Celebrating my one-year service anniversary at ITW…

A year ago, I was anxious about leaving an organization where I grew up and spent more than 20 years of my career. The idea of starting over at a new company can be daunting. I was enthusiastic to get started but also apprehensive about learning the unique, decentralized ITW Business Model and understanding how I would engage in a meaningful way.

Fast forward a year and I have so many notable experiences including visiting divisions, meeting new people from all walks of life – all over the world, learning who ITW is, what we create for our customers... and realizing that everywhere I go, I really am never more than a few feet away from an ITW product or solution.

We continue to make good progress in our D&I journey and engaging our leaders in expanding the conversation about what inclusion looks like for our divisions around the world.  I’ve appreciated ITW’s entrepreneurial, versus one-size-fits-all, approach as our divisions make the D&I journey meaningful for their people, their unique customers and businesses.

While diversity discussions are local to specific geographies, inclusion is global. Everywhere I go in the world, people want to be included.  We want to show up at work and bring our diverse experiences and identities with us to the workplace. We all want to be part of the team and feel that sense of belonging.

Certainly, the world has changed in the last few months leading up to my one-year work anniversary. Recent events have heightened the need for D&I as a priority and have necessitated conversations in the workforce that we historically haven’t had. These times present an opportunity for each of us to look at ourselves, how we engage with each other as human beings, how we engage with our neighbors and friends, even strangers.  We must acknowledge the inequities and injustice that have impacted our society and address how to tackle those challenges within the workplace.

This is work is hard and there is no play book. It presents a challenge for D&I leaders and business leaders to address how we move this conversation forward in a meaningful and impactful way.  At ITW, we know our employees and our communities expect it, and how we respond in times like these reflects our values and who we are as a company.

What does the next year hold? Stay tuned… The path forward requires all of us to lean in – even through the discomfort --- to help all of us reach our full-potential and to position ITW to be the company it can be.