Compassionate leaders embodying diversity and inclusion in application development

A friendly reminder: diversity and inclusion are not buzzwords or a checkbox to signal that companies stand for them. Widening the hiring pipeline and making colleagues feeling safe and celebrated are musts, for so many reasons: mixed skillsets and in turn greater innovation, happier teams, and fundamentally employees being treated with due respect. These necessities were echoed recently by leaders on the Transformation in 10 podcast.

In these enlightening episodes, I had the pleasure of chatting with Caroline Wong (Chief Strategy Officer at Cobalt) and Jordan Grantham (Global Education Strategist at Tricentis) about the myriad ways they prioritize diversity and inclusion in cybersecurity and software testing, and how you can do the same. Also, hear how other members of the Tricentis team work inclusively on a day-to-day basis.

This blog will give you a flavor of the podcast episodes, which are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.

Episodes 26 & 27: Jordan Grantham at Tricentis on providing inclusive education to those on the spectrum, women, and refugees

Incorporating inclusivity from the very start, at the education level, is clear in the partnerships that our Tricentis Academy team have nurtured over the years. Jordan Grantham, Global Education Strategist at Tricentis, discusses how we help broaden the software testing hiring pipeline by providing education to minority groups.

One of those organizations is Specialisterne, dedicated to working with companies to give people on the autism spectrum a competitive advantage, a cause that our founder, Wolfgang Platz, supports by donating profits from his book Enterprise Continuous Testing: Transforming Testing for Agile and DevOps. Jordan shares with us powerful feedback from a Specialisterne course graduate, which encapsulates how acceptance at work makes all the difference:

Listen to this conversation with Jordan in Part 1 and Part 2.

Episodes 28 & 29: Caroline Wong at Cobalt collectively built her company’s values — and truly applies them

Caroline Wong, Chief Strategy Officer at Cobalt, doesn’t dance around the topic of diversity and inclusion. It’s incredibly refreshing to hear her speak in direct terms: “If you do support diversity and inclusion, what that means is that you have hiring managers who are not racist and who are not sexist. This bias is difficult to address in terms of rules and guidelines. But there’s another analogy that says, I know it when I see it.”

As head of the people function at Cobalt, Caroline shares how Cobalt’s values were formed collaboratively and across all levels at the company — no doubt a major factor as to why employees really do embody them. Hear how Caroline and co. realized Cobalt’s values:

Check out this chat with Caroline in Part 1 and Part 2.

Handing over the mic: How the Tricentis team stands for diversity and inclusion

“I had the privilege of working with other leaders within R&D to craft an inclusive decision governance model called R&D Thinks. In that model, literally anyone in the organization, from our CPO to an entry-level engineer with one week on the job, can submit an idea for a consideration that can help shape the direction of the company.” — Sean Kelly, VP of UX

“I recently stood for diversity and inclusion in tech by managing the Allies Refuge website. Our effort helped around 35,000 Afghan evacuees with clothing and baby needs.” — Savitri Wilder, Associate UX Designer

In October: Tricentis Virtual Summit speakers talk cloud migrations and smart DevOps initiatives

Next up I talk with Wolfgang Platz, our Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, on navigating cloud migrations — a sneak peek into his highly anticipated Tricentis Virtual Summit keynote. I also speak with Clint Sprauve, our Director of Product Marketing, who addresses the theme of this year’s summit (“Delivering software innovation at DevOps speed”) head-on from a Tricentis perspective.

We release a new episode bi-weekly, so check for the latest episodes. We’d love to hear your feedback on social media — use the hashtag #TransformationIn10 and we might give you a shout-out on the show.