“Diversity in workplace is an absolute must for success in our fast moving, competitive industry that demands continuous innovation”- Hima Mukkamala on behalf of International Women’s Day
I’ve always believed diversity plays an important role in team dynamics and importantly overall success of the organization. In the past it was easy for me to surround myself with likeminded people at my leadership level, not realizing diversity has to permeate at all layers of organization for true impact. In this era of servant leadership and a new generation of workforce joining the ranks there needs to be examples set at leadership level to ensure enough focus and attention are given to diversity. As a lot of decisions are made at various layers of the organization, the key is to have the diversity at these points of decision so that there is different points of view being brought to the table.
During my time at Arm and at Pelion I’ve been paying a lot of attention to ensure I learn from my previous mistakes and be willing to listen and appreciate diversity and create an inclusive environment. As we transitioned from being a business in Arm to being an independent completely owned subsidiary of Arm, we used the opportunity to create a leadership team that brings lot of diversity in thought and in problem solving approach. The transition to being an independent company during the pandemic has created its own set of problems in terms of coming together as leadership team but with the strong set of individuals we’ve managed to trust each other and lean on each other to grow the business and build the organization.
Diversity and Inclusion are easier said than done given the challenges that the tech industry has faced as a whole in creating the right culture and environment so that D&I can flourish. Without intentional steps it always becomes an uphill battle that gets lost in everlasting discussions and plans. We’ve fundamentally embraced diversity into our value system by adding “Diversity Delivers” as a key Pelion value so that we are reminded of it every day. I’ve chosen to build a strong leadership team that has a lot of strong women leaders that bring a very diverse viewpoint to decisions we’ve to make every day with aggressive timeline. By seeing such a representation at the leadership layer it becomes representative across the whole organization. One thing that ultrarunning has taught me is to identify the most immediate step that gets us closer to solving the problem than continue to analyze the final goal and keep strategizing and planning for it. These incremental steps we have taken have set us on a path of achieving larger goals.
For International Women’s day, I want to recognize the strong women leaders that are part of the Pelion team. We succeed with the passion and energy they bring to the organization everyday. First, some numbers – 5 out of 9 of my direct staff are women at almost 55% and I am incredibly proud of it. If I extend that to rest of the diversity that are non-gender related there’s almost every race represented on the leadership team which allows for a very diverse and inclusive space where opinions can be stated freely resulting in healthy discussions.
In addition to awesome leaders in my staff we’ve strong women leaders throughout the organization driving the vision and execution of the Pelion products. The whole organization is pretty privileged to work along with them and lot of others everyday.
There’s a long way to go, in tech industry, and each of us are responsible to ensure we not only create an environment where D&I will flourish but also use this as strength to deliver impactful customer and business outcomes . By including “Diversity Delivers” as a key element in Pelion’s fundamental values we are hoping to create a very inclusive workspace that brings out the best in all of us.
For more informational on international women’s day please visit: International Women’s Day 2022 (internationalwomensday.com)
