Colt Technology Services, Chief Executive Officer, Keri Gilder, spoke with Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, Telecom TV, about how important diversity and inclusion is to the company and what it means to the business in relation to its corporate and cultural strategy.

A strong focus on inclusion and diversity 

"From a cult perspective, I think if you go on LinkedIn or anywhere out in social media you will see that we've been heavily focused on inclusion and diversity and that's not just because I'm a female CEO, and I think last time I checked the only global female CEO in the telecoms industry, but because it is a strategic imperative for the business," says Keri. 

According to Keri, Colt Technology Services has moved from this being a moral objective to being a strategic imperative. "You can see that over 70 per cent of my executive leadership team is diverse, either from an ethnic perspective or from a gender perspective, and that's very unique in the industry."

Maintain, sustain, thrive and grow

Looking ahead, Keri states that the industry has to change the face of it looks, how it engages, and who it promotes. 

"Because if you look at the statistics we are reaching a retirement cliff within the industry," explains Keri. 

"In the next decade the majority of our employee base is going to retire in order to maintain, sustain, thrive and grow. We have to think about the next generation that's coming up and into the telecoms industry and that's really the millennials and below. And what they're telling us is that over 80 percent of the time they will make a decision towards a more inclusive and diverse company when it comes to their next career move - so that is one of the main criteria that they're looking at. So we have to maintain this bench strength coming through not only Colts but the industry in order to do that we have to put diversity and inclusion at the forefront."

Diversity leads to better innovation and ideation 

Louisa Gregory is the Vice President for inclusion and diversity globally at Colt Technology Services.

She explains: "Diversity is not just about ticking the box to say that we’ve got different genders, ethnicities, religions, and multi-generations. It’s really about ensuring that we have diversity of thought that leads to better innovation, better ideation - thinking about what we want our workforce to look like in the future and therefore creating programmes that really enable people to bring their best self."

Colt Technology Services champions diversity 

Colt Technology Services knows that a truly inclusive environment can only be built with the help of everybody within it.

That's why Colt invests in training its staff - addressing unconscious biases, and empowering them to create a culture of care and belonging.

Join them.

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