Tag: Diversity

Today, I am sharing Microsoft’s 2020 Diversity and Inclusion report, which comes at a time marked by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, amplified acts of racial injustice, and the reality of global uncertainty.

This year’s report focuses on three core areas in addition to the data: the ways that diversity and inclusion is integrated into our employee pandemic response, our commitments to addressing racial injustice, and our investment in the Allyship at Microsoft learning path. The report also includes:

• For the first time, our data on the number of employees in the U.S. who self-identify as having a disability;
• An expanded look at our global equal pay data including 10 of the largest markets outside of the U.S.;
• A closer look at our Inclusion Index and the various ways we receive insights on how employees experience our efforts to strengthen our culture of inclusion; and
• A more global mix of employee voices and experiences across a range of communities, identities, and geographies.

The data shows steady progress

Microsoft started publicly sharing its annual workforce demographics in 2014. This year’s report reflects the trends and learnings over our five most recent demographic data disclosures.

The following data reflects Microsoft only; it does not include our broader family of companies[1] (LinkedIn, GitHub, and our minimally integrated gaming studios), nor does it include new acquisitions and joint ventures.

• Diverse representation: Overall, we have seen some modest gains since 2019 including among women who now represent 28.6% of the global Microsoft workforce, an increase of 1.0 percentage point since last year. However, racial and ethnic minority communities have largely seen incremental progress and there is still much work to be done.

• Black or African American employees represent 9% of our U.S. workforce, up 0.3 percentage points since 2019.
• Hispanic and Latinx employees represent 6% of our U.S. workforce, up 0.3 percentage points since 2019.
• Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander employees represent 7% of our U.S. workforce, and this number has remained the same since last year.
• Asian employees, which include more than a dozen different ethnic groups, represent 7% of our U.S. workforce, an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to 2019.

• We see clear opportunity to improve representation across all levels and roles, especially for Black and African American and Hispanic and Latinx employees. We are prioritizing our recent commitments to strengthen our intentional career planning and talent development efforts on the path to senior leadership.

• Black and African American employees are 9% of our U.S. workforce and 5.2% of individual contributors, but only 2.9% of managers, 2.6% of directors, and 2.9% of partners + executives.
• Hispanic or Latinx employees are 6% of our U.S. workforce and 6.8% of individual contributors, but only 5.4% of managers, 4.8% of directors, and 4.4% of partners + executives.

• According to a survey of Microsoft’s employees in the U.S., 1% self-identify as having a disability. Learn more about why we’re including this data and how it will guide us moving forward from Microsoft Chief Accessibility Officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie.

Continuing to accelerate leadership and talent development, systems of accountability, and strengthening our culture of inclusion are in addition to the comprehensive work we already have underway.

Our pandemic response

When the COVID-19 pandemic started to rapidly shift how we live and work, it amplified differences in our lived experiences, revealing many social inequities that could previously remain hidden from work. When school closures and caregiving restrictions upended family dynamics and divisions of labor, we supported our workforce through caregiver leave programs, which gave all employees flexible time off to help manage remote learning transitions and balance care for loved ones. We also supported our employees through the transition to remote work by helping to cover costs of ergonomic office furniture and ensuring that everyone could access a variety of tools and resources to support mental well-being and mental health. Empathy for one another has been essential as we each navigate this challenging year and balance work life.

Our commitments addressing racial injustice

In June, our CEO Satya Nadella outlined our commitments to increase diversity in representation and strengthen our culture of inclusion within our company, engage our ecosystem to drive change, and strengthen the communities in which we live and work. These efforts, focused on addressing the unique experience of Black and African American communities in the U.S., include short- and long-term, multi-year, sustained actions to accelerate our diversity and inclusion work.

We are early in our journey – only a quarter has passed since we shared our commitments, but our actions have been intentional and steadfast. While our representation goals span a five-year commitment, we are taking steps forward and wanted to share a few examples of our updates:

• In an effort to increase representation within our company and strengthen our culture of inclusion, we are expanding our internal programs for midlevel and director level employees, which provide opportunities for career advancement while also helping to support managers in nurturing diverse talent. This  builds on the work we have already established in career and talent development.
• As we look to engage our ecosystem, we are working with partners in banking and business to create opportunities. One example is the Clear Vision Impact Fund, which we launched in partnership with Black-owned and operated Siebert Williams Shank Bank, with an initial $25 million anchor investment. The fund will support the growth and operating capital in small- and medium-sized businesses, with a focus on minority-owned businesses.
• To help  strengthen our communities, in August we announced a  community skills program that will provide $5 million in grants to nonprofits serving communities of color. We are also expanding the pipeline of diverse talent through ongoing work with Historically Black Universities and Colleges (HBCUs), and we have created a new grant program to help HBCU faculty advance their work around data and computer science.

Our progress will be ongoing, and we will continue to provide our employees updates in our Town Hall and employee Q&As and on our intranet.We will also provide comprehensive updates on our progress in future annual diversity and inclusion reports.

Understanding our investment in allyship

At Microsoft, we believe everyone at every level plays a role in creating a diverse and inclusive work environment, and that allyship behavior is key. An ally is someone who makes the intentional decision to understand, empathize, and act in support of someone else. It is not an identity – rather it is a lifelong commitment and practice.

Grounded in neuroscience, the Allyship at Microsoft learning path helps us understand ourselves and encourages us to take responsibility for our individual learning. What started in July 2019 as a voluntary learning program has since evolved into a required training that provides our more than 160,000 global employees a shared language and understanding of the role we each play in creating a culture of inclusion. This is especially important for a global organization, and at a time when there are many interpretations in broader society of what allyship means. We are already seeing positive progress as our communities adopt the training: By September of this year, just two months after the first four introductory courses of the program were made mandatory for all core Microsoft employees, 24% – or more than 35,000 members of the workforce – had completed those modules.

I encourage you all to read the full report to explore much more detailed data, insights, employee stories, initiatives and learnings.

[1] For data on the broader Microsoft family of companies, please visit pages 9-11 of the report.

Tags: diversity, Diversity and Inclusion Report, inclusion

Shraddha Wadighare had made up her mind and nothing was going to stop her, not even her parents’ initial misgivings.

Late last year, the out-of-work 25-year-old electronics engineering graduate packed her bags and left her tiny family home in Timki, an out-of-the way neighborhood in Nagpur near the geographic center of India. She traveled more than 1,000 kilometers north to the bustling city of Noida, near the capital New Delhi, and enrolled in an all-expenses-paid course in cybersecurity.

It was the biggest move of her life.

Four months later, she had an impressive new qualification on her resume and it wasn’t long before she landed a well-paying role at a multinational IT risk management company in Mumbai, the country’s biggest metropolis. She has just sent her first paycheck to her mother, a homemaker, and father, a railroad engineer, as a token of gratitude for allowing her to follow her dreams.

Wadighare is a graduate of CyberShikshaa–a philanthropic program that funds and trains women engineering graduates from underserved small towns across India so they can build careers in the rapidly expanding cybersecurity sector.

The program is the brainchild of two women leaders in technology—Manju Dhasmana, director of CSR at Microsoft India, and Rama Vedashree, CEO of the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), a not-for-profit industry body focused on data protection.

While India produces roughly 1.5 million engineer graduates each year, less than 30% of them are women and too many find it hard to get jobs. Many of them are the products of little-known colleges where they gain limited technical skills and graduate with certificates that few potential employers recognize.

At the same time, India’s cybersecurity industry is growing fast. By 2025 it is forecast to be worth USD 35 billion as governments, companies, and startups seek to safeguard data. The demand for skilled cybersecurity workers has soared accordingly, but women still only make up around 11% of the sector’s workforce, both in India and globally.

Dhasmana and Vedashree decided two years ago to help bridge that gender gap by setting up CyberShikshaa, which in Hindi means ‘cyber education.’

“As a tech industry organization, Microsoft felt it was our responsibility to create very strong career pathways, especially for young women to join the technology sector,” says Dhasmana.

DSCI’s Vedashree says there was a need to evangelize cybersecurity as a career option for new female grads. “So, we aligned our charters for skills development in cyber fields and women in security and crafted this program together.”

CyberShikshaa is aimed at women between the ages of 21 and 26 who come from communities away from India’s major population centers. Each must have an engineering degree and be from a family with an annual income below Rs 7 lakhs (around USD 10,000).

Through a partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), trainees who complete its four-month course are given nationally recognized certification, so they can compete for jobs on an equal footing with graduates from better-off backgrounds.

To mobilize candidates for the program at scale, Microsoft and DSCI also partnered with government-linked training partners, such as Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), who also provide residential facilities for trainees.

More than 500 women have so far graduated from CyberShikshaa and many have taken up public sector positions–often as the first female in their assigned team.

TRANSFORM: Ilana, I understand that you and Billie saw a vision for the collaboration with Microsoft and the ITF – a sense that new technologies could elevate play at the tournament finals, where coaching is allowed and team play is embraced. Can you tell me about that vision?

KLOSS: I have worked with Billie for probably 30 years. She’s always about technology and information. She’s always felt that tennis could really use both.

Billie always wants to know more. And she always says how she would have loved to have been born in this era, because of all the information and analytics available to the players. She believes they can help not only the players but the sport and the fans.

TRANSFORM: Do the launch of the dashboard and the rebranding of the competition signal a distinct, new era for this tournament and maybe for the game itself?

KLOSS: Absolutely. Billie is all about breaking barriers, making things better and using all the technology.  For her to have her name on the cup at a competition where the latest and the best technology is available to help the players and the team captains is, for Billie, one of the most exciting things. She believes we have to pass the baton to the next generation.

TRANSFORM: Jamie, the dashboard will analyze real-time data on player movement and shots, ball flight and speed – data generated by the ball-tracking cameras and 3D-radar systems used at pro tennis events. How do you see coaches and players applying this new info during the tournament finals in April?

CAPEL–DAVIES: If you’re a player, among the things you always want to know are: Where should I be serving and what speeds do I need to hit to be able to serve an ace? The dashboard offers those analytics.

TRANSFORM: Ilana, same question.

KLOSS: You want to know the points you are winning because certain points in a game are important. I think also knowing which side the opposing player is stronger on, where players serve on certain big points, positioning on the court – where you are and where they are.

TRANSFORM: Jamie, you work at the ITF lab, which tests rackets, balls and court surfaces to preserve the essence of the game while encouraging innovation. Is there a balance between welcoming tech advances like this dashboard with protecting the game’s traditions?

CAPEL–DAVIES: A while ago, there was maybe more of a conflict between innovation and tradition. Now, there’s definitely more appetite for innovation. Tennis, like a lot of sports, is looking over its shoulder at some of the other sports, at computer games, at eGames.

There’s a willingness to try stuff out and maybe not be overprotective. There’s also a realization that you can do both – maintain tradition and introduce innovation without it necessarily being disruptive.

TRANSFORM: Ilana, you played in the 1970s at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, French Open, the Fed Cup and more. How do you see the addition of new tech meshing with the sport’s adherence to its traditions and lore?

KLOSS: I feel like sometimes the men’s and women’s tours are very conservative in terms of trying new things. Players hate change. Most people hate change.

But sometimes actually not changing is the greater risk. Billie and I have always believed that our sport could be so much better if it embraces technology.

TRANSFORM: Jamie, there are 17 Microsoft Azure services powering the data repository and data filtering inside the dashboard. That offers players and coaches quite an in-the-moment plan for how to win their match.

CAPEL–DAVIES: Yes, it’s the combination of real-time data with a historical perspective. We have data going back several years. You might have already played this particular player. So what happened in that previous match? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What did you do that was effective and that you might want to try and repeat?

TRANSFORM: Ilana, Billie has long fought for the idea that everyone should get an opportunity and a seat at the table. Strictly on a tennis level, does this platform meet that lofty philosophy by offering a new way to share data and analytics – and maybe give more players a chance at greatness?

KLOSS: That’s a very good point. In this team competition, it’s huge because everyone will have access to the information.

Sometimes, on the tour, if you can’t afford the best coach, you’re not getting access to the same information that, say, Serena Williams gets from her team.

A wonderful thing about this partnership with Microsoft, the Billie Jean King Cup and the ITF is that over 116 countries participate in this competition. Their ability to now tap into the data – and to use that information for their federations and their local teams – can be a game-changer. It’s about providing access. That’s where we can really make a difference.

Top photo: Billie Jean King, left, and two teammates accept their trophy for winning the 1963 Fed Cup. (Photo courtesy of the International Tennis Federation.)

An email from CEO Satya Nadella to Microsoft employees: 

As I shared in our Employee Town Hall last month, and in my email earlier this month, we are committed to take action to help address racial injustice and inequity, and unequivocally believe that Black lives matter. Below you will see many of the steps we are taking.

Over the past several weeks, the senior leadership team, board of directors, and I have spent time reflecting, listening, learning, and discussing what role the company – and all of us collectively – must play in helping to drive change, both within Microsoft and in our communities. With significant input from employees and leaders who are members of the Black and African American community, we have developed a set of actions that we believe are both meaningful to improving the lived experience at Microsoft, as well as driving change in the communities in which we live and work.

Today, we are making commitments to address racial injustice and inequity for the Black and African American community in the United States. We will additionally take important steps to address the needs of other communities, including the Hispanic and Latinx community, across the company in the next five years. We are focused on three multiyear, sustained efforts:

• Increasing our representation and culture of inclusion. We will build on our diversity and inclusion (D&I) momentum from the past five years by adding an additional $150M of D&I investment, and will double the number of Black and African American people managers, senior individual contributors, and senior leaders in the United States by 2025.
• Engaging our ecosystem. We will use our balance sheet and engagement with suppliers and partners to extend the vision for societal change throughout our ecosystem, creating new opportunities for them and the communities they serve.
• Strengthening our communities. We will use the power of data, technology, and partnership to help improve the lives of Black and African American citizens across our country, including to address the safety and well-being of our own employees in the communities in which they live.

Below are key details on how we will accomplish this.

Our Culture

We need to ensure that our culture of inclusion is a top priority for everyone. It starts with our values of respect, integrity, and accountability. Each of us must be able to thrive in diverse teams. Every manager must be able to attract, retain, and grow employees of all backgrounds. This is certainly true at Microsoft, and also more broadly. It is the new baseline for manager excellence across industries across the globe.

We will meet this new goal in three key ways:

1. We will accelerate our cultural transformation through further investment in inclusion. Managers who have a deep understanding and commitment to building inclusive culture are key to our company’s success. Starting in FY21, our training on allyship, covering, and privilege in the workplace will be required for all employees, with additional new content on understanding the experience of the Black and African American community. Because leadership sets the tone, we will have required live sessions for CVPs and EVPs to ensure they better understand the lived experience of these specific communities.

2. We will strengthen our intentional career planning and talent development efforts. This will apply across our workforce, beginning with Black and African American employees. These programs will expand to include other employee groups as we learn and grow. We will expand on our leadership development programs for select Black and African American midlevel employees and their managers, to help prepare for promotion to Director/Principal. For Director/Principal level, we will create a new development opportunity to expose them to the leadership expectations of the Partner/GM level and match them with senior-level sponsors and mentors. For Partner/GMs, we are continuing to invest in the dedicated leadership development programs.

3. We will further strengthen company accountability for progress on representation. We will deepen our practice of evaluating each CVP/GM’s progress on diversity and inclusion when determining their impact and rewards, as well as promotion considerations. We will provide CVPs with dedicated D&I coaches to confront and resolve systemic obstacles within their organizations. We will expand our global, quarterly promotion process to ensure we build diverse leadership teams at all levels. This will include direct engagement with business leaders on review of all candidates for people management, Director/Principal level, and Partner/GM level.

Our Ecosystem

A vast business ecosystem surrounds Microsoft from our supply chain to our partner community. We recognize that a stronger and more productive ecosystem requires better representation of the diversity in our communities. We will evolve our engagement with our supply chain, banking partners, and the broad Microsoft partner ecosystem in this effort.

1. We will double the number of Black- and African American-owned approved suppliers over the next three years and spend an incremental $500M with those existing and new suppliers. We’ll do this by ensuring our existing guidance to include diverse minority-owned suppliers in all RFPs is well understood, evaluate supplier portfolio composition, and enhance the weighting of diversity characteristics (both in ownership and in broad workforce) during the supplier evaluation and selection process. We will also encourage Black and African American representation progress in our top 100 suppliers, which account for over 50 percent of our indirect spend, by requesting annual disclosure of their diversity profile information (e.g., workforce diversity, goals) that we will incorporate into our RFP evaluations.

2. We will use our own banking needs to grow our portfolio investment activity with Black- and African American-owned financial institutions. Over the next three years, we will double the percentage of our transaction volumes through these Black- and African-American owned banks and external managers where we have existing strong banking relationships and look to grow that base, which provides an increased opportunity for these firms to attract more capital. We will create a $100M program that will make its initial investment in collaboration with the FDIC to target Minority Owned Depository
   Institutions (MDIs), which directly enables an increase of funds into local communities (businesses, restaurants, housing, etc.). And, we will establish a $50M investment fund focused on supporting Black- and African American-owned small businesses. The fund will initially focus on investing to improve access to capital, increase skill development, and reduce the technology gaps that exist today.

3. We know how important partners are to the growth of our business. We look forward to investing to increase the number of Black- and African American-owned partners in our US partner community by 20 percent over the next three years. A new $50M partner fund will help with access to capital providing loans to support these partners through their startup phase with the loans recovered over time as their business grows. We will provide $20M of financing to existing and new partners to support their cashflow needs. And, we will invest an additional $3M in training programs covering financial management, tech solutions, and go-to-market readiness.

Our Communities

No company can change the world by itself. But we believe that Microsoft can put the power of data, technology, and partnership to work to help improve the lives of Black and African American citizens across our country. That’s what we’re committed to doing, through a four-part effort.

1. We will strengthen and expand our existing justice reform initiative with a five-year, $50 million sustained effort. Since starting this work in 2017, we’ve come to appreciate the importance of this issue not only to the nation, but to the personal lives of our employees and their families. No one should have to live with the fear of being stopped by the police, harassed while shopping, or bullied in school because of the color of their skin. This conviction has led us to do increasing work advocating both in the Puget Sound and nationally, including in the communities where our employees live.We will build on this foundation by using data and digital technology toward increased transparency and accountability in our justice system. All this work will be backed by public policy advocacy that will increase access to data to identify racial disparities and improve policing. We’ll also use our technology and expertise to support evidenced-based and unbiased diversion programs that direct people into treatment alternatives instead of incarceration. We’ll also use data to promote racial equity in the decisions made by prosecutors, including decisions about who to charge with a crime, the nature of the charge, plea offers, and sentencing recommendations.

2. We will expand our skills work to help Black and African American students and adults develop the skills needed to succeed in the digital economy. Over the next five years, we will expand in 13 states and the District of Columbia the Microsoft TEALS industry volunteer program to bring computer science education to an additional 620 high schools primarily serving Black and African American students. We will also strengthen Microsoft’s support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including in computer and data science programs, campus initiatives and partnerships, and curriculum development. Finally, we’ll offer digital skills training to Black and African American adults seeking new jobs. As part of a global skilling initiative, we will provide $5 million in cash grants to community-based nonprofit organizations led by and serving communities of color, enabling them to better support digital skills programs.

3. We will help expand access to broadband and devices for communities of color and the key institutions that support them in major urban centers, by working with carriers, OEMs, our own hardware team, refurbishers, and nonprofits to enrich low-cost broadband access by providing affordable PCs and Microsoft software. We’ll work to ensure these services can be put to effective use to improve people’s lives, with a focus on telehealth services and educational offerings. Backed by public advocacy, we’ll start by focusing on six cities that currently confront the largest urban broadband gaps.

4. Finally, we will increase technology support for nonprofits that support and are led by people of color. We will help support the digital transformation that we know from experience can make nonprofits more effective. We’ll provide access to Azure and Dynamics credits and financial grants that will enable these organizations to add the IT staff needed to better deploy and maximize technology. We look forward to tapping into the knowledge and expertise of our own employees as we identify effective groups we can support more strongly.

Change begins by looking inward. We expect this change in ourselves. Employees expect this change from their leaders. Our customers and partners expect this change from Microsoft. And the world demands this change.

This is not a one-time event. It will require real work and focus. We will listen and learn. We will take feedback and we will adjust. But it starts with each of us making a commitment to do the work, to help drive change, and to act with intention.

Satya

Additional thoughts on this topic

I doubt I’d be in the role I am now if leaders at one of my first jobs hadn’t taken an interest in my career. Although I taught myself to code when I was young, I graduated from college with a degree in English Literature and began my post-college career in editorial. I worked my way up to Assistant Editor at a math and science college textbook publisher located in Boston, Massachusetts. I was responsible for acquisitions and training on the software that that the company distributed with its textbooks. The senior editors sent me to a conference in Florida to train the sales team on how to present the software to professors. This is where I met Jennifer. Jennifer headed up the network and IT support for our California parent company, and because we shared a room at the conference hotel, we got to know each other, and she saw me present. This interaction proved pivotal. When the publisher created a new position to support a network of AS/400s, Jennifer talked me into applying—and yes, she did have to talk me into it! Like a lot of young professionals, I was intimidated to take on such a different role. But I’m so glad she was looking out for me. It was the start of my career in technology, which ultimately led me to Microsoft.

My experience is a great example of how individuals and company culture can influence the trajectory of someone’s career. To celebrate Women in Cybersecurity month, Microsoft is exploring tactics to increase diversity in the tech industry. In the first post in the series, Ann Johnson wrote about mentorship. In this post, I share some ideas for cultivating the diverse talent that already work at your company to build a strong and diverse leadership team.

Retention is as important as recruitment

When we talk about the lack of diversity in tech, much of the conversation focuses around hiring. And it’s true that we need to dramatically increase the number of women, non-binary, and people of color that we recruit. But if we want to create more diverse technology teams, we also need to address the talent drain. Too often smart technologists with nontraditional backgrounds drop out of STEM careers. Studies have shown that up to 52 percent of women leave technology fields. This is nearly double the percentage of men who quit tech. And for those who think it’s because women don’t enjoy technology, 80+ percent of women in STEM say they love their work. The problem often comes down to culture. Which means it’s something we can fix! I’ve worked with and managed many neuro-diverse teams and here’s what I’ve seen work.

People aren’t books

One of the most famous pictures of Einstein shows him with his hair in disarray, sticking his tongue out. If you didn’t know he was one of the greatest thinkers in the world, you might assume he wasn’t the fastest electron in the universe. Or what does it say that many of us didn’t discover Katharine Johnson, another brilliant physicist, until 2017 when the movie “Hidden Figures” was released.

Our collective mental model for what an engineer or scientist is supposed to look and act like doesn’t reflect reality. Some people have purple hair, some like to work in yoga pants, some listen to loud music on headphones all day, or have creative face tattoos. And many are women or LGBTQ or people of color or disabled. People’s race, gender, appearance and work styles have no bearing on whether they are a hard worker or a valuable contributor. We know this, but often we don’t realize we’ve made a judgement based on unconscious biases.

How to address: Don’t judge people by their “covers.” This starts by acknowledging that your biases may not be explicit or intentional, but they still exist. Listen to what people say. Evaluate the work they produce. Observe how they collaborate with others. These are the indicators of the value they bring. And keep in mind that people who’ve been conditioned to believe that technology isn’t for them, may not exhibit the level of confidence you expect. It doesn’t mean they can’t do it. They may just need a little more encouragement (thank you, Jennifer!).

Women often leave jobs because they feel stalled in their careers. In one study, 27 percent of U.S. women said they feel stalled and 32 percent were considering quitting in the next year. For a variety of reasons, unconscious bias results in straight white men getting more opportunities on high profile projects, more ideas greenlit, and faster promotions. As a result, women get discouraged, do not feel supported and look for other opportunities. That is why in the previous blog, we focused on mentorship.

How to address: Be a champion for women and other underrepresented groups in your company. My relationship with Jennifer is a great example of this. She took an interest in my career, identified an opportunity and helped me get to the next rung. Our relationship was informal, but you can also create a structured sponsorship program. The goal is to go beyond mentorship and become an advocate for promising women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups. Use your influence to get them the right projects, the right advice, and the right exposure to help them advance their careers.

Nurture unique thinkers

Back when I was a manager at KPMG, we used to try to hire people who “think outside the box.” But the tricky part about hiring out of the box thinkers is that their ideas are, well, outside the box. Organizations often think they want people to shake things up but in practice many are uncomfortable being challenged. This leads them to quickly shut down bold new ideas. When original thinkers don’t feel valued, they take all that innovation and creativity elsewhere.

How to address: Build a culture of inclusion where everyone has a chance to share. Not every idea is great; in my career I’ve had more than my share of bad ones! But you should listen to and consider all opinions—even if they seem a little off the wall. It doesn’t mean you have to move them all forward, but sometimes an idea that sounds outlandish one day starts to make sense after a good night’s sleep. Or take a page from the women in the Obama administration and amplify ideas that have been overlooked.

Respect the hours

Not everyone can commit to a regular eight in the morning to six in the evening work week. Many people care for children, sick spouses, and elderly parents—being a caretaker is a skill in and of itself! In fact, this quality of being a caretaker is something that in most technology roles can be a valued asset. In addition to being a caretaker, others can’t work “regular” weeks because they’re finishing degrees or have other time challenges and commitments.

Varied approaches to time also apply to project milestones. People deal with deadlines differently—some get stressed if the deadline is too close (like me!) and do their work in advance, others need that adrenaline pump and wait until (almost) the last minute to deliver.

How to address: Institute and support flexible work hours, job sharing (two people share the same job, both doing it half-time), or three weeks on/one week off work schedules that enable people to contribute without requiring them to keep the same hours as everyone else. Trust that people can be productive even if they don’t work the same way or at the same time as your typical employee.

To build a diverse, experienced team of leaders, you need an environment that supports and accepts differences of all kinds. Don’t let bias about gender, appearance, or the hours someone can work get in the way of nurturing all those great hires into the next generation of great leaders. Our senior director for our cybersecurity operations team, Kristina, looks for diversity as this helps with managing the diversity of threats. Listen to her thoughts on diversity in our CISO Spotlight Episode 7.

What’s next

For those interested in how to find more diverse talent, next week Theresa Payton will share ideas from her experience recruiting girls, women, and other people with differing backgrounds into technology.

In the meantime, bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity. To learn more about our Security solutions visit our website. Or reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

From the way our industry tackles cyber threats, to the language we have developed to describe these attacks, I’ve long been a proponent to challenging traditional schools of thought—traditional cyber-norms—and encouraging our industry to get outside its comfort zones. It’s important to expand our thinking in how we address the evolving threat landscape. That’s why I’m not a big fan of stereotypes; looking at someone and saying they “fit the mold.” Looking at my CV, one would think I wanted to study law, or politics, not become a cybersecurity professional. These biases and unconscious biases shackle our progression. The scale of our industry challenges is too great, and if we don’t push boundaries, we miss out on the insights that differences in race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, neurology, ability, and degrees can bring.

As we seek to diversify the talent pool, a key focus needs to be on nurturing female talent. Microsoft has hired many women in security, and we will always focus on keeping a diverse workforce. That’s why as we celebrate Women in Cybersecurity Month and International Women’s Day, the security blog will feature a few women cybersecurity leaders who have been implementing some of their great ideas for how to increase the number of women in this critical field. I’ll kick off the series with some thoughts on how we can build strong mentoring relationships and networks that encourage women to pursue careers in cybersecurity.

There are many women at Microsoft who lead our security efforts. I’m incredibly proud to be among these women, like Joy Chik, Corporate Vice President of Identity, who is pushing the boundaries on how the tech industry is thinking about going passwordless, and Valecia Maclin, General Manager of Security Engineering, who is challenging us to think outside the box when it comes to our security solutions. On my own team, I think of the many accomplishments of  Ping Look, who co-founded Black Hat and now leads our Detection and Response Team (DART), Sian John, MBE, who was recently recognized as one of the top 50 influencers in cybersecurity in the U.K., and Diana Kelley, Microsoft CTO, who tirelessly travels to the globe to share how we are empowering our customers through cybersecurity—just to name a few. It’s important we continue to highlight women like these, including our female cybersecurity professionals at Microsoft who made the Top 100 Cybersecurity list in 2019. The inspiration from their accomplishments goes far beyond our Microsoft campus. These women represent the many Microsoft women in our talented security team. This month, you’ll also hear from some of them in subsequent blog posts on how to keep the diverse talent you already have employed. And to conclude the month, Theresa Payton, CEO at Fortalice Solutions, LLC., and the host of our CISO Spotlight series will share tips from her successful experience recruiting talented women into IT and cybersecurity.

Our cyber teams must be as diverse as the problems we are trying to solve

You’ve heard me say this many times, and I truly believe this: As an industry, we’ve already acknowledged the power of diversity—in artificial intelligence (AI). We have clear evidence that a variety of data across multiple sources and platforms enhances and improves AI and machine learning models. Why wouldn’t we apply that same advantage to our teams? This is one of several reasons why we need to take diversity and inclusion seriously:

• Diverse teams make better and faster decisions 87 percent of the time compared with all male teams, yet the actual number of women in our field fluctuates between 10 and 20 percent. What ideas have we missed by not including more women?
• With an estimated shortfall of 3.5 million security professionals by 2021, the current tech talent pipeline needs to expand—urgently.
• Cyber criminals will continue to exploit the unconscious bias inherent in the industry by understanding and circumventing the homogeneity of our methods. If we are to win the cyber wars through the element of surprise, we need to make our strategy less predictable.

Mentoring networks must start early

Mentorship can be a powerful tool for increasing the number of women in cybersecurity. People select careers that they can imagine themselves doing. This process starts young. Recently a colleague’s pre-teen daughter signed up for an after-school robotics class. When she showed up at the class, only two other girls were in the room. Girls are opting out of STEM before they can (legally) opt into a PG-13 movie. But we can change this. By exposing girls to technology earlier, we can reduce the intimidation factor and get them excited. One group that is doing this is the Security Advisor Alliance. Get involved in organizations like this to reach girls and other underrepresented groups before they decide cybersecurity is not for them.

Building a strong network

Mentoring young people is important, but to solve the diversity challenges, we also need to bring in people who started on a different career path or who don’t have STEM degrees. You simply won’t find the talent you need through the anemic pipeline of college-polished STEM graduates. I recently spoke with Mari Galloway, a senior security architect in the gaming industry and CEO of the Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu (WSC) about this very topic in my podcast. She agreed on the importance of finding a mentor, and being a mentee.

Those seeking to get into cybersecurity need a network that provides the encouragement and constructive feedback that will help them grow. I have mentored several non-technical women who have gone on to have successful roles in cybersecurity. These relationships have been very rewarding for me and my mentees, which is why I advocate that everybody should become a mentor and a mentee.

If you haven’t broken into cybersecurity yet, or if you are in the field and want to grow your career, here are a few tips:

• Close the skills gap through training and certificate programs offered by organizations like Sans Institute and ISC2. I am especially excited about Girls Go Cyberstart, a program for young people that Microsoft is working on with Sans Institute.
• Build up your advocate bench with the following types of mentors:
  • Career advocate: Someone who helps you with your career inside your company or the one you want to enter.
  • Coach: Someone outside your organization who brings a different perspective to troubleshooting day-to-day problems.
  • Senior advisor: Someone inside or outside your organization who looks out for the next step in your career.
• Use social media to engage in online forums, find local events, and reach experts. Several of my mentees use LinkedIn to start the conversation.
• When you introduce yourself to someone online be clear that you are interested in their cumulative experience not just their job status.

For those already in cybersecurity, be open to those from the outside seeking guidance, especially if they don’t align with traditional expectations of who a cybersecurity professional is.

Mentorship relationships that yield results

A mentorship is only going to be effective if the mentee gets valuable feedback and direction from the relationship. This requires courageous conversations. It’s easy to celebrate a mentee’s visible wins. However, those moments are the result of unseen trench work that consists of course correcting and holding each other accountable to agreed upon actions. Be prepared to give and receive constructive, actionable feedback.

Creating inclusive cultures

More women and diverse talent should be hired in security not only because it is the right thing to do, but because gaining the advantage in fighting cybercrime depends on it. ​Mentorship is one strategy to include girls before they opt out of tech, and to recruit people from non-STEM backgrounds.

What’s next

Watch for Diana Kelley’s blog about how to create a culture that keeps women in the field.

Learn more about Girls Go Cyberstart.

Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity. Or reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

In honor of International Women’s Day, Microsoft is proud to recognize some of the amazing women of Microsoft Quantum. These engineers, scientists, program managers and business leaders are working toward realizing Microsoft’s mission of building a scalable quantum computer and global quantum community to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.

Last year, we introduced you to some of the women working on quantum software; this year we’re profiling more women delivering impact in the Microsoft Quantum program, across quantum hardware, software, partnerships, and business development.

This is the second of a two-part series. In case you missed it, meet The Women of Microsoft Quantum in Part 1.

Sydney Schreppler – Quantum Hardware Engineer

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am a Quantum Engineer working as part of a global hardware team that characterizes quantum materials for the development of our topological qubit technology. Our team measures electrical transport properties in cryogenic environments, probing the quantum nature of the materials. Right now I’m excited to be working in Redmond, where, together with the Quantum Systems team, we span Microsoft’s full quantum stack, from our topological qubit layer at the very bottom all the way up to the algorithms offered in Azure Quantum.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

Long before I knew I wanted to study physics, people around me seemed to know it. I think it was because I was always asking for simple explanations for how the world worked and because I liked to understand those answers through a mathematical lens. Once I started studying physics, the more I learned, the simpler and more elegant the explanations got.

What attracted me to quantum measurements first, and later to quantum computing, was the idea that something that seemed so non-intuitive and mysterious was nonetheless observable, and even useful! I wanted to see quantum effects for myself, so as a college student, I sought out opportunities in labs measuring quantum things. And once I had “seen” quantum, I was hooked. I measured the quantum mechanical motion of tiny membranes, the interaction of ultracold atoms with laser light (obtaining my Ph.D. in physics along the way), and the quantum entanglement of superconducting circuits. Now at Microsoft, I get to harness these same kinds of measurements to develop our quantum hardware.

Amrita Singh – Quantum Hardware Engineer

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am a hardware engineer and coordinate the substrate fabrication activities with a small team of nanofabrication engineers at Microsoft Quantum Labs – Delft. We engineer the substrates and create a platform for selective area growth of a high-quality III-V semiconductor/ superconductor hybrid network, which is a building block of the topological quantum qubit.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

I was born and raised in a remote rural village in northern India where a girl’s education wasn’t important and the only expectation from a girl was to get married at an early age, raise children, and at the most, become a primary school teacher in the village. Mathematics and Science were considered to be boys’ subjects and weren’t even available as an option until the senior year at my all-girls school when I started. I was fortunate though, in that they were introduced a year before I reached my final year.

I studied science in my school to prove my worthiness as much as the boys in the neighborhood, but didn’t fully believe in it because it conflicted with my belief in God and other superstitions. But I always loved mathematics because of its precision, as no belief could justify 2+2≠4.

My exposure to technology was very limited and I had my first encounter with computers during my Masters (Physics) degree at IIT Delhi. During my Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, I started appreciating the power of scientific attitude when I would verify a hypothesis with experimental data. Being an experimental physicist, I would feel restless for my blind faith and that is when I started to question my deep-rooted superstitions and religious beliefs, getting rid of them over the course of about four to five years. This was only possible due to my career choice in Science and Technology and it has shaped me into who I am today.

I did my Ph.D. on quantum devices for spintronic application and I extended my knowledge to superconducting spintronics during my postdoc work at Leiden University, where I gained expertise in interface engineering for hybrid quantum devices. I believed that, with my diverse background in quantum physics and device engineering, I would be able to contribute toward the realization of an ambitious topological quantum computer at Microsoft, as well as be able to learn and grow without limit by working with great minds.

Science for me is not just a profession but a way of living. I strongly believe that we could change the lives of millions of unprivileged deserving children in the world by giving quality education and bring them into the mainstream by using technologies.

Aarthi Meenakshi Sundaram – Researcher

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Research and Applications team at Microsoft Quantum, where my overarching goal is to understand both the power and limitations of using quantum computers to solve some of our most challenging problems. Sometimes, this means defining efficient quantum algorithms for various problems. Other times, this means defining a mathematically rigorous computational model and analyzing which problems are “easy” or “difficult” in this model à la complexity theory.

Currently, I am looking forward to tackling both aspects in the context of quantum machine learning. It’s a nascent but rapidly evolving area with new algorithms being discovered and comes with its own set of challenges for us to understand precisely what kinds of learning problems can be sped up with quantum resources and to what extent. In classical computational learning theory, there are many well-established models of learning. Inevitably, we find that there may be various ways to “quantize” these models (i.e., add some “quantum magic” to these models, and each way could be useful in vastly different scenarios – some abstract/mathematical, some very real and even implementable in the near-term on quantum computers! Investigating these in all their variations is what excites me right now.

On a slightly different track, I also care about building tools that could help to efficiently verify quantum programs – through type checking or other methods. One of the main challenges is that any quantum program debugger that observes or measures how a quantum state is manipulated in the program could destroy the quantum nature of the state itself. Another challenge is that certain techniques that work well on small quantum programs will scale badly with the size of our program and could take too long to verify realistically. So, along with my collaborators here, we are investigating ways to build efficient type checkers that could provide us with the ability to verify some, if not all of the properties of interest in a quantum program.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

I have been reliably informed by my mother that, as a 4- or 5-year old, I took great joy in sitting on her lap and helping her with her programming work by entering the programs into our computer at home and marveling at this new object that knew how to follow my orders (or throw error messages!) So, while I don’t remember ever having to make a conscious choice to work in the world of computing, it has always seemed like a foregone conclusion in my mind, leading to my Math and Computer Science majors during undergrad.

For the first time at my university, one of my professors offered a course in quantum information and computing. I had just started getting interested in cryptography then and being introduced to this new computing model that could break state-of-the-art cryptosystems was a revelation! I was intrigued by this field that almost sounded like something out of science fiction and seemed so counterintuitive, at first.

Encouraged by my professor to pursue it beyond that one course, it was a natural progression for me to eventually pursue a Ph.D. in quantum complexity theory. It allowed me to blend the skills I had learned from both of my undergrad majors seamlessly. Being interested in the more abstract and theoretical aspects of computer science, I spent my Ph.D. analyzing the power of quantum analogs of various computational models. A continuous inspiration since I’ve delved more into quantum computing is that by living at the intersection and cutting edge of many different fields, one gets to work and learn from people whose expertise is vastly different than your own. With Microsoft Quantum’s aim of delivering a full stack of quantum services, that means, I am thrilled for the opportunity to interact with everyone from material scientists to mathematicians within the team.

Judith Suter – Senior Researcher

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

In my work as a Senior Researcher in the Microsoft Quantum Hardware Program, I focus mainly on electrical characterization of different device types, materials, and fabrication processes. My days revolve around planning and designing experiments, running and optimizing low-temperature measurements, and exploring the resulting aggregated data. As part of a global team, another element of my job is cross-site collaboration where we leverage the diverse expertise of the whole team to collectively tackle challenging projects.

Recently I also became part of the Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure Diversity and Inclusion Council, where I represent the Quantum Hardware Program. I am excited to help drive the efforts towards the ambitious goals of Microsoft to fuel systemic change, widen our pipelines to reach and engage a diverse group of people, and transform our culture to ensure that everyone feels welcome and valued.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

My path to working on quantum computing was not without detours. As a high school student, I was fascinated by surrealist painters and the strange but self-consistent worlds they portrayed, so I commenced my studies at an arts and graphic design academy. Eventually, I left, longing to do something completely different, something I knew nothing about. I signed up for an undergraduate degree in Nanoscience, where I felt I could get a taste of different scientific fields. There, quantum physics intrigued me from the start: counterintuitive concepts born out of creative boldness – surprisingly, some lectures ended up reminding me of my art classes studying surrealism. I was hooked. I bought a one-way ticket to the epicenter of quantum physics, the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, joined Prof. Charles Marcus’ lab there at the Center for Quantum Devices and started my training to become a quantum physicist.

Vicky Svidenko – Partner Quantum Data Sciences

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am leading the Quantum Systems Integration team – helping to accelerate quantum research and development. The Microsoft Quantum group is exploring ways to build a full-stack quantum computer and has become the world’s center of expertise on topological quantum computing. I am incredibly humbled by the opportunity to support this development effort and contribute to the new breakthroughs, together with an amazing team of talented researchers and engineers.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

I came to Quantum because I enjoy the loosely orchestrated chaos of early product development and the frenzy of excitement for every new learning and every new benchmark. I like that incredible sensation of being part of something futuristically amazing, now evolving and materializing.

Another reason: This was my first opportunity to work for an amazing female manager – Krysta Svore – and I wasn’t going to miss it.

Meet more of The Women of Microsoft Quantum in Part 1 of this series.

This is just a small sample of the amazing people on the Microsoft Quantum team. If you want to join us as we build the quantum future, we’re hiring!

One of my earliest learnings was that my experiences as a woman were not identical to other women’s experiences, although they were similar. As with any dimension of identity, the way women experience the world depends on much larger context. As a white girl growing up in Victoria, British Columbia, there were multiple layers to my experiences. Although my brothers and I had what was necessary, we did not have much socioeconomic privilege. What I learned as I watched the world around me is that as a benefit of my race, it was easier for me to cover my socioeconomic status than it was for my friends who were not white.

The United Nations marked March 8 as International Women’s Day by declaring that “fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women everywhere.” This declaration is inclusive of all women with intersectionality in mind.

Understanding intersectionality in the workplace

It starts with something as simple as the way we think about all the dimensions of our identity, including things like race, ethnicity, disability, religion, age and sexual orientation. Even class, education, geography and personal history can alter how we experience womanhood. When Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality 30 years ago, she explained it as how these overlapping identities and conditions impact the way we experience life’s challenges and opportunities, the privileges we have, the biases we face.

So simply focusing on a single dimension of identity, without that context, is not always helpful. When we consider women as a single category, as a monolith, it can be misleading at best, dangerous at worst. Doing so overlooks the variations of circumstances and perspectives within the group and obscures real lived experiences as outliers or exceptions. “Women’s workplace issues” is a vague term without enough specificity to drive action. Women of color, women with disabilities, transgender women, women who are the first of their family to work corporate or professional jobs, women who are caregivers — all women deal with additional social, cultural, regional or community demands that may not exist for others. Although all women navigate varying degrees of conscious and unconscious gender biases, intersections of identity can place compounded pressure on a woman to downplay other aspects of her life to conform — a behavior called covering, as explored by Kenji Yoshino — leading to even greater workplace stress.

To increase hiring, retention, representation and the development of women in the workplace, companies must be intentional and accountable for being aware of the diversity within the diversity. Conventional strategies to increase the representation of women in a workplace have mostly benefited those who do not also experience intersectional challenges. By getting curious and exploring the lived experiences of women through the lens of intersectionality, we become more precise about the root cause and about finding ways to generate systemic solutions for all.

Setting the stage for allyship

 Understanding all this can be a powerful catalyst for change, not just for organizations as a whole but also for individuals. At Microsoft we are refining how we think about allyship. Part of that exploration is the recognition that as Microsoft employees each of us has some dimension of privilege. This isn’t meant to minimize or negate the very real ways that communities experience significant, systematic historical bias or oppression. But rather it is meant to shine a light on our opportunity to show up for each other. For example, as a community of women we have an opportunity to be more thoughtful about the experiences of our peers who face greater challenges due to their intersectional identity. So although traditionally we might look to men in the workplace to carry the full weight of allyship, women in the workplace also have an opportunity to be thoughtful allies for others in their community.

Such an awareness opens the door for true allyship — an intentional commitment to use your voice, credibility, knowledge, place or power to support others in the way they want to be supported. I am very aware of my opportunity, due to my personal privilege, to show up for other women in a meaningful way. I embrace my obligation to create space for other voices to be heard, not just on International Women’s Day, but all year round.

Tags: diversity, International Women’s Day