In conversation with ‘Women In Lenovo Leadership’ Ambassador, Claire Carter

Claire Carter is leading Lenovo’s efforts to change the culture in large tech organisations. We had the opportunity to speak to Claire about the work she’s doing, innovation at Lenovo and the broader tech landscape as it relates to inclusivity in the workplace.

“Diversity in the workplace is a phrase which we hear often, but rarely pause to consider what it means beyond representation, and more so, what it can empower businesses and society to achieve. […] Diversity should never just be a ‘ticking the box’ exercise. Diversity must work in parallel with inclusion – each person must know they have a voice, that their contributions are acknowledged and valued, just as much as that of their peers”.

In conversation with Claire Carter

Cheryl Kahla: Apart from the many apparent barriers to entry in the tech space, how important has the work (to make the entire workforce think about their preconceived ideas about gender roles and stereotypes) been in making Lenovo an environment where women can thrive?

Claire Carter: It is extremely important. At Lenovo, we have committed various resources and established committees that are specifically designed to empower women in the workplace.

We have gone to great lengths to ensure that this work is entrenched into our company culture.

This is overseen by our Diversity & Inclusion Board, which ensures that we constantly make our work environment a place that is conducive to productivity and success for all our employees, especially our women.

The board does not merely talk about policies that they want to implement, but it ensures that those conversations are followed up with real action.

At Lenovo, our commitment to making Lenovo a great place for women to work at was bolstered when we established a WILL (Women In Lenovo Leadership) network in 2007, which gives an unwavering focus to women all year round.

This initiative is dedicated to addressing career development needs that support women’s growth in order to attract and retain more female talent in the technology sector. WILL also aims to improve our gender diversity balance at senior levels of the organisation.

This has enabled us to achieve a variety of milestones, such as having 37% of our staff across the EMEA region being women, versus the 27.4% global average, and we are continuously working on improving it too.

We pride ourselves on “open up” the tech space to women, making a once male-dominated industry a place where women can thrive.

Cheryl Kahla: So much has been written about the lack of women pursuing careers in tech and STEM in general; how does the industry go about reforming itself? Do you feel the solutions are primarily structural or cultural, and what needs to be done?

Claire Carter: From a grassroots level, we need to ensure that inherent stereotypes are being squashed and this needs to start with schools. For example, my daughter is four years old and already has computer classes as part of her school curriculum which is a great start, but this needs to be pushed even further.

We must also ensure that girls and boys are being exposed to role models in non-traditional fields — we need to create awareness from a young age that you can be whoever or whatever you want to be.

Gone are the days where little girls need to only be teachers or nurses, little girls can be pilots, Chief Technology officers or Engineers!

If we are able to change the narratives and mindsets about what careers woman should and should not be pursuing from a young age, then it makes rectifying any potential issues later on, much easier.

When it comes to an industry reforming itself, there is one overriding factor that will ultimately determine its success in striving towards equality – and that’s commitment. If there is a genuine commitment to empowering women and bringing about true change, it will happen.

The challenge comes in where it’s lip service without true buy-in from key stakeholders in any organisation. To take things to the next level, there needs to be a focus on the culture and companies need to create an environment which is suitable for both men and women and these are not the same.

For example, a simple yet extremely effective policy that enabled Lenovo to take strides in this regard and become increasingly attractive to female talent is our agile working policy.

This policy assesses employees based on their output versus how much time they spend physically in the office, which is a huge plus, especially for working Moms.

This flexibility allows them to excel at both being a working professional, and being a mother and to be an employer of choice attracting top talent, this is essential. In the tech industry, we have the hardware and software tools which facilitate this and these inherent to our industry.

There are many misconceptions around women in tech that are embedded in different cultures that will need to be refuted.

Claire Carter

HR departments, executives and board members will need to ensure that they are committing an adequate amount of resources to training, upskilling and empowering women in the workforce to ensure that the necessary steps to “bridge the gender gap” in the tech space are taken.

Cheryl Kahla: You have stressed that representation in the workplace is not just about doing the right thing but also about tapping into different talents and voices that will ultimately benefit organisations. How transformative do you feel this could be to industries in enabling innovation and catering to tech consumers that are perhaps currently underserved by traditional solutions?

Claire Carter: Lenovo’s brand essence is “Smarter Technology for All” and the “for all” part is really important. Our mission is to support and enable everyone to live in a digital world, and different people are at very different parts of this digital transformation but as Lenovo, we have products and services for everyone.

Good value for money is also part of our brand DNA so we also aim at facilitating everyone’s tech needs by offering great innovative products which are also affordable.

We do not believe that only certain income brackets should have access to the best technology, we believe everyone has this right and as a brand, Lenovo is catering to the overall population with different offerings to make this a reality

Cheryl Kahla: Based on your experience with Lenovo, what do you feel is the most important thing that has enabled the company to make the strides it has? And what lessons are there for tech startups and established companies looking to excel through creating inclusive workspaces?

Claire Carter: To truly drive change, the most important thing is genuine and authentic belief. If anything is just a tick box exercise, it will not be sustainable.

Everything is also a balance of culture and action, which is what I believe had lead to Lenovo’s success as both being the biggest PC brand in the world and also in driving our Women in Leadership at Lenovo initiative.

Every year we do something for Women’s Day. This year we wanted to drive awareness around some of the inequalities which sadly still exist in the workplace. We involved our agencies and business partners and we created an Equality Spell Check, together with our agency, Wunderman throughout the Middle East and Africa.

The Equality Spell Check focuses on certain words which have a very different meaning for men and women. For example “POWER”, has positive connotations for a man, as men who are labelled as powerful go on to be described as strong leaders with drive and ambition.

However, for a woman, the word has a very different sentiment, as powerful women are often described as being bossy, aggressive or “high maintenance”.

There are many other examples of words which have these dual meanings which our Equality Spell Check creates awareness of (you can find out more about this project on our Instagram and Facebook Lenovo Africa pages.)

It is these types of initiatives that have propelled Lenovo ahead of other tech companies with regards to gender diversity and inclusion, and it is these very initiatives that other companies, irrespective of whether they are a start-up or an established company, can help drive and have on the top of their agenda.