How one exec’s decision to show off her tattoos brought her closer to her billionaire founder—and made her stronger than ever at work 

Then, at a gala several months ago to celebrate the team’s annual accomplishments at the $25 billion company, Yowell pulled out all the stops with her gown. It was black, sleeveless and low-cut in the back—and gave everyone at her company’s evening event a front-row seat to her 10 tattoos. Yowell, the company’s chief diversity officer, said it was a smash hit. “Team members were coming up to me and saying, ‘We didn’t know you were that tatted up.’”

She didn’t know then how bringing this much more of her full self to work would ground her relationship with her CEO (who has a few tattoos himself), and with her company’s billionaire founder, the philanthropist Dan Gilbert. 

There is no policy against visible tattoos at Rocket but Yowell had absorbed over the years, while getting her MBA at University of Phoenix and her doctor of education at University of Pennsylvania, that she needed a dress a certain way to be successful at work. When, six months into the job at Rocket, an executive commented on her penchant for blue and black suits and said they seemed at odds with the vibrancy and energy of her personality, she replied that she felt she had to dress that way. 

“We had a very real conversation,” she remembered. The exec told her to wear her colors, bring the flair and to not fear showing who she is. Yowell leaned in and decided not to concern herself with what others thought about her bright clothing or tattoos or “any of those things that I’ve been conditioned to do in the past at school or different jobs,” she said. 

“Those things bring me joy.”

There were no repercussions for Yowell’s aesthetic the night she showed more of her true self. In fact, CEO Varun Krishna, who took the top job seven…