At Depop, we’ve always believed that peer-to-peer is more than just a business model, it’s a way we can create true and lasting change through the power of people.
Our mission is to build the world’s most diverse progressive home of fashion, and in order for this to be true, our internal community must reflect the equity we want to see in the world. We’ve always believed that who we are as Depop is rooted in the diversity of our community, and this is done by holding ourselves accountable for all the communities that make up Depop – now and always.
We believe that anyone from anywhere can be part of building our new fashion system – and we’ve proactively set an intention to realise a more diverse, equitable and inclusive Depop. Which is why I’m proud to share our first Gender Pay Gap disclosure and to voluntarily disclose our Ethnicity Pay Gap.
This report not only outlines in clear detail what is driving our current gaps across gender and ethnicity, but provides further insight into the actions we’re taking as a business to close them, in line with our ambition to create an environment where everyone at Depop is seen, heard and valued but also supported and empowered to succeed.
This report demonstrates that our gap is not driven by an equal pay issue, but by the makeup of our workforce. We have a near even gender split across our workforce[1]. However, our upper pay quartile is majority men, and several of our senior and highly paid roles are held by men in our Executive or higher paying functions, such as technology, and are contributing factors to our gender pay gap[2]. And while we see a higher percentage of underrepresented communities (URC) at Depop – nearly twice that of the UK average[3] – we have a lower percentage of underrepresented communities in leadership roles.
We are committed to address our current gender and ethnicity pay gaps by increasing female and ethnic representation in leadership positions, with a specific focus on increasing this representation in our technology and production teams. In addition to building an even stronger foundation for DEI at Depop, we are engaging in strategic and integrated talent partnerships to outreach to the broadest pool of talent and address our areas of underrepresentation.
We know that DEI must be at the heart of everything we do but how we do this is important. We want to work with our employees to co-create a plan of action that’s for our community and by the community – that’s community-first. Which is why our entire strategy is underpinned by extensive listening and insight gathering to ensure that we’re building the culture we want to see, and we’re constantly checking in with ourselves at Depop to make sure we’re clear on what still needs to be done, and why.
Beyond this, we have also developed a holistic approach to evolve our internal culture, bolster representation and foster inclusion – and have already seen positive indications from initiatives already in place. We are pioneering improvements that exceed our employees expectations in a post-Covid reality, such as the launch of MyMode, our new hybrid working model offering coordinated downtime and remote, flex and office-based work modes for all employees. We’ve also improved our benefits and reward offering as a result of our partnership with Etsy, Inc. including an enhanced 18-week gender neutral parental leave and a company-wide bonus and equity scheme that will bring greater transparency and fairness to reward at Depop.
We are also working with our internal community to gain their contributions on DEI as a key part of our approach and we’ve recently launched our first cohort of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) led by employees to build communities of focus on DEI and partner with Depop on a shared mission.
On behalf of the Executive team, we are absolutely committed to closing our pay gap and ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion remain fundamental to our business. We believe Depop has the potential to change the world for the better, and it will be our internal and external communities that help us realise this ambition.
Maria Raga CEO, Depop
[1] The gender split in our workforce is 47% women / 53% men split of Depop employees
[2] Our Upper Quartile is 39% women, several of our senior and highly paid roles were held by men at the snapshot date and we had a C-Suite split of 33% women and 66% men, which is a contributor to our pay gap. Of the men that work across the company 61% are in technology, at the data point date. The skew of men represented in typically higher paying functions such as technology is a driver of our gender pay gap.
[3] The 28% URC / 67% non-URC split of Depop employees at the snapshot date + contextual data: % ethnic diversity UK 15%