 Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Veritas Vision 2017, brought to you by Veritas. Welcome back to the aria in Las Vegas, everybody. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante. I'm here with Stu Miniman. Alicia Johnson is here. She's the managing director at Accenture Operations and we're going to have a conversation about diversity, women in tech. Alicia, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. Delighted to be here today, thank you. Yeah, we're thrilled because we saw some action on Twitter. We saw the wave activity going on. We said, hey, we got to get some of these folks on theCUBE, so really appreciate you taking the time here. Let's start with your role at Accenture and then we'll get into wave and what that's all about. Fantastic, so thank you for having me today and I'm delighted to represent the Accenture and Veritas partnership and be able to speak at Wave last evening. Within Accenture, we put a high priority on inclusion and diversity. One of the things that we've come out and publicly announced is that we want a 50% women workforce by 2025. We've been doing research over the last three years and Accenture is publicly committed to growing that percentage of our women managing directors to at least 25% by 2020. So we really focus on retaining and advancing women and sponsoring them in that pursuit for gender balance. So that's an amazing statistic. I mean, I think the average in the tech industry is 17%, is that about right? About that, yeah. And a lot of the fundraising these days actually goes to venture capital men run firms and so we're really interested in helping set that gender parity as well so that more VC money goes out toward women and women investments and women VC. Well, it's interesting. I mean, we've done some work in this area at Silicon Angle and we've funded some fellowships to study this problem and two of the places that were sort of egregious offenders Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Massachusetts. So, but you know, you have to get it out there and talk about it, right? But so when you say 50% by 2025, that's sort of a goal is that a strict, people would use the term quota. Let's have that discussion. What does that all mean? It's a commitment that we're making and one of the ways that with an Accenture we really feel that we can hold to that commitment is making some changes internally and also being very transparent. So, we have set that transparency goal across not only sponsoring women and P&L goals but coming forward and making that commitment to transparency by publicly making the announcement. So, you know, the company has already set these clear published measurable targets to grow the number of women. We publish our workforce demographics and we do this across many countries including US, Canada, South Africa, Japan, India and also our Asian countries. We also launch initiatives that are very focused on high demand, short supply, high performing women in technical architect roles. And so, what we do is we not only collaborate with the teams across our business and government but we look at the programs that we have internally and we set metrics internally as well about hiring and promoting. And so, we're really committed to this through the transparency. So, answering your question directly, it is not only a goal that we're after but we are on a clear transaction path to make that happen and hopefully we can make it happen sooner. So, many events have some piece of the conference. They'll have a panel, they'll have a breakfast. We actually at theCUBE covered, you know, many women in tech events. Here at Veritas Vision, they have it's the Women at Vision Empowered or Wave program which there's the workshop, there's networking, there's some other things. Maybe walk us through a little bit. There's the panel last night. What's the breadth of the experience here at the show? The experience yesterday was very much about empowering women in technology. We went through some discussions around not only gender balance but also how to empower women and support women in your careers. We also talked about women in technology, other groups that we can align to. We also talked about some of the gender balance conversations that you often don't get to have when you're not meeting. And we encourage men to also join us in these wave events. But really it's about professionally and successfully being fulfilled in your career. With an Accenture, we actually created what we call a B Operations program to foster really this inclusive culture. And I think that the Wave event is also looking toward fostering this inclusive culture. The people are really at the center of everything that we do. And so having a culture that's really respectful of women, their careers, their personal goals and the culture that focuses on work-life choices, that's really very important because those aspirations we encourage you to become who you really can be. Some of our Accenture operations and B Operations goals are focused around being limitless, driving business outcomes, being relevant, being part of other's success and failures because you learn through growing with success and failure, be caring, and then really be yourself, be authentic. And bringing that to the Wave conference and that empowering diversity initiative is really key to the success of that event. We do hope next year that we'll have an opportunity to have the event actually more during the conference so that we can really get more attendance and drive much more passion and invigoration to the event. But we really believe that the opportunity above all is to get the initiative out there, start talking about it, and really make a difference. So let's have a conversation about the why. We can all agree it's the right thing to do, but let's have a business case, you know, conversation. What's the business benefit of inclusion? Yeah, well, obviously we all come from different backgrounds and different walks of life and bringing those experiences to the business. It's been proven time and again with all of the factors that you can look at, that women make different choices and women can be different types of role models. And in business, you actually are more successful as an organization by having women lead oftentimes in a scenario where sometimes men have been typically the leaders. And so creating more women role models will change the dynamic of the business. And as a diverse culture, you probably watched the Emmys last night, diversity and inclusion was a hot topic. So we're changing the world as we're going through and changing technology. And this is an area that we can control and I think that it's time for us to take control and make that difference. And really going after the fact of the matter is why wouldn't we already be there, right? And if we can make a difference to really be effective, be good communicators, be authentic, be inspiring, why wouldn't we want women bringing that to the table? Yeah, we were having a conversation on theCUBE a couple of weeks ago and you bring up the P&L manager. And it was interesting to talk about some of the stereotypes I wonder if you can comment. As a woman, P&L managers tend to be leaders. And somebody did an analysis of performance reviews and the adjectives for the male leaders tended to be assertive, great leader. And the adjectives for the female leaders tended to be things like abrasive, okay? And but both high performing individuals. As a woman, I mean, I'm sure you've experienced that in your career and your colleagues have as well. I wonder if you could comment on that. Are things changing and where do you want to see it all go? Sure, it's a really great topic. And yes, I mean, in the work world you often see if a woman is assertive, she's referred to in a negative tone. And oftentimes you'll find women, the higher powered they are in organizations, they're not looked upon as being friendly individuals. And I think that that's a cultural dynamic that goes back to probably maternal instinct that you're trained to think, oh, well, we don't see empowered women as wildly successful. And that's something that we need to change as a culture. You mentioned you have a daughter. So seeing your daughter in an empowered position is going to be something that you want as a father. And then being able to proactively build upon why, why we look at males in a position of power as being someone who is assertive. But if the woman says the same thing, she's maybe looked at in a negative connotation. These are the questions we need to start asking, right? And is there a reason for that? There shouldn't be a reason for that. Equally intelligent, equally able to succeed. And so assertive and powerful is that gender balance. And that's really what we should start questioning in business. And it will make us better as large organizations, as individuals and as fathers in going after what we want our children and the rest of our society to achieve. Yeah, and you certainly see some high profile examples of women in leadership positions. Obviously Accenture, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and some others. But you also see on the mast head, if you will, it's like, man, man, man, man. Oh, head of HR, woman. And so a lot of the P&L managers, it's interesting. It's the first time I've heard specifically the P&L management. Why the P&L management? Why that emphasis? Maybe you could share with us. Well, within Accenture, one of the things that we can do is actually measure the goals that help us advance internally. And so we sponsored the company's most senior women to advance in P&L roles. We've been doing this for the last six years. And approximately 80% of the women in our global executive leadership program have been promoted and significantly expanded their areas of responsibility. And I think that we looked at the goals we could take within Accenture and really made examples of those goals. We also, the commitment to transparency, which I talked about a bit ago, that's really setting and measuring publicly and holding ourselves accountable to those goals and measurable targets that we can grow to. We've published that. And we also challenge other organizations to come out and publish their workforce demographics. And I think before Accenture did that, there wasn't a lot of companies that were maybe as eager to come out and publish that workplace demographic. And so we're looking to make a change. We really want to launch initiatives within our organization that we can control and ensuring that we can collaborate and create that gender balance and the workforce is key. One other area that I want to talk briefly about is within Accenture operations. So just in my realm of Accenture, I did mention that we finished our fiscal year 2017 with 45.9% women really setting the bar across Accenture. One of the things that I want to mention is what we're doing to sponsor and retain women in our local programs within Accenture and their careers. And we focus on staying true to passion, which I talked about with our Be Operations initiative. We also introduced a flexible work option, which is really focused on our teams in India. They allow the women to fit work and school around their nursery hours. And that's one of the other reasons that you find often women not staying in the workforce is because they make the choice between family and working and the working hours. And then within Accenture, we focus on hosting our International Women's Day, very similar to the Wave event. And we would be delighted for you guys to join us this year at the upcoming event in March. And then we also sponsor what's called a women's stream, which is internally to our 400 plus thousand employees. At major events, we're able to promote women in cloud, we're able to promote Wave events, we're able to promote our women in IT initiatives. And on a grassroots level, we'll go out and sponsor programs that are around girls who code and get involved in and power and other initiatives which bring people into the technical workforce, be it women or men, families, looking at how can we empower and help grow our society, including all inclusion and diversity. Alicia, how about compensation? I feel like actually, ironically, one of the best things that happened for women was when Satya Nadella kind of put his foot in his mouth a couple of years ago at the Grace Hopper Conference. Since then, you've seen a much heightened awareness of compensation levels. Many companies have come out and said, okay, we're going to be transparent. States Attorneys Generals have come out with strong advocates, in some cases, laws of mandating equal compensation. Maybe you could make some comments there and what specifically is Accenture doing? Yeah, Accenture is actually looking at the salaries of MDs and down through the food chain. We weigh what the percentage of men are paid versus the percentage of women, highest percentage earning. And we also do adjustments based on that. I do find it interesting, you had mentioned that the comments were made, yes, that's true, and it's a very common fact that women make 49 cents on the dollar for what a man makes. And I can tell you, I don't believe that I'm only worth 49 cents on the dollar, so it's really important for us to bring about these initiatives. You also hear people make excuses that maybe women aren't as good at negotiating, or maybe we don't go out and ask for the same balance, but it makes me say, well, why should women go out and have to ask for the same treatment, equal treatment? So I don't think it comes down to that. We all have to fight for what we want. We all have to go after how successful we want to be. And I think empowering and collaborating and really being authentic in that pursuit is really key. So, yeah. Well, I think it's been self-fulfilling because women have historically been paid less than men, certainly in our industry. Their expectations are perhaps lower so that when they switch a job, if they're offered something lower, they'll be more apt to take it. And so, and the hiring person says, okay, fine, you know, that's good. But so the only way out of it is if companies proactively adjust. And you can't, understandably, that can't happen overnight because there's economic realities, but it can and it feels like it's beginning to happen slowly, maybe not as fast as you'd like. Yeah, and I would love to see women and girls getting more involved in tech, you know. I did, I watched a bit of a program last evening, actually, that referred to around in fourth grade, we start giving boys toys to work with and we start giving girls, you know, dolls to play with and different things like that. We can change that starting from the basic skills that you aspire for your children. You can start on parity. You can start with teaching others about technology. Women might always say it's not super sexy to be a technical architect, but I might disagree with my background as a CIO. So, you know, I think it's really talking about the inclusion culture, getting more people interested in it from the beginning and bringing more women with the opportunity to really fulfill that gender equality. And whether we promote them, you know, with an eccentric, you would ask me about the PNL piece. That's something we can control as an organization. So, each organization, I would challenge to look at the ways that you can balance gender equality and within Veritas, obviously, there's a very strong wave program that's being driven and eccentric is delighted to partner with and support. And that's a commitment to being a champion for change. Well, congratulations on being a champion for change and all the progress you're making at Accenture, very impressive story. So thanks for coming on theCUBE and sharing it. Thank you very much, I'm delighted to be here today and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you gentlemen. It's our pleasure. All right, keep it right there, everybody. Stu and I are back with our next guest at theCUBE, we're live from Veritas Vision 2017. We'll be right back.