Just about 18 months ago, I joined Guidewire as the company’s first head of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). My DEI peers and I found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic, recovering from a year of social unrest, and asking ourselves, “Where do we go from here?”
I knew that the COVID-19 crisis had disproportionately affected women and underrepresented groups and impacted the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of children and adults worldwide. And yet, the challenges of ongoing remote work and social distancing brought a unique set of opportunities to deepen the way we support our diverse global employee base.
Over the last year and a half, we’ve focused on setting up Guidewire for lasting, sustainable DEI success with the following initiatives:
Hired a focused team dedicated to DEI
Created and executed on an enterprise-wide DEI strategy
Formed a core group of executive stakeholders from across the company to sponsor and support the strategy
Achieved 30% gender diversity in our annual new hires and 12% diversity from underrepresented groups in our annual United States new hires (Black, Native and Indigenous, Hispanic, Latinx, and two or more races)
Made additional changes to our recruiting systems to better enable the success of diverse talent in the hiring process
Developed DEI-based learning materials to be rolled out to employees through FY23 (starting August 2022)
Launched six new employee resource groups and expanded our existing women’s employee resource group
Developed important relationships with a diverse range of community partners through employee philanthropy and service events
Communicated the progress of our initiatives through DEI-focused intranet sites, newsletters, and roadshows
And this is just the start!
Today, I’m pleased to announce the publication of Guidewire’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Annual Report, which details our efforts in 2020–2021. Our second annual report will be published in late July 2023 and feature actions and progress through FY22 and FY23. At that point, we’ll publish annual fiscal year reports.
This report is an honest view of our inaugural DEI work and includes our commitment to the work in future years. We look forward to continuing to unleash the power of our global workforce, customers, and partners by doing our part to create communities of deep inclusion, belonging, and equity.