Anita Borg Institute Celebrates Top Companies for Women in Tech

The Anita Borg Institute announces the finalists for its Top Companies for Women Technologists Leadership Index.

“It’s an absolute honor for Macy’s to be recognized by the Anita Borg Institute,” Mike Robinson, executive vice president of Digital Technology at Macy’s, told eWEEK. “We’ve made it a clear and consistent focus to empower, advocate and develop women in technology, and we will continue to promote the importance of gender diversity.”

At food delivery service Grubhub, half the executive team is female and, according to a company spokesperson, its senior leadership and engineering teams are also very balanced. From April 2015 until April 2016, 28 percent of new technical hires were women and 46 percent of total employees were women. “We are thrilled that Grubhub was named one of the Top Companies for Women Technologists by the Anita Borg Institute. And even more than that, we are proud to work for a company that values diverse perspectives—and believes those perspectives help to create a better product, and a better workplace culture,” Sandra Glading, director of media relations at Grubhub, told eWEEK. “Grubhub’s leaders look forward to continuing to cultivate a workplace where diversity thrives throughout all levels of the company.”

“When I first started my career 25 years ago, the representation of women in computing roles was far greater than it is today. At Capital One, we’re committed to doing our part to change that by supporting women in tech across all stages of the pipeline,” Julie Elberfeld, Commercial Bank CIO at Capital One, told eWEEK. “That’s why two years ago, we launched a formal Women in Tech (WIT) program internally to elevate our focus on women working in technology. Today, we have six thriving WIT chapters in offices around the country that have brought women and men together to help develop a love of technology in girls and improve representation of women in the technology field through internal and external initiatives.” (This photo was taken at a Women in Tech Demo Day, where women technologists—and some male allies—hack a solution to help out nonprofit partners.)

In March, Accenture published a research paper, “Getting to Equal: How Digital Is Helping Close the Gender Gap at Work,” which provided empirical proof that women are using digital skills to gain an edge at finding work and succeeding at work. These skills also are key to narrowing the pay gap and reaching gender equality, according to Julie Sweet, Accenture’s group chief executive for North America, who has called this idea a “powerful message for all women and girls.” In addition to its ABI nomination, Accenture has been recognized by the National Association for Female Executives five times and named to its “Top Companies for Executive Women” list.

On its website, Google says, “Creating the right environments, programs and policies can support women in pursuing their dreams and building tools that change the world.” It has encouraged female employees to nominate themselves for promotions; it provides women with opportunities to grow and develop, such as by hosting summits and supporting employee groups including Google Women in Engineering; and it has very pro-family policies, such as maternity and paternity leave with full pay and benefits.

“One contributing factor to increasing our diversity is looking beyond the computer science department and seeking candidates that are passionate about technology and show intellectual curiosity,” Reyne Quackenbush, head of global PR at ThoughtWorks, told eWEEK, regarding its inclusion on the ABI list. “Once on the job, we support non-traditional and traditional candidates with training, along with mentors and coaching. This helps ThoughtWorkers find their place within the company and sets them up for success. One specific example is ThoughtWorks University [pictured], a five-week intensive training program for all new graduate hires, which simulates projects and covers both technical and soft skills.”

“We are proud that females represent 39.5 percent of our company’s leadership, especially when we compare ourselves against our technology peers,” a spokesperson from AthenaHealth told eWEEK. “Hundreds of our employees are members of our very active Employee Resource Group, the Women’s Leadership Forum. This group is dedicated to making AthenaHealth the best place for women to work and to facilitating honest conversations that improve gender dynamics and business practices.”

Raji Arasu, SVP of Platform and Services at Intuit, says it was “a proud moment” when the company learned that it had been included on the ABI list. “We are committed to cultivating a talented, engaged and diverse workforce at all levels, and today the number of women in technical roles at Intuit is 29.5 percent in the U.S.,” Arasu told eWEEK. “We have a community called Tech Women @ Intuit that is helping us recruit, retain and advance technical women. Our motivation for this work stems from the belief that the people who invent technology should be as diverse as the people who use it. At Intuit, while we are proud of what we’ve achieved, we know there is more work to be done.”

In 2012, news organization Thomson Reuters established a Women’s Advisory Task Force with three areas of focus: identifying top female talent and creating a pipeline of women leaders; creating targeted leadership and career development programs; and positioning the company as a premier place for women to be. It has also worked with the National Center for Women & Information Technology and supported campaigns such as Sit With Me, which encouraged women to “validate and recognize the important role women play in creating future technology” by sitting in a red chair and telling their stories to men, children and other women. Introducing an analytics-driven Diversity and Inclusion Index this year, Debra Walton, chief product and content officer, Financial & Risk, stated, “While there’s still work to be done, we are committed to using our assets and influence to champion the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace—especially our own.”

In addition to being named to the ABI Index, New York Life was this year also named to the “Best Companies for Multicultural Women” list by Working Mother magazine. “We believe that having a diverse and inclusive workplace is not only good for our company,” said Kathleen Navarro, vice president and chief diversity officer, commenting on that distinction, “but it is also a competitive strength in the marketplace. Cultivating a diverse and inclusive workplace allows us to better serve our clients and makes us a stronger company.”