Alex Hunter is a Customer Support Analyst and the Lead Chair of Upland’s Pride Employee Resource Group (ERG), but ultimately, he is an agent for change. In his two years at Upland, he has built inclusive communities across the globe and effected positive change within the Second Street product, the Pride ERG, and beyond. Read on to learn more about Alex’s accomplishments, motivations, and plans for the future.
Q: Who, what, and where are you?
A: My name is Alex Hunter. I use he/him/his pronouns, and I identify as queer and differently abled. I am on the Second Street support team, and I’m based in St. Louis, MO.
Q: What is your day-to-day work like?
A: I help our partners use our platform to create promotions like sweepstakes, photo contests, quizzes, ballots, and brackets. I get to work with all kinds of people in media, from a promotions manager to CEOs. It’s fun! I’m also involved with Upland’s knowledge-centered service (KCS) program. I am a coach for other support team members and a knowledge domain expert for the Second Street platform. There are about 750 articles that I maintain right now, and I create new resources on a daily basis within the knowledge base. If that answer or documentation doesn’t exist, it’s my job to create it, and I love doing that. I majored in English at Beloit College; I love writing and troubleshooting, and I think that’s what has made me so successful in my role. On top of my day-to-day, I am also the founding member and lead chair for Upland’s Pride ERG.
Q: Can you tell me more about the Pride ERG?
A: We’re on our second year of Pride programming. We’ve done four or five Allyship at Work trainings through a program called Lean In, and we are currently hosting a speaker series this June for Pride Month. We’ve created a virtual community of people across teams and locations, which is so hard to do. We’ve bonded through our monthly meetings, podcast clubs, and discussions around queer history and current issues. I’ve always believed that you do better work when you have something that brings you joy and purpose, and that’s what the Pride ERG does for me.
Q: What inspired you to take on that leadership role?
A: I believe that the workplace should be the last place that you feel uncomfortable. The queer community is constantly being attacked across the globe. It’s important that we have safe spaces for marginalized employees, but we also have the autonomy to educate each other, challenge the status quo, and ultimately change things. Ever since I came out, I’ve been involved in queer activism and some way or form. My voice has always been my power. One of my founding principles is to be a resource and stand up for others. So, the minute I came out, I was marching, I was doing community activism and going to local drag shows as soon as I was old enough. I’ve never been afraid to be out in the workplace. It’s important that I work somewhere that allows me to live authentically, because I work better if I don’t have to worry about microaggressions at work, or if my peers approve of my lifestyle.
Q: You mentioned that change is at the heart of your inclusion work. What kinds of change have you enacted already, and what would you like to see in the future?
A: One of our Second Street customers asked for us to include another gender option on our forms, because the only ones were male and female. The product was about to release a third option, labeled “other.” I didn’t think that was okay, it felt stigmatizing and discriminatory. After some discussions, we labeled the third option “non-binary.” It seems like a small change, but it makes a lot of difference. As the Pride ERG grows, I’m hoping we’ll be able to enact things like changing policies to be more inclusive and sharing best practices to avoid implicit biases. The company is really invested in us, and I feel optimistic. It’s awesome that we can schedule a series of trans & nonbinary speakers in a time where the very states we are employed in are trying to erase us. There’s so much potential within Upland as a whole; so much has changed in the two years I’ve been here, and positive change is constantly happening across the business.
Q: Speaking of change, I know you started at Upland through an acquisition. What was that like?
A: Getting acquired is not something that I ever thought I would experience. It’s hard, but one of the biggest benefits I’ve seen is that the larger company absorbs the culture of the company it acquires. Second Street has a very close-knit culture within our teams and our client relationships. We are very feedback driven and open with our thoughts, and Upland mirrors that. Second Street helped introduce the Water Cooler Teams chat to build camaraderie across the company, and that’s been fun.
Q: What are you looking forward to?
A: I’m going to answer this threefold because I like things in threes. In my personal life, I’m excited to marry my partner of 8 years this fall. With the Pride ERG, I’m excited about our speaker series this June. We’re covering such a diverse array of topics and targeting issues that need to be talked about in the workplace. Within Second Street, I’m excited that Upland has recently hired a lot of developers in India for the product. They’ve made some amazing changes to our product, and I think these new features will bring a lot of value to our customers.