to make sure that you’re sharing the narrative about your background and being proud of who you are, across all levels.”

As a former Google employee, Yazzie founded the Google American Indian Network, which established scholarship programs, created partnerships with outreach organizations, and leveraged Google's technology to address issues within the indigenous community. While at Google he was a member of the Global Ethics and Compliance group, where he was responsible for training and investigations, metrics, and compliance technology procurement.

Yazzie currently serves as Strategic Director at Collective, a Diversity Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) lab, where he focuses on bringing comprehensive and measurable solutions to the diversity space. He is also the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Women 2.0 as well as the founder of the Others Project, where volunteers assist in collecting the first, real-time, consolidated, and open-source data relating to diversity and inclusion.

Additionally, he is an advisor to the board for Project Include and to Spot, a company creating AI reporting tools that make it safer for employees to speak up on issues of harassment and discrimination.

Over the years Matthew Yazzie has dedicated his professional and personal life to greater diversity and inclusion in the workplace and within communities.