Advice and Guides

If you are a “quiet” vegan with a conservative corporate job, and if your LinkedIn profile currently doesn’t mention your vegan interest at all, PLEASE read these tips and update your profile.

On the other hand, if your LinkedIn profile currently over-promotes veganism (see examples below), consider toning it down – you may be unintentionally doing disservice to the cause.

Vegans are still (sometimes unfairly) often seen as annoying and preachy. That’s one reason why many conservative, high-positioned corporate vegans avoid mentioning their veganism on places like LinkedIn. That is a huge missed opportunity. Mentioning one’s vegan interest – even subtly – does these important things:

•It allows people – like other vegans in your company who may be searching for other vegan contacts – to find you.

•It helps normalize veganism among the influential corporate crowd.

So… how to do it right?

LinkedIn is still essentially a resume platform – even though some personal detail is expected. Here is how you keep your profile very businesslike while cleverly working in your vegan interest:

•Tie your veganism into a legitimate accomplishment, e.g. “Co-president of Harvard Vegan Society”, “Launched a vegan travel app”. You can fit this matter-of-fact statement in the profile intro, Employment, Education or Projects sections.

•Make a soft mention in your introduction write-up – after you’ve dazzled the reader with your skills and credentials. For example, close your intro with “My personal interests include healthy vegan/plant-based cooking and fitness.”

•List Vegan in the Skills section. (this is commonly done)

•Join a LinkedIn group such as Vegan Leaders in Corporate Management – it will show up as “common interest” suggestion to people who share that interest.

It is important to use the word vegan. “Plant-based/vegan” will work. But vague hints like “I am passionate about health, nutrition and environment” will get completely missed in any key word searches.

Now, the following ways of calling out one’s vegan identity on LinkedIn might be too heavy-handed and reinforcing the negative stereotype mentioned above. If you use any of these, at least make sure to balance them out by other impressive, non-vegan-related credentials.

•The (V) symbol after your name. This one is fairly harmless but might confuse people or come across as a little cult-ish.

•A vegan profile headline. Headlines are meant to identify one’s profession or position, e.g. “Experienced Marketing and Social Media Manager at Amazon.” If you must, say “Experienced Marketing and Social Media Manager at Amazon and Vegan” rather than something like “I am VEGAN to save the planet!!!!!”

•A vegan tirade in the profile intro – especially before establishing one’s credentials.

•One-dimensional vegan resume – too much focus on vegan jobs and projects.

Want more content tailored for corporate and Fortune 500 vegans? Please check out our other articles, including advice and guides, interviews with featured vegans in corporate leadership, Vegan Leaders news releases and more.

Vegan Leaders in Corporate Management is a non-profit corporation based in California.

Do you wish your workplace catered more to issues that are important to you? You can make it happen, as the following story shows.

Cole Deloye, 25, had just started at Dropbox as a Compensation Analyst. Being vegan and passionate about promoting the benefits of plant-based eating, he decided to revive an existing but dormant internal group called “Vegbox”. Largely on his own, he set out to bring action-packed “vegucation” to his workplace.

Can you be both a vegan activist and corporate professional? And why are you vegan?

Cole: I view myself as a corporate professional who is vegan. I am fortunate to work at a company that encourages employees to support causes and movements openly.

I became vegan for personal health reasons and also because as a huge animal lover, I was enormously compelled to advocate for them. Those same reasons have also kept me vegan. I feel that going vegan was the best decision I’ve ever made.

You decided to launch a vegan initiative at Dropbox, one month after joining the company. How much interest did you expect?

Cole: I expected a lot of interest especially since I used buzz words like “plant-based” and “sustainability”. I described Vegbox as “A new community of Dropboxers interested in plant-based solutions and sustainability.” Besides appealing to our vegan or vegetarian employees, I figured that discussing the environmental angle of plant-based living would attract additional people. Plus, many employees who do not describe themselves as vegan or vegetarian, or even pescatarian, should still be interested in Vegbox.

How did you get the initiative off the ground?

Cole: I immediately started contacting vegan public figures who I thought would make interesting guest speakers. I also contacted the chefs in our restaurant, as well as our head food purchaser, to discuss food sourcing and vegan options. For the Vegbox launch, I asked our internal design team to design a logo, which they graciously did. They also designed placards I then placed at the vegan stations in our restaurant the week of the launch. I created an internal webpage for the group which outlined the mission and values as well as a preview of the year’s events. On the launch day I emailed our entire San Francisco office introducing the group and inviting them to join the Google Group and the Slack Channel. The following week we had our first Vegbox lunch meetup.

I focused on events that would appeal to a wide employee audience. Our first event was a Wine & (vegan) Cheese Tasting with featured the founder of Miyoko’s Kitchen who generously donated lots of her artisan cheese paired with Dropbox wine. Our next two events, also food related, hosted representatives from Memphis Meats and Hampton Creek.

What did you mostly hope to accomplish with Vegbox?

Cole: I had several goals in mind which were inter-connected. One, I wanted to create a community of Dropboxers that live plant-based; identify as vegan, vegetarian or simply are exploring transitioning to a more plant-based diet. Two, our group would help our members achieve a more inclusive and veg-friendly environment at Dropbox. Three, we would raise awareness on the benefits of plant-based living and sustainability to the broader Dropbox community through Droptalks, events and campaigns. And lastly, we hoped to engage with Dropbox leadership and our chefs to adopt more plant-based offerings and transition company practices away from using animal products.

Interestingly, Dropbox already provided vegan options with our free breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, afternoon tea and Friday happy hours so we were already a very veg-friendly workplace to begin with. However, as one of our company values is “Aim Higher”, Vegbox aimed at the next level of progress with plant-based offerings and being one of the best places to work for vegans.

What are your plans for 2018?

I want to continue to host a unique, open invite event each month – usually featuring a guest speaker. Our 2018 line-up includes Beyond Meat CEO and Founder Ethan Brown, Vega founder and triathlete Brendan Brazier, What the Health director Keegan Kuhn and Beyond Carnism founder Melanie Joy. We will have a product sampling and presentation by the Lush company as well as film screenings starting with Okja at the end of January. Our beautiful library at Dropbox gave me the idea to request book donations from various animal protection non-profits. We received many book donations and started a book club which began with reading Jonathan Safron Foer’s Eating Animals and we will continue reading other books in 2018.

Another goal for 2018 is to increase our social impact. Each Dropbox employee can donate one Dropbox Business account to a non-profit of their choice each year. Vegbox has a goal to donate 20 accounts to non-profits in 2018. In addition, we are organizing a field trip to Goatlandia Animal Sanctuary.

I will continue to work with our chefs on the animal welfare standards for our food purchasing as well as work with the real estate and design team to make our interior design more animal friendly (i.e. no leather, skin rugs, down pillows, etc.)

I would also like to expand Vegbox to 85 members which would be a 30% increase from year-end 2017.

How does this sort of initiative benefit the employer?

Cole: There are strong benefits to Dropbox. In addition to reducing the costs of our in-house restaurant and snacks by dropping meat, the long-term benefits would be the overall employee health and well-being plus the social goodwill of having a lower carbon footprint and being more animal friendly. Our society is increasingly putting more social capital on animal welfare causes and all companies would benefit from advertising their support of these causes. From a recruiting standpoint, Dropbox would have appeal to candidates that care about health, sustainability and/or animal welfare.

What was the hardest part of this initiative? And what went more easily than you expected?

Cole: As with starting anything new, the hardest part was the uncertainty at the beginning. I had to believe that launching Vegbox was the right move and it would become successful. At first, I encountered some push back and had to adjust my approach and learn from a few missteps.

While I wouldn’t say it was easy to get the speakers to come to Dropbox, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get the founder and CEO of a major vegan cheese company as well as the presidents and founders of two leading animal rights non-profits to come for a talk without compensation. We had never met before and most planning happened over e-mail but they were all interested and willing to come talk to relatively small audiences.

What factors make a vegan initiative at a non-vegan corporation possible?

Cole: Succeeding with this type of initiative requires a certain grit, motivation and perseverence. Strong communication skills are essential as well as a certain degree of tact and diplomacy since you are working to accomplish goals outside of your main role and outside of the company’s stated priorities. It helps if a company has internal interest-based groups.

Being creative and flexible is also key. For example, while my main drive is to advocate for animal welfare, this topic often falls on deaf ears. To succeed, I had to try different angles and figure out what appealed to the masses. Lastly, listening to feedback and even criticism was invaluable for the long-term success.

What final advice would you give to others who also wish to raise awareness about veganism in the corporate world?

Cole: As an employee you can be part of defining the values and culture of your company. Your mission will only be as important to those around you as you make it out to be. People will join you if you give them an opportunity to learn something valuable. Align with the company values as much as possible, and pay attention to how you are perceived. Adjust your approach as needed. Lastly, be creative with word choice and branding. The term “vegan” can be rather polarizing and limiting. I often hear people say “but I’m not vegan” when I ask them if they are interested in joining the group. Plant-based is neutral and people understand the concept of this term. Finally, whether your goals are big or small, you have to get started somewhere so just go for it!

Many companies show commitment to employee diversity, inclusion, well-being and advancement by sponsoring employee interest groups. These are voluntary and often informal. The employer usually provides a platform and sometimes a budget. Employees with a knack for organizing and community building can use the groups to advance a good cause.

After a few weeks of launch, Plant-Based Life had well over 200 members. And a few months later, the group had grown by 25% and organized nearly a dozen events around the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. Phaedra is passionate about sharing her experience so others can build similar initiatives at their companies.

What is your background and what was your position at Facebook?

Phaedra: I have always had a deep desire to improve the world. In college, I took the pre-medicine route but also combined it with operations research and information engineering (ORIE) as I recognized that technology could be an avenue to solve the world’s biggest problems. Right before college, I became interested in the relationships between our agricultural system, the climate, and the major diseases Americans suffer from today. One article in particular explained how environmental devastation is deeply linked with the animal agriculture industry, which inspired me to adopt a plant-based lifestyle. After college, I began at Facebook as a Fraud & Risk Analyst, but quickly discovered a zeal for coding and eventually landed a position as a Software Developer*.

Why did you start a plant-based (vegan) employee group at Facebook?

Phaedra: I saw a growing interest at the company for healthier eating and sustainability improvements. While there was a dedicated group for ‘green’-ing our campus (mostly reusable water bottle and recycling campaigns) there was no real community or initiative to unite individuals around food, sustainability, and ethics. Since there was no real precedent for the kind of group I wanted to start, I ended up setting up a “lean-in circle.” Several months later, Facebook established a formal structure for corporate clubs and the Plant-Based Life@FB group was officially born. The organization was (and is) open to all employees.

What difficulties did you face?

Phaedra: The main challenges were in optimizing our time and resources to grow the group and have meaningful impact. The rules around the corporate club structure were still evolving so we definitely made some mistakes, but also learned a lot. Another challenge was awareness: how would we let everyone know that we existed? It took some research to find out what sources and conduits my coworkers used to learn about internal company initiatives and events.

What did you plan to accomplish with your group, and how did you go about it?

Phaedra: I wanted to create a community around healthful, sustainable, and conscientious lifestyles. The most effective approaches I found were curating intriguing and inclusive events and sharing meaningful content (e.g. employee stories and relevant articles). We ended up bringing in speakers right away, with a diverse set of industry backgrounds and skillsets. We invited researchers on diet and longevity, entrepreneurs in the food space, climate scientists, documentary producers, physicians, public health experts and more. We also included free and delicious food and offered gifts like cookbooks, research novels, interactions with film directors, and product vouchers or goods.

We also knew that there was an entire demographic of people who were not at all familiar with sustainable and conscientious lifestyles. To establish some familiarity, we employed a validation by proxy approach: collaboration with other employee groups, clubs, and even departments, which shared some of our goals–especially HR, sustainability, and philanthropy. We also found a great ally on the culinary team that became a true innovator and helped us provide more plant-based options on campus. Everyone loves good food–and we would pair it with conversations around reducing emissions and healthfulness for employees through body, mind, and spirit.

What ultimately made your group so successful?

Phaedra: First, we actively partnered with other groups and co-organized our events which boosted our presence and brought attendees who may not have ended up there otherwise. Second, marketing is also crucial, and it was important to get as much exposure as possible across the Facebook campus. Since branding our efforts widely and diversely across campus was so crucial, highlighting that delicious food and gifts would be included were paramount.

Lastly, employees are always incentivized by high-caliber speakers. We hosted critical thinkers, authors, entrepreneurs, researchers and other renowned thinkers on the topics of disease prevention, sustainability, climate change, entrepreneurship, and evidence-based diets. Some of our guests include Gidon Eshel, PhD, MPhil, MA (renowned expert on the link between diet and environmental effects, recently featured in the Leonard diCaprio documentary Before the Flood), Andy Levitt (founder & CEO of Purple Carrot, the plant-based meal delivery service that co-produced Tom Brady’s TB12 performance mealkit), Michael Greger, MD (founder of NutritionFacts.org and a bestselling New York Times author), Kip Andersen (film director of What The Health and Cowspiracy) and David Goldman, MSci, RD (a doctor at the True North Health Center which is renowned for treating disease through diet).

What additional advice would you give others who wish to start a similar group?

Phaedra: First, start by understanding what matters to your coworkers and company and create a group that will cater to those interests. Collaborate with others who may have similar interests, such as relevant departments or resource groups (for us these were HR, culinary, and the sustainability groups). Second, learn about the socially hot topics that matter to employees, and cater to those as much as possible. Health and sustainability are such topics, and even though for us the issue of animal well-being and food security are also important, these were less engaging to our employees. Third, network and find others who share your interests. Always remember to bring a positive attitude and a willingness to find common ground.

Finally, and this is a piece of advice useful in many areas of life, do not let perfection be the enemy of progress. The best way to start is by doing. You will likely make a few mistakes, but these are the way you learn so be prepared to re-assess and iterate. Just like with start-ups or product development, your first goal is to create a “minimal viable product” (MVP). That should be enough to attract other engaged individuals to join you so that you can improve and grow.

* Phaedra has handed off the Plant-Based Life group to a board at Facebook, and she is now working on a new start-up.