Women’s History Month is observed in March in several countries, including the US, UK and Australia and in October in Canada. With that, I wanted to take a moment to share some of the ways in which Ribbon is working to advance the cause of women as we continue to expand our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts.a

Historically, women have been underrepresented in technology and telecom jobs, as well as many other fields. Luckily this is changing, and Ribbon wants to be a partner and leader in that change. Including more women and other underrepresented groups isn’t only fair, it’s also  recognized that teams with more diverse representation are more successful, largely due to the opportunity to share, test and implement different viewpoints and ideas.

In 2020, we included a goal to increase the number of women in our company in our Global Sustainability Report. We knew that this would take sustained efforts both internally and externally, and we got to work!

On the recruiting side, we put together a plan to help attract and hire more women candidates and conduct a more inclusive hiring process. This encompassed several key components including revising our job descriptions and hiring processes to be more attractive to women and to root out any unintended biases. We also launched recruiting programs at various colleges and universities in our main locations to attract more recent female graduates, encouraging them to start and grow their careers with Ribbon.

Internally, we implemented a diversity webinar series to help foster discussion. All employees were invited to join webinars with speakers including Avipsha Thakur, Founder of Bunavat, and Kiwoba Allaire, CEO and Founder of Girl STEM Stars, giving everyone the opportunity to hear and learn from these leaders.

Earlier this month, we hosted a roundtable with 6 Ribbon women leaders with diverse backgrounds, based in various locations of our company across the globe, where a moderator discussed some of the ways in which being a woman has impacted their career, both positively and negatively. And of course, our recently formed DEI Council has held a series of roundtable discussions to get direct feedback and suggestions from employees on our diversity efforts, some of which are already in the process of being implemented.

Externally, we’ve also made a concentrated effort to showcase our diverse team on social media and other external facing channels, highlighting female employees and focusing on targeted channels for women in tech globally.

In addition to increasing the number of women employees across all levels of the organizations, one of our stated goals in our Global Sustainability Report is to have 30% of Ribbon management positions be held by women by 2025 so there is more work to do. And while one of the major company objectives in 2021 was to increase the number of women employees in the company, each year we plan to focus on other underrepresented groups.

All this work has required support from many teams around the company, and I’m so proud to see people coming together to make Ribbon stronger and more diverse and to support these initiatives. It’s truly a wonderful experience and I’m looking forward to our continued progress in this and other areas. Please stay tuned for more!

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