 and welcome. You have tuned in to JSA TV and JSA podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Barb Mitchell and behalf of my team here at JSA welcome to the latest in our series of virtual roundtables. So our first hundred registrants for today's roundtable will have received a fresh lunch delivered to your door. I know our panelists have been enjoying their lunches as we've been preparing this morning or this afternoon and some of you will have received a gift card to order your own meals. So while you are all beginning to enjoy your meals let's get things underway. As a quick reminder for everyone who's joined us today we look forward to your participation during the event so please feel free to add any questions you may have right into the chat and as usual as we've been doing on recent roundtables for the last 15 minutes of the hour we'll move our conversation over to LinkedIn where you can engage with our participants directly. Simply type in hashtag JSA virtual roundtables or click on the direct link that will be posted in the chat. Once we're over there we'll answer any questions that may not have been answered by the panelists while on camera. And of course if you have any questions about upcoming roundtables whatever those may be such as how to register or how to participate feel free to reach out to us through our website at jsa.net. Our next virtual roundtable will cover the state of financial networks and we'll take place on October 15th at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. So without further ado we've got the housekeeping notes out of the way let's get started. Our topic today as you all know is the ever-evolving face of tech and telecom. Today we're talking to some top female leaders in the in the industry about what they're seeing changing or not changing as the case may be with respect to diversity and inclusion. We will look at the organizations that these executives are leading and talk about what areas they have seen evolving and why. We'll talk about what some organizations are doing especially well and what areas need to be focused on in order to develop the organizations that are built for the future. Lastly we'll talk about what initiatives may have been slowed down in 2020 we all know it's been quite a year lots of lots of things pulling people in many different directions but conversely to what extent positive changes have accelerated during this tumultuous year. So here to discuss all of this today it is my pleasure to introduce you to our exceptional executive lineup. Joining us today we have Mary Morgan vice president of marketing for stream data centers Rachel Cunningham senior manager sales engineering and support for DQE and Corey Cohen VP marketing for telecom brokeraging. Thanks so much for joining us today really looking forward to this discussion. So just to start would you mind each of you just introducing yourselves telling us a little bit about yourself your company your role and and why this you know topic is of interest. Mary if you wouldn't mind kicking off. Well good morning from Texas I think I'm the only one that can say that but it's a great place to be in the tech world and with the weather cooling off outside it's pretty awesome. So I'm Mary Morgan I've been in technology marketing for 20 years. My first brush with making money in technology was when I bought Apple at 54 and I quickly learned that it might be an interesting place to take my career. Eight years with a semiconductor giant the last six or seven in the data center business having worked for a large read and with now with stream data centers which is a great company based here in Dallas Texas. We have a national footprint of data center properties that we develop operate lease and sell. We do like to sell things at stream data centers and we're all about good business. And the interesting thing about us is we're part of a larger commercial estate firm known as Stream Realty Partners which gives us a great opportunity for a national footprint technical real estate expertise and just overall commercial estate thought leadership and knowledge. So it's a really great company and I'm proud to be here. The thing about stream data centers that sets us apart is kind of our vision and mission of developing bespoke enterprise solutions for the Fortune 500 but our new product offering in the hyperscale space is awesome. We're excited about it. We've got some exciting things going on in major markets and the hyperscale products are really compelling opportunity for us. With that said I managed marketing and communications and this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart because I've had to figure it out. 20 years ago there wasn't an internet of things and we've seen quite an evolution to where now that's a way of life in the cloud is where it's at. And we have a really interesting story to tell. So I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Thank you so much Mary. Yeah and Mary is a veteran I think to this sort of annual topic that we do with JSA so welcome back. Rachel would you mind going next or hi everyone. Thank you for joining today. My name is Rachel Cunningham. I work for DQE communications. We're located in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. We're a fiber network provider. We focus on the customer honestly and providing them strategic solutions for their businesses whether it be from dark fiber internet ethernet and beyond. DQE is really the past 20 plus years maintained our focus on on the client and providing that service with integrity understanding that we have all different types of clients that we serve and really providing that reliable service and providing excellent customer care to those clients that they've come to expect. My role at DQE is senior manager of sales support and engineering so my team and I have a direct responsibility for pre-sales customer design of our actual network the lit network order implementation success for our clients so order tracking making sure that they're informed of all the different steps in the order process and post sales customer experience so that last bucket kind of involves a lot of different things but you know kind of tying back to what DQE is about which is providing that reliable and responsive service here in the Pittsburgh market and beyond so thank you for having me today. Thank you Rachel and Corey. Yes hi there my name is Corey Cohen I'm vice president of marketing at TBI so thanks once again for tuning in. TBI is the largest privately held master agent we are a third-party technology services distributor and we work with selling partners well first of all I should say we are over 230 people strong and we work with selling partners across the country and internationally helping them grow and build their business through mobility sales security sales all cloud communication and collaboration along with network and connectivity and I'm delighted to be here today and talk about this important topic and what TBI is doing to well what TBI is doing for our part in promoting diversity and inclusion but also helping to establish an equal environment for all to thrive. Thank you Corey and it's such an important topic it's one that has it garnered increased attention and focus you know well before this year you know I think organizations for the most part to to some extent at least recognize that there's a need to look into this right so at the minimum. So before 2020 hit us it was already important diversity and inclusion there we started to see programs coming up but can you talk about why you think this is important in particular why organizations are seeing this and to what extent this year 2020 has escalated the response whether it be in your organization or others. Mary would you kick that off. Well I mean you know especially this year business can't hide from the need to be more inclusive to put it top of mind to embrace an evolving culture. I think there's also a competitive aspect to acknowledging diverse contributors because you know we're all looking to take it to the next level and by embracing change embracing new horizons and opportunities I just think it's good business. Also can represent the creative side of things in the technology world and more and more technology entities are looking for creativity they need to be scrappy and they're just gonna have to learn to do things differently and that's what just makes good sense but you know just just like in generations past where you know women won the right to vote or racial issues became more complex and then more open and inclusive we're just taking it to the next level and I think technology businesses are learning to recognize what we have to offer so there is a social implication there is the cultural implication but I think more and more people just see this as good business. Our organization is responding directly in 1999 stream data centers was acknowledged by capacity media for being the leading data center provider and gender diversity and we were all proud of that we during a period of hypergrowth we were able to hire a large percentage of women to take on very significant jobs we're very customer focused and we are very very much creating a white glove customer centric experience for our data center customers and and bringing women and to not only execute on that vision and that products but bringing women in to help manage the company is very important and at a larger level stream realty partners has been very proactive we've acknowledged three new diverse groups and are at the management level we include contributors from all over the company at all levels of management and to address things like environmental and governments governance issues women's issues and racial balance so we I like that the fact that our organization close to a thousand people nationwide is able to take this on in a unified manner to talk about how it's good for everyone and I think the other thing that leadership here at stream has done so well as acknowledged that we can all do better we can all do better we can all empower each other to move the needle be successful and and win as a team so at the risk of singing kumbaya with my fellow streamers right now I will hand it off to Corey hers but I just think it's good business sense it's culture it's a cultural imperative and there's so many reasons to do this better and almost feel like we have we have to have specific objectives in mind but we'll talk about that later and yeah you're I know you're right Mary there's so many proof points to show why it's important not just because it's the right thing to do but because it's better for business you know I was talking with with Rachel about this beforehand because I'm gonna specify and say like I was a little nervous to do this this panel because I'm not talking about technology which I normally am I'm talking about diversity and inclusion which I am not an authority on however then I started thinking like well this is a human issue right and this is actually the forefront of the conversation right now this isn't like you said Barb a new conversation this has been going on for years highlighted you know Rodney King in the early 90s I mean this this isn't a new conversation but we happen to be in the age of a pandemic where we're forced to take a step back and kind of take inventory of our lives and of our workplaces and so then I thought to myself like why do I have to be nervous like I am an executive I you know I'm in charge of hiring I'm not the HR manager but like I certainly have a say and and frankly you know I can only speak to my you know experience as a white woman which we all are on this panel not very diverse in and of itself but I will say I wrote down some stats because I think it's important to highlight right I mean we're talking not just about gender but also diversity and from a gender perspective right you know women make up 47 percent of the labor force so it's almost half but only a third were managers in 2019 and they were mostly white women in fact women of color had drastically less showing like latinas 4.3 percent black women for 4 percent Asian American women 2.5 percent I mean we can do better just from a holistic standpoint so and then I'm gonna pass it off to Rachel but I do want to say that you know TBI is doing its part we're a very diverse organization across the board from all levels entry level all the way through management and people value work culture employees it's been studied that employees value fairness across the board not just for themselves but for the entire organization they like rate that as one of the reasons why they go to work at a company so from a TBI perspective what we're doing we have LGBTQIA sponsorship promotion awareness we encourage our employees to share with us organizations they're involved with for us to support we have weekly all company meetings where we interview people in the organization that we might not know and they come on and they tell their background and their story we have executive I'm gonna call them like memos but they're basically just restating our core beliefs as a company and why why we do the things we do and we started a diversity and inclusion committee and I think we've really worked the past few years to make it I mean it's always been it's always been a diverse environment but we focus very much on having everyone feel comfortable to share and so I think that is one of the reasons why we were voted best places to work in the cranes and Chicago Tribune and that's why I'm a proud proud TBI family member thank you it's so great to hear the examples of how your organizations are are you know contributing to this effort yeah Rachel sure so it's funny that Mary and Corey mentioned a couple things that I think kind of tie back to what I wanted to say you know as as Barbie mentioned this is not you know obviously it's come to the front in 2020 but this has been a topic that's been of importance to my owner's organization for happily a couple years now at least so two years ago our organization created a DNI council diversity including council as well I was glad to be one of the 18 employees in that council that ranged from you know new employees to tenured employees you know folks in all different departments all different kind of you know tenures in their careers as well you know we really focused in on you know to Corey's point Mary's point culture talent engagement and community involvement what I thought was what I wanted to bring up here is something that Mary said regarding company culture and how do we you know it's a good business decision to tie together what is what about the company culture we can tie these things so DQE has a very strong passion for volunteerism in the community we always have big kind of contributors to United Way and some other things what I thought was interesting what the DNI council did was tie that element to our DNI council so we were involving in doing volunteer-based events for minority and businesses doing volunteer based events for LGBTQIA groups in the community as well participating in the pride parade as a volunteer effort and things like that so you know just just in the past year we volunteered over 3,500 hours of our employees in the region and really focusing in on the past year or two on equity in our communities and some of those some of those groups so you know as far as you know since March and kind of having to change it up obviously we've had to think about ways that we can still continue that type of behavior but you know not necessarily being able to do it in person anymore right not being able to go out and do you know do things at food banks in person and things like that especially when all this first started so a couple ways that that DQE has really has really pivoted there has been participation in a blog celebrating women in tech as a part of International Women's Day and I'm happy to send that out after this it really shined a light on some of our leaders at DQE and what we're specifically doing also you know participation in these types of panels for our leadership team and being being open to participating those things because you know they're now virtual so just wanted to highlight those things I just think it's interesting kind of time back the company culture or two you know what what means the company and and DNI so yeah I love that all your organizations have initiatives in place already and a focus against this and I think the conversation then becomes is it enough you know is it enough are you doing I mean your organizations are doing a lot are other organizations doing enough is there more that needs to be done in the industry as a whole so I was just going to talk for a second about so last year Melinda Gates announced that she would be contributing a billion dollars towards creating opportunities for women in the tech sector through her organization pivotal ventures in cooperation with the reboot recognition tech coalition which is you know some of the top organizations within the tech industry Gates and fellow leaders and influencers have been working to shed light on the need to close the gender and diversity gap in our industry in addition to serving companies about their existing strategies researchers spoke with more than a hundred leaders in the field to determine what strategies were proving effective so people you know just like you right talking about what are you doing that's working but also you know what what are some ways that you think that we can make a difference the resulting research which was called the reboot representation I highly recommend it it's quite a long read but it's full of information recommendations case studies etc it provides advice on how to pick and set a strategy that's in line with the company's business objectives and also a self-assessment to figure out if what you're already doing is working so I just wanted to start and just the panelists will respond to this a lot of the the folks from the coalition have provided quotes I'm gonna start with a quote from Melinda Gates who's of course you know the inspiration for it all so I'll read the quote and then I'll let the panelists respond as the tech industry continues to expand beyond Silicon Valley to other areas across the country we have the opportunity to reimagine what the sector could look like if these emerging tech cubs are supported to prioritize women's representation and inclusion as they grow they will be better positioned to tap into the full range of local talent while also helping create a blueprint for closing the industry's gender gap nationwide so Corey do you want to take that do you want to talk about just obviously in this quote there's an emphasis on the importance of closing the gender gap across the tech industry and we'll talk later about you know beyond the gender gap and further you know thoughts on diversity but do you agree with the importance of this and why 100% I'm like so passionate about this and there there is obviously a gaping discrepancy in you know female leadership and male leadership but I'm not 100% certain I mean it's not a it's not a tech sector issue it's a it's a global work issue actually I'm all about the stats I brought them today because I when I was like doing research for this panel I was so I already knew some of these but as I delve as I dove deeper into into research obviously it's a rabbit hole but it was fascinating to highlight some of this key you know the key gap right and if you think about this generally speaking in 2019 the proportion of women in senior management roles rose to 29% it didn't increase 29% it's at 29% of all female leaders in senior management roles and that is predominantly human resources and within medical and health services and food services so in 2020 40% of those human resource directors were women compared to the chief marketing officers which was only represented at 17% and CIOs which was 16% I mean if you think about that a there's a problem with women advancement I'm not sure how much and it will be interesting to see the repercussions of this pandemic to see because I know many women right that are of our working mothers but then decided to stop working because during COVID they didn't feel comfortable having child care so they assumed the role of child care and left their job now there is an extreme division of labor amongst roles of spouses where there might not have been before so it'll it'll be interesting to see how the I guess economics play out in terms of leadership roles with with women but I do want to say that McKinsey did a report women in the workplace in partnership with leanin.org and it says that women are falling behind in their careers because if first level women were promoted like men there would be one million more women in management over the next five years so there's work to do promotion giving giving more people a shot also I do want to specify that in the previous answer I did also write down another stat which was diverse diverse teams are 35% more productive absolutely I think that one stat that I will it's not really a stat it's more of a I don't know an observation but and we talked about this earlier there are more men named James leading Fortune 500 companies than there are women which is and I know that you had said that you heard a similar but slightly revised version of that so I mean yeah lots of crazy yeah yeah Mary did you want to add I applaud Melinda Gates I hope she takes some of that billion dollars and puts it toward education to the up-and-comers I come at this I'm so appreciative of Cory for having the stats and for you guys bringing you know some of this intel to bear because we know it's all out there but I come at this from a kind of a generational perspective organically and I think women have to show up we have to teach our daughters what stem means because acronyms really don't resonate it means you can make money by using your skill sets to work in the technology sector right so I think whether it's Melinda Gates or us or any of our colleagues we have to speak in in terms that are consumable and digestible to the youth to our peers and to the market at large and I think now it's imperative and as we grow it's imperative that leadership at the highest level embrace the opportunity to take on your talent but at at every level women and diverse groups have to show up you know we have to show up we have to have the expertise we have to have the know-how and sometimes when you're just trying to get through school and find a job that you know some of that doesn't compute I think the gender biases is kind of a natural flow that if you look at the engineering schools and them and the other kind of math and science educations and backgrounds that feed our industry it's kind of natural that that that the men floated to the position they're in now along with with every other group but now if we teach the community our peers and our daughters and our friends to show up and bring their skill sets I mean I'm in marketing I'm creative but every technology leader I've worked with has appreciated the skill sets I can bring to compliment theirs so that we can go to market effectively and that's what I've loved about it I've loved being part of the team and I've loved the win and I love how things I love learning how things work so if you appreciate learning and understanding how things work you can appreciate technology and then the youth of our world can learn to embrace that on a more tangible level and so this is my dialogue is all about making it more tangible making it more actionable giving people an opportunity that they can embrace and understand instead of just talking about it I think all these perspectives have to come together to dev tail into the solution you know Mary I don't mean to cut you off and obviously I I'm like interjecting but you said something about you said something about women showing up and I wholeheartedly agree but it's been known and studied that women have to almost like work twice as hard to be noticed above like a male counterpart and I think that's where it's not that's what I'm not necessarily sure my point but I might but what I think I'm trying to say is that it is harder and increasingly harder to live your life a work-life balance working twice as hard and having a life separate from work trying to advance a career also struggling in a pandemic it seems like the world is on our shoulders harder to show up you're right about all that but at the same time as women we have innate skill sets and talents that guys just don't have I mean we think in a wide wide wide radius we think in terms of throwing a net hunter-gatherers you know the guys are notorious for being very focused very linear and I don't mean to like cast blanket aspersions on our the opposite sex or anything like that but like big women think big and and I've worked with babies under my desk I've worked at home I've worked at night 24 7 to get this done because I did have to try harder right and you know I often felt like I was winning because I had to I had to work at it and learn more and show up harder like you're saying to get there but then once I got there the teamwork was great you know that it's being on a dream team you know that all the things they say about teamwork makes it work and all that it can happen we but it and it's harder for us to show up and if guys in the world and the leadership can appreciate that of us we'll continue to show up even better we can polish our our style we can write our stories the way we want them to be told and as women I think we we do have the power to show up like we need to and and I think the needle is moving on opportunity and it's it's very exciting but you're right Cory yeah Rachel did you want to add to that I just wanted to add kind of something I think is just another layer of this conversation that I think should be pointed out so you know part of the Milindov gates quote that is very important is about you know hiring talent right hiring the recruitment process but I think that it's important for all of us to recognize that recruitment is just the first step of this right so retention of those employees making them feel welcomed included and empowered throughout their employee life cycle is just as crucial some ways that you know my organization is supporting that is we actually just launched our first business employee resource group Berg as it's eloquently named and if specifically focusing on women and energy in organization serving as a forum for awareness education and supporting those employee connections so this is for all for employees of you know brand new in the life cycle to tenured women in the company so I think it's just one one example but I do think you know the the hiring process recruitment bringing in that talent the stem programs for education are obviously very important but I think you know that the next the next thing or an equally important thing is is retaining those talented employees and making them feel included and empowered throughout their time with our organizations that's such a good point and actually interestingly it's been you know leaders of the industry are actually forecasting a shortage in workers in this sector so demand for workers with advanced IT and tech skills will grow as much as 90% over the next 15 years and they're already projecting a shortfall of those workers over the next three years so it's really important that the sector stays on top of this and is expanding its talent pool and and so where do you go for your talent pool you go potentially to a previously underutilized talent pool which includes women and and women of color today and Kerry said stats stats very similar to this but women today and particularly women of color are chronically underrepresented at every stage of the tech journey so only you were talking Corey about the entire you know workforce but only 11 percent so quite a bit lower than the workforce I think what you said 20 I can't remember what your number was in the 20s of women in leadership roles but only 11 percent of tech leadership roles are held by women so excuse much lower it's already low for the workforce in general excuse much lower for tech and so you know one of the things that when I start talking I started talking about the the reboot coalition right one of the things that what they were looking at is the the different points of entry for women and so it's things from school Mary you mentioned school age programs but beyond that so early STEM education early on but then throughout you know you know beyond into university and then you know opportunities once you've begun your career so last year one point I just wanted to make was that so these the top 32 tech companies spent over 500 million dollars on philanthropic philanthropic giving but only five percent of that went to programs aimed at correcting tech's gender imbalance and most of most of those went into school age programs actually and less than 0.1 percent of that actually went to support women of color so over and over the past decade the ratio of black Latina and Native American women receiving degrees in the tech space has dropped a third it was never high it was six percent it dropped to four percent so it's actually getting lower instead of better so just you know I like my quotes so I'll throw another couple quotes of you guys and that'll lead us into the next question but you know the the idea of these quotes is you know the extent to which having a more diverse workforce actually benefits the bottom line of the organization and helps a better input for your organization for innovation and for society in general so two two quotes the first is innovation is born from a diversity of ideas perspectives and experiences so Greg Clark former CEO of Norton Lifelock said that Sarah length director of societal impact for Verizon said diversity in all its forms is critical to the future of technology and innovation the fresh ideas and perspectives we need to address the world's biggest challenges come only when the technology industry reflects the society that it serves reflects the society that it serves I think that's a great quote so I just want to throw it back to you guys and what ways are you seeing diversity and inclusion evolving across the industry and in what ways is it supporting organizations Rachel do you want to show so when you mentioned you know serving the communities are serving the footprint a big shift I'm personally seeing my team has responsibility for responding to RFPs or requests for proposals so DQE's largest subcontractor happens to be a women-owned business so we've been able to offer this up as you know kind of supplemental information in our beds for many many years however I would say pet probably the past like 18 to 24 months I've seen a shift especially from certain verticals honestly that um supplier diversity has moved from being you know maybe a feature of a bid to being a requirement to being a metric in the ultimate decision making of a bid so I think that you know our prospects our clients vendors organizations as a whole are pushing for supplier diversity and I only anticipate honestly I only think that's going to continue so yeah I mean I agree with you in that um yes I'm sure there's tons of RFPs coming down the pike saying you know they want minority and women-owned business um whether they hire them or not right you know it might just be like a check mark on the RFP um to answer your question in what ways am I seeing diversity and inclusion evolve across the industry I'm not 100 sure I am um we're we're focused on this topic for a reason today I made the I made the statement in that stat that says racially diverse and gender diverse groups are 35 percent more productive than non-diverse groups and I was reading that one of the biggest hindrances or one of the biggest reasons why managers don't hire more diverse employees is because they're afraid of of introducing conflict which is just simply like not true um I don't I don't know how we can expect to see change with you know uh completely male dominated executive team that is consistent across the majority of organizations globally um and just expect them to like change the chemical makeup of their organization simply because this is a topic of discussion I think it's led by employees um I think that people accept jobs based on companies that share similar beliefs I mean there's so many stats about not stats there's so many like there's so much research about millennials and the workforce and and Gen Z coming on board and only going to companies that have a certain sustainability program or a certain philanthropic program that have core beliefs that that are inherent in their nature and because of that that will force change you know the younger generation is our future um and so I I don't know if I've seen change but I'm hopeful um you know to give another stat I will say like and this was shocking to me google and microsoft um black and latino staff has only gone up 1 percent since 2014 um you know we're expecting now conversely I will say that you're seeing a lot of fortune 500 and 100 companies like Salesforce and and some other large companies that have a real big um presence uh in terms of promoting gender and racial diversity so you're seeing a lot of large companies help lead the change but I'm not sure I'm not I'm not sure if we're going to be seeing these large organizations help lead the change or if it's going to be some of these mid-market companies that are going to be the first to to make the shift yeah interesting what do you think mary I agree 100 percent um we we are seeing some female decision makers come across from the large companies but um I think the biggest thing that I'm seeing is the conversation the conversations are happening um the awareness is happening and that's the biggest thing I see but again um I'm like Cory I'm not sure I see I'm not sure I see the needle moving but I see the conversations happening which I think again will lead to a trickle down effect for gen z and the youth that are coming up behind us I mean so many things are changing but um specifically to your question uh the way stream gives back to empower future generations is by funding educational scholarships through iMasons infrastructure mason's is um a notable organization in our industry that is has through leadership of various IT infrastructure organizations and cloud companies are taking on the mission of um shepherding uh education opportunities to fund our future and so working with them they do have a women's organization within infrastructure mason's there is the women in technology um women technology forum and I'm seeing those conversations become more frequent and more empowering because like this round table we're bringing uh thought leaders to bear on topics that will benefit not only our careers but the industry at large and so I think just by sharing um the conversations and drumming up more awareness we will move the needle eventually but I don't think it'll happen fast um conversations are happening and I think people are aware and that's that's the biggest thing I see yeah well this this is such an important conversation and there's so much more for us to talk about um we're out of time unless anyone has any burning thoughts that you want to share any of the panelists um but you know thank you thank you to the panelists uh for participating today and thank you everyone for tuning in just a quick reminder that our speakers are staying on for the remainder of this hour to answer any of your questions via linkedin so you can go to linkedin search for hashtag jsa virtual roundtables or click there's actually a direct link in the chat box here uh so you can go there to continue the q&a and of course viewers if you are one of our lucky first 100 registrants we hope you enjoyed your lunch go ahead and visit us at jsa.net to register for our next jsa virtual roundtable the next one will be taking place on october 15th where leaders in our industry will talk about the state of financial networks so that's a wrap thank you everyone uh and go ahead and look for the playback of today's roundtable coming soon to jsa tv and jsa podcasts on youtube itunes iheart spotify and more in the meantime see you on linkedin happy networking bye have a good day