Not Your Average First Day on the Job
Normally, the first day of a new job means hours of tedium filled with time spent filling out forms, reading “stuff” and coming up to speed. Not so in my new role…
As the new Global Gender Intelligence Lead for SAP, I couldn’t begin to imagine a better “first day” on the job than the one I experienced recently.
Normally, the first day of a new job means hours of tedium filled with time spent filling out forms, reading “stuff” and coming up to speed. Not so in my new role…
By 8:30 a.m., I found myself at SAP’s beautiful new Hudson Yards office in New York City amongst the Executive Advisory Board for the United Nations Women, Global Innovation Coalition for Change. As I sat down and joined the discussion, a woman across the table who had already begun speaking to our group, paused her sentence, looked over at me and with depth in her voice and warmth in her eyes, she said, “welcome.”
That woman was Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, one of the world’s leading thinkers, advocates and change agents for gender equity.
Clearly, this was not your average first day on the job.
Throughout the day, the SAP Next-Gen team, other coalition members team, and I talked about the most pressing issues affecting women and girls in today’s world and the need for simple, accessible, innovative solutions. We also discussed how private organizations can (and should) be a part of the solution and came up with fresh ideas for a new approach. We discussed the need for visible examples, a new technology platform, virtual skills schools, and apps that could help shrink our gender and skill gap.
Clearly, this was not your average first day on the job.
Although the entire day was thrilling, the most exciting thing about taking on this role at SAP is the opportunity to build on the tremendous work already done by Anka Wittenberg, Nicole McCabe, SAP’s leaders, and really, the entire company. Together, the SAP community has achieved a goal of 25 percent women in leadership which is benefitting both women and men.
While that achievement is a momentous one indeed, our CEO, Bill McDermott, true to form, has only raised the bar and further challenged us and the tech industry to continue to focus on and advance diversity, gender equity, and inclusion. This is wonderful news since I’m already so incredibly inspired by the women who lead people at SAP.
The video above will give you a sense of what I am talking about — it speaks volumes to the vision women bring to the table, their empathy and their intent to multiply their talent across the company, in an inclusive way.
We know that an inclusive culture that promotes balance around gender and other areas contributes to huge strides in innovation, better decision making (95 percent correlated with financial performance), higher profitability, and more opportunity for all. It makes the world run better. Full stop.
Our next milestone is to increase women in leadership to 28 percent in 2020 and 30 percent in 2022. This will not be easy, as it is going to require continued momentum and a laser sharp focus.
Brene Brown, American scholar, author, and public speaker, says that, “to own our story, we have to write our own story”. In it, we have to be open and inclusive of all groups impacted — creating more opportunity for some groups is not a zero-sum game for the others. Everyone has to be a part of the conversation, and has to begin owning this story to see how helping women helps us all.
Together, I know we are going to take SAP to even greater heights to move business beyond bias, and, when we do, we will serve as a shining example for other companies, and society at large.
