Diversity
asking whether I would apply for the Chair of the Women’s ERG or the Ethnicity ERG, and I felt I could make a bigger impact in the Ethnicity ERG (whilst also being part of the Women’s ERG as a community member). I interviewed for the role and felt that my aspirations and passions were more closely aligned to the Ethnicity ERG from a cultural perspective, and I haven’t looked back since.
You mentioned that you are part of two ERGs, how closely do the ERGs at Exertis work together? We are all so closely connected and we all really respect each other’s resource groups. It’s all about having those vulnerable conversations. We are all open and honest with each other and have learnt about each other’s journeys. As chairs, we spend a lot of time learning about each other and our own communities, and this has created a strong bond between the ERG chairs and everyone involved is very ambitious as well. We’re so lucky that we all learn from each other and respect the efforts and progress we’re all making with our own ERGs, whilst being allies to all of them. We share ideas and feedback to help push each other to be the best we can be.
Tell me a bit about allyship in a box and how you’ve taken this further into the channel. Allyship is all about having an empathy and an affinity to a group which you don’t necessarily consider yourself part of, and it’s always been a big interest and focus of ours. We heard about Allyship in a Box at Microsoſt. Te Chairs of our ERGs and selected senior executive sponsors were part of a cohort trained by Microsoſt and we made a pledge to work with large organisations to train them, and spread the learning. We’ve done over 600 training hours in our own business, but now we’ve also taken this externally to companies such as SCC, Computacenter and Kinly to roll this out to them; continuing the pledge to roll this forward again, and use their own training to train others.
Can you tell me a bit about where your career began in the channel? Aſter my degree in Computing and Manufacturing Systems, I began working in the channel with MSI in 2002 as a Sales Executive. I loved the company, I enjoyed getting involved with customers, and didn’t know much about the channel industry at the time. At that point there were not many females in decision-making roles, but there was diversity represented in other areas. From there I worked at Foxconn, and then worked for 14 years at Supermicro (as a Channel Account Manager and worked up to being Sales Director) and diversity, or how you felt, was never really talked about in the industry at this point either. More females were employed over the years as my career progressed, but it was very much still a male-oriented industry. My hybrid role gave me flexibility when I returned from maternity leave, but it was clear that other people were progressing quicker than me due to the family commitments I had. I enjoyed all of my roles, but during Covid I reassessed my work life balance. I loved my role and where I was at in my career, but I wanted to spend more time with my family. I’d been working closely with Exertis as a key partner when I was in the vendor space, and an opportunity came up at Exertis Enterprise which I took, in the role as a General Manager for Datacentre and Commercial.
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I’ve felt very supportive in actively getting involved in ERGs and diversity from the beginning. Conversations were now beginning, people were being more open, and experiences were being shared; which was invaluable.
What have the defining moments of your DEI journey? We have recently launched a mentoring programme within the Ethnicity ERG, and the response from both mentee sign ups and mentors has been fantastic. We have recorded podcasts both with members and allies which have been groundbreaking, and I’ve been so proud of the honesty which everyone has shown when being interviewed. We are also getting vendors and customers on our podcasts now too. Tis is in addition to customers and vendors hearing about our DEI journey and wanting to be involved in our story. During Black History Month we opened up our webinars to the channel (and friends and family) to share the learnings from people such as Dame Kelly Holmes, Yemi Elegunde, Alesia Hendley and Dragon’s Den star Piers Linney. Our recent external Pride and EmpowHer events have also given us great opportunities to collaborate further with customers, vendors and peers in the industry, rather than only hosting events internally for our own people. We want to share our learnings and our DEI journey to inspire others. We have organisations asking us to collaborate with us on our DEI journey, enquiring into making pledges as organisations together, and boosting allyship. Our dedication to companies such as TC4RE, Peppy, and Sunflower Hidden Disabilities are all great examples of how we support our people and show commitment to these topics. Mentorship programmes are also being rolled out within our business for women, to ensure that colleagues have support to help accelerate their careers with the help of senior leaders.
What’s next? We have aspirations clearly defined in our strategy for the Group, and a big focus of this is collaborating with the leaders of our business across Europe. We’re expanding our ERG groups across Europe, we will then be able to take learnings from existing ERGs and tailor to their relevance, whilst being respectful and mindful of all of their individual journeys. Being in my current role enables me to take initiatives from all groups and use them as inspiration for implementing campaigns and positive actions across other ERGs and countries, and we can lean into stakeholders in the business who have relationships with other peers in the industry, to spread our influence as wide as possible too. I’m also looking forward to being more actively involved in working with partners and working in outreach programmes to help support under-represented communities, and those in different socioeconomic groups. Intersectionality is also a big focus for us in the coming months. We appreciate that not everyone sits just in one community, but we are increasing our mindfulness of people’s balance of the complexities of bringing your whole self to work, and all the different DEI elements which that entails. Te great progress we’ve made in our DEI story over the last few years will be a strong foundation for this, and our support for our own colleagues, and for wider contacts across the industry, will continue to grow more substantially. Our tagline has never been more relevant – together we can.
September/October 2024 | 27
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