International Women's Day 2020: Each for Equal

The 2020 International Women’s Day theme is #EachForEqual which seeks to better the gender balance by challenging stereotypes and broadening perceptions to make headway.

Here at Atos, the focus is on getting to equal. Our Women Who Succeed program grew from the need to identify women as successors for all key roles, and to subsequently prepare them for these positions. Support comes from ExCom on down, with mentoring opportunities, targeted learning programs, women’s leadership development curriculums, and tech talks presented by our women in the Expert and Scientific Communities.

Let’s look at the transformational efforts of Global Tooling Services to achieve gender balance within their leadership team: at the beginning of 2019, 25% of their leadership team members were women. Ever mindful of the need to provide more opportunities for women to advance, they identified top women talents in all GBUs/GDCs and initiated a comprehensive effort to prepare them for advancement. Operation Each For Equal was underway!

Development needs were addressed through leadership coaching, targeted learning plans, opportunities to plan and execute events, and extensive networking amongst within GTS. These efforts truly paid off; GTS ended 2019 with women accounting for 51% of their leadership team!

Tarush Gupta, Vice President & Global Head- GTS, Lean & Automation, saw immediate, positive results from this concerted team effort;

“With an increase in women leadership in the team, we have started observing a culture where different perspectives are presented & discussed in strategic meetings. We have started becoming more pragmatic and more sensitive to people issues impacting the group.”

Their new leaders also share their impressions of Operation Each For Equal:

“It is rewarding to be part of this cultural change journey. As a leader, I have been encouraged and supported to step out of my comfort zone. We have been guiding our teams to adopt new values and behaviors: owning the outcome, being more client-facing, seeking automation opportunities." Béatrice Françon, Head of GTS T&T

“Being a Technical delivery role for years and now in a leadership role I want to support and encourage other women to explore more Technical roles because when women support each other incredible things happen and I want to let them know they are no less than their colleagues.” Sangeeta Khanna, Head of GTS NAO

“I would like to share my experience of the last 6 months in Atos GTS team where I had an opportunity to work with women leaders from various cultural backgrounds. This provided an opportunity for interactions with different worldviews, perspectives, and experiences contributing to a better and balanced workplace. It’s encouraging to see the organization focused on being inclusive and providing abundant opportunities for women to succeed.” Neethi Upadhya, Head of ServiceNow GTS

‘Working as a Senior Programme Manager and lately as Head of GTS CEE and being a woman is very often a challenge as I need to balance between demanding work priorities and my family, managing a typically male environment (tooling) in a predominantly male team at work. But this work also brings a lot of satisfaction and a good feeling of achievement: I am very happy I am given this opportunity and a significant degree of freedom to do it my way. In the last year, GTS has grown a lot in terms of the number of women in management positions (including myself) and this brings a lot of inspiration, knowledge, valuable soft skills and emotional intelligence to the team. And also good friendships and good fun! Some of the senior female leaders in the team are models and inspiration for me, I have learned a lot from the cooperation with them." Marta Saraivanova, Head of GTS CEE

Growth, opportunities, and culture shifts; GTS experienced it all in 2019 and is more successful as a result of their focus on #EachForEqual.

What better story could I share for International Women’s Day 2020?