Rob has played a highly significant role in developing accessibility over decades we are delighted to welcome him to AXSChat in his new role. He describes himself and his role below:
“My mission is to create solutions that profoundly improve the way people of all ages and abilities work, play and experience the world around them. From a business perspective, this is the best way I know to create customer value, brand loyalty and differentiation in today’s market. From a personal perspective, I cannot think of a more valuable way to spend my time.
I have had the opportunity to work with many talented & passionate people over the years. Perhaps the most impactful, so far, has been the years spent building Microsoft’s accessibility effort from a small team into an enterprise-wide program and global strategy tightly integrated with the company mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. That journey required deep investments in the platforms, tools, design philosophy and engineering practices. It meant rethinking how to work closely with the community and partners to create and support inclusive solutions. And, it taught us you cannot achieve these goals without hiring people with disabilities and integrating inclusive thinking into every aspect of your way of doing business (HR, Support, Marketing, Sales, M&A, etc.).
After taking a break from the corporate world and exploring startups related to clean water and wildlife conservation technologies, I’m happy to be back in the tech industry working to accelerate the industry’s pursuit of fully accessible and inclusive digital workplaces. I chose to join Atlassian because products like Jira, Confluence and Trello are used by teams of all sizes – from one or two people up to enterprise organizations with hundreds of thousands of employees. This is an enormous opportunity to ensure every person can fully participate in today’s digital work environment.
I think we can all agree that the world is facing unprecedented challenges. Our best hope for the future is to ensure we are benefitting from the ideas, insights, and expertise of every person on the planet.”