“Diversity and Inclusion is an evolving conversation,” says Cecily Joseph, chief diversity officer at Symantec Corporation. “Over the past year, we’ve seen this conversation pick up in Silicon Valley, with Google and some other tech companies releasing diversity numbers, and with the media coverage around those numbers.” While the Valley has had an issue with diversity for a while, Joseph says, Symantec sees the challenge as an opportunity: “We believe this is a huge opportunity to move our industry towards better representation across the board.”
Symantec Corporation is the world’s largest cybersecurity company, with more than 19,000 employees in more than 50 countries. As Symantec’s CEO, Michael A. Brown explains, “Diversity and inclusion are core values at Symantec, and we all benefit as a result. Valuing diversity means more than just race, gender and ethnicity; it also means embracing differences in culture, language, age, sexual orientation, disability, background and experience. A diversity of perspectives ensures we get the best answer for the business. In our experience, the differences in thinking and a spirit of collaboration leads to improved business outcomes.”
Symantec’s goal is to be just as diverse as the world we live in. To that end, by 2020, the company aims to increase the diversity of their entire workforce by 15 percent – something Joseph calls “a big, and necessary, step in the right direction.” Symantec’s key diversity strategic focus areas are Talent Acquisition, Talent Development and Leadership Accountability. These three areas allow Symantec to have a targeted approach to developing, promoting and retaining their internal talent, make key investments in strengthening the future talent pipeline cyber security professionals, and enhance its leaders’ accountability to help create and sustain an inclusive workplace.
Moving the needle on diversity and inclusion
“At Symantec, we believe that the best impact happens when diversity is not just a tactic, but instead a company value,” Joseph
