Inclusion: The Engine of Innovation

We are living through a generation-defining pandemic that has changed the way we work, grow, and belong. In the face of all of this, we have made many strides in furthering our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives and in creating a more inclusive workforce at Pratt & Whitney.

In the past 12 months, we have increased learning opportunities for leaders by launching Unconscious and Interrupting Bias Trainings, worked to centralize our Employee Resource Groups, launched a global video series called My Why for DE&I that tells the diversity and inclusion stories of our senior leaders, and continued our Courageous Conversations series. Our ERGs have won awards such as the Hispanic Leadership Forum’s recognition as a top ERG from the Latina Style Award for the second year in a row and the Asian American Forum’s Leadership Award for community spirit focused on addressing Asian hate through the pandemic.?We announced our new Pratt & Whitney Scholars Program in partnership with the University of Connecticut (UCONN) School of Engineering that offers scholarships to engineering students to help build a diverse workforce of the future. We celebrated with our colleagues in Canada as they were recognized as a top three finalist for their diversity efforts at the Prix Femmes d’Affaires du Quebec 2021 ( see Maria Della-Posta & Caroline Maso in pic below) and with Raquel Rivera as she received the Great Minds in STEM Executive Excellence Award. Our people truly drive our diversity and inclusion culture and make all the difference.

January marks our one-year anniversary of the establishment of our DE&I Task Force in the United States, Canada and Poland. Since the inception, our DE&I Task Force has come together as a team including more than 50 members globally from every aspect of the business. Our activities have focused on establishing our Leader’s Intent, increasing taskforce members’ confidence and skills around DE&I, organizing into project teams, and identifying key tasks that will have the most substantial impact on our Pratt & Whitney culture across the globe.

Although we saw incredible successes last year, there is still work to be done.

At an organizational level, I see so much opportunity still ahead for 2022. We will:

• Multiply our inclusive culture through focused education and inspired learning
• Achieve external recognition as innovators in DE&I?
• Continue to enable the evolution of our Employee Resource Groups
• Close the gender and ethnicity gap in our pipeline
• Address areas of underrepresentation in our global employee population

In my role as Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, I see the inner workings of our organization and see our colleagues having difficult conversations with each other about diversity, equity and inclusion. These discussions range from how we can create a culture of inclusion to how we can expand our sourcing and selection processes to how we create a more equitable work environment by mitigating bias in all of our processes. Although we have much to do, I am proud of this journey we are on.

In 2022, let us move forward remembering that diversity of thought is the foundation to inclusion and inclusion is the engine of innovation.

Here’s to the progress we made in 2021 and the memorable year to come in 2022!