Honored to be considered a “Guy Who Gets It”

I am thrilled to receive “Honorable Guy” recognition from the Institute for Women’s Leadership “Guys Who Get It Awards.”  The awards recognize business leaders who have supported diversity in the workplace and advancement of women, especially in the areas of technology and other STEM fields.

I’m honored by the award. And, at the same time, I look forward to the day diversity is so commonplace in the tech industry that no special recognition or awards are needed.

It’s an even greater honor to live and work with incredibly talented women. This is a lifelong passion for me and at Accenture we’re committed to the advancement of women and to closing the gender gap in technology. 

In fact, we have more than 145,000 women at Accenture, representing more than one third of our global workforce. In 2015, we pledged to grow the percentage of women hires at Accenture to at least 40 percent worldwide by 2017. I’m proud to say that we surpassed our goal early and we remain committed to the progression and development of women as they advance their careers. 30 percent of Accenture’s managing director promotions in 2016 were women – the largest percentage of women ever promoted to this level. But it doesn’t stop there. Today, 25 percent of Accenture’s Global Management Committee, our primary governance group, are women and 38 percent of Accenture’s external board of directors are women, including our lead director.

We want to be sure that there are plenty of qualified technologists to hire in the years ahead. I’m personally involved with a number of organizations to promote computer science education and diversity in tech. 

For example, we team with the Anita Borg Institute and sponsor the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing to connect, inspire and guide women in the field of computing.  We recently wrapped our second year of partnering with Code.org and other organizations to support Hour of Code—the largest learning event in history. I was extremely proud to see our people show up in 204 cities across 56 countries to do more than 14,000 Hours of Code. Through our unwavering commitment we have inspired well over 100,000 students of all ages and impacted the course of their lives, careers and relevance in the digital age.

At the White House “Hack the Pay Gap Demo Day” this past summer, Accenture unveiled a technology prototype aimed at addressing gender diversity and pay gaps in the fast-growing freelance labor market. The goal is to fix hiring-process challenges by providing tools, including comparable salary data and analytics, to help create gender-neutral job descriptions. Our company also recently signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge.

Our work with Girls Who Code is mission critical. We look for new ways to energize, educate and equip young women with computing and professional skills. I recently joined their Board of Directors and appreciate all that Reshma Saujani is doing to drive big impact around the world. We teamed to publish new research on Cracking the Gender Code that explores the gender gap in computing. Be sure to check it out to explore the possible actions we can call take to address the issue today.

There is much more to be done, but many solutions are within reach. 

I encourage you to become an “Honorable Guy” or an “Honorable Gal” by supporting efforts like the ones I’ve described here. And, join me in looking forward to the day when our support will be the norm—everyone will “get it” and we’ll all be winners. 

In the meantime, many thanks to the Institute for Women’s Leadership for their recognition and to my fellow award honorees for all the incredible work they do! And thanks to Ellyn Shook, Roxanne Taylor, Julie Sweet, and the all of the talented women at Accenture for their leadership and inspiration!