By Deb Nations, Director, Global Diversity and Inclusion at AMD.

The technology industry stands to make great gains by recruiting, developing and retaining women as a vital part of their teams. Not only is this statement backed by substantial research, but frankly, it also just makes good sense.

From a general perspective, when women are an integral part of any company, the diversity of thought and ideas at the table increases. A greater variety of perspectives and experiences can improve creativity and innovation, which is what the technology business is all about. Research reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with high IQs and more on groups of diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality⁽¹⁾.

Now, let’s get more specific. In the U.S. alone, women influenced more than $90 billion of consumer electronic purchases in 2007⁽²⁾, and were the decision makers in 66% of personal computer purchases ⁽³⁾. And women are loyal to their technology – while 58% would ditch their TV if they had to get rid of one digital device, only 11% would ditch their laptop⁽⁴⁾. It stands to reason that with women making up such a large part of our target market, our workforce should include more women in product design, development and marketing.

Gender diversity provides the variety of perspectives and experiences that spark creativity, problem solving and innovation to propel our company and our industry forward. Recently, McKinsey Consulting performed a study which delved into why gender diversity matters.

One fact the study uncovered is that women excel in the competencies that will be most effective in addressing future challenges in a global workforce – things like participative decision making, clearly setting expectations and rewards, and developing people to take on increasing roles and responsibilities⁽⁵⁾.

AMD firmly believes that women bring a diversity of thought to the table that can help shape our future for the better. That’s why we created the AMD Women’s Forum (AWF) to build a respected and innovative company through the collaboration and contributions of women.

Formed in 2009, one of the first things the AWF did was investigate the major challenges facing women in the technology industry and at AMD specifically. Once those issues were defined, we worked to develop programs specific to the areas that would most help progress women within the organization.

Women in the technology industry face some unique challenges. For one, there is a lack of prominent female role models. This can make it challenging for a woman to envision herself at the head of the table. As well, women often lack mentors or sponsors to help them drive the self-awareness and skill development necessary to reach the top. Another common challenge is that of work/life integration. While some women have seemed to master this, many others still struggle with the “always on/always connected” work environment of a global organization.

Over the past two years, the AWF has developed programs specific to each of these barriers.  We have worked to drive visibility of our female leadership both inside and outside the company – through internal panel events featuring female leaders, industry speaking engagements, and increased public relations and external recognition of AMD women.  We addressed the strong need for mentoring with a program called AMD Mentoring Connections, which matches high-potential women with mentors from around the globe for the purposes of knowledge sharing and skill development. Because work/life integration is such a universal challenge, we have woven it throughout the programs.  We have invited industry experts on focus and balance into our AWF Speaker’s Series, asked our female leaders to discuss it in their newsletter features and online videos, and included it as one of the important competencies to develop within our mentoring program.

As a result of these efforts, women around the world are connecting, networking and developing in new and exciting ways. They are also paying it forward. Every woman that we reach through the efforts of the AWF makes a commitment to help others in their part of the business and their part of the world. We have seen incredible progress in two short years, and we look forward to seeing that progress translate into business results in the years to come.

Deb Nations is the Director, Global Diversity and Inclusion at AMD.Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

(1)      Scott Page, The Difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).
(2)     Source: Consumer Electronics Association, 2007
(3)     Source: Compiled by Marketing to Women Conference 2009
(4)     Source: Mindshare/Ogilvy & Mather
(5)     McKinsey & Company:  Women leaders, a competitive edge in and after the crisis. http://www.mckinsey.de/downloads/publikation/women_matter/women_matter_3_brochure.pdf