Let's talk about gender equality and women in business.
Share with us what you're doing.
In the technology industry itself, we do not have enough women.
We have a challenge.
The greatest way to solve that challenge is for people like myself to be supporting, advocating,
and even placing women who truly deserve to be in leadership and making that happen.
I invest a significant amount of my time with that particular and also mentoring women,
building confidence, going after positions that they believe they can be great at, but
then also recommending women for roles that they might not think they are yet qualified
for.
I personally spend a lot of time there.
As a company, SAP has a goal in place, year-by-year, in terms of the number of women that we want
to have in leadership positions.
Until people naturally begin to understand the purpose and the importance of diversity
and inclusion, we're going to put goals in place as a company to ensure that it does
happen.
Gender equality, women in leadership, we're very, very focused on.
What should companies do and what advice do you have to leaders inside other organizations,
both men and women?
One of the things that we've done at SAP is, we have a lot of employee networks.
We have the Businesswomen's Network.
This is a collection of women across the globe in SAP who come together and talk about issues
that matter to women.
That's what I would say, number one, create communities where there is comfort.
Sometimes people would say, "well, why do you need a women's community?
That then segments women in a way that may seem unnatural."
We've talked openly about the women's community about that and we've heard, time and time
again, "No.
We haven't achieved what we want to achieve from a gender equality standpoint," so to
be able to come together as women and talk openly in a safe zone about what it's going
to take and what we need to do differently, better, or how we need to invite men to the
table to have the conversation with us, that's a really important thing to think about.
That's what I would say is probably the most important thing.
The second, I would say, is looking more at yourself.
What are you doing to help personally change challenges that we still have around gender
equality?
I talked a moment ago about the investment of time I make in mentoring and really looking
at the open positions we have across the business and making sure that there is a fair gender
balance that exists.
Promote the skills and bring the confidence to women in particular who may not think they're
qualified and going after something even if you don't feel you're totally ready for it.
Look inward at yourself as well in terms of what you're doing because that matters when
people take personal accountability to drive the impact and the change.
What advice do you have for women?
Build your confidence.
Know what you're passionate about.
Have a voice.
Know what your strengths are and capitalize on them.
Far too often, I find women dwelling on things that they are not so great at and downplaying
their strengths.
With myself, how I've led, I focus a lot on where I'm good.
It's not to say that I'm not focused on improving in a lot of ways, and I would give that same
advice to women everywhere, but you just have to have the confidence in being able to share
it some more as well.
How about advice for men?
Be part of the conversation with women.
I can count so many men who gave me opportunities, opportunities when I might not have felt necessarily
ready.
Continue to advocate for women, support them, understand where they're really good, and
make sure that you have a balance when there are open positions, not only as it relates
to job promotion and job creation, but also when it comes to just sitting around a table.
When you're making strategic decisions about the company, do you have women also part of
that conversation as well?
That's what I would just ask men to think about when they go into the boardroom or they
look at open positions.
Make sure that there's a fair balance between men and women there because it will really
take both of us, both men and women, to create the change that we want to create, as it relates
to having more women in leadership across all of our businesses.
Making conscious decisions.
Absolutely.
Alicia Tillman, thank you so much.
Thank you, Michael.