There is increasing awareness amongst organisations that diversity and inclusion are important considerations for business in driving innovation. “A diverse and inclusive workforce is critical for success, to drive innovation, foster creativity and guide business strategies” [Forbes Report: “Fostering Innovation through a Diverse Workforce”]. For a company like Amazon, innovation is crucial to our success and having a diverse workforce gives us a better understanding of customers’ needs and is key to unlocking ideas. This session will feature speakers from Qantas, WORK180, and Women@Amazon to explore how both large corporates and start-ups are embracing a diverse workforce to foster a culture of innovation and drive business outcomes.

1. S U M M I T
SYDNEY

2. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.S U M M I T
Beyond diversity to inclusion
through innovation
Michelle Hardie
Enterprise BD
President, Women@
Amazon
AWS
Natalie Ganderton
Emerging Technology Lead
Qantas
Bronwyn van der Merwe
General Manager
Fjord
Valeria Ignatieva
Co-CEO
WORK180

3. S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Attracting and Retaining
a Gender Balanced
Workforce
The Inclusivity ParadoxInclusion and Diversity
– The Tech Perspective
Diversity and Inclusion
at Amazon

4. S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
“Diversity is being invited to the party;
inclusion is being asked to dance.”
Vernã Myers

5. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.S U M M I T
Diversity and inclusion at Amazon
is the combination of unique
skills, experiences, perspectives,
and cultural backgrounds that
make us who we are. Our
collective diversity benefits our
global customers.
is being valued, trusted,
connected, and informed so
that we can deliver the best
results for our customers.
Diversity Inclusion

6. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.S U M M I T
It’s not only that diversity
and inclusion are good for our business. It’s more
fundamental than that — it’s simply right.
Jeff Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.

7. © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.S U M M I T
Embracing Diversity through our Leadership Principles
Hire and
develop the best
Are right a lot Have backbone,
disagree and commit

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Creating a Diverse & Inclusive Environment at Amazon
Affinity Groups The future of tech
is accessible,
flexible, and inclusive

9. S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Inclusion and diversity:
the tech perspective

10. Inclusion & Diversity – the Tech Perspective
Natalie Ganderton
Emerging Technology Lead, Qantas

11. Agenda
The impacts of Inclusion & Diversity considerations
within Technology on our society
Diversity & Inclusion at Qantas
The challenges in AI
Creating value for customers
Creating value for employees
Principles for applying Inclusion & Diversity in Tech

13. Inclusion & Diversity at Qantas

14. The Challenge: Biased data
Obvious:
• Race
• Gender
• Demographics
Less Obvious:
• Uniformity of classes
• Underrepresentation of population
• Incorrectly learned properties

15. Bias in open-source algorithms

16. The Solution: Countering Bias
Where does the
dataset come from?
Who collected the
dataset?
What is the math
that underlies the
data?
How can we measure the
diversity of the data?
What diversity is
required?
• Increased robustness of predictions
• Increased integrity of model
• Better understanding of the diversity of the population
or dataset
Benefits of heterogeneous datasets
Detecting and eliminating bias in datasets

17. The
Challenge:
Explainability

18. Creating value for
customers

19. “Your scientists were so preoccupied
with whether or not they could, they
didn’t stop to think if they should”
– Jeff Goldblum as Dr Ian Malcolm

20. Creating value for
employees
• Glassdoor – two-thirds of respondants said
diversity was important when evaluating
companies
• Deloitte – 80% of employees say inclusion an
important factor in choosing an employer
• McKinsey – 0.8% EBIT rise for every 10% increase in
racial & ethnic diversity on the senior-exec team

21. Principles for
embedding
Inclusion &
Diversity in
Tech
Work is required to stop algorithms perpetuating historical biases
& prejudices
Studies suggest that the presence of diversity in leadership teams
improves company performance
Performance of diverse teams significantly outstrips
homogeneous teams
Diversity of thought can mitigate risk of unintended consequences
through modelling & increase innovation
Heterogeneous datasets lead to more robust AI models and
outcomes
Aim for not just diversity of skillsets but backgrounds and
experiences

22. “We have a very diverse environment
and a very inclusive culture.
Those characteristics got us through
the tough times.
Diversity generated better strategy,
better risk management, better
debates, and better outcomes.”
Alan Joyce, Qantas CEO
Bourke, 2018 – The Diversity and Inclusion Revolution: Eight powerful truths

23. References
• Gender diversity profitability study - https://piie.com/system/files/documents/wp16-3.pdf
• Gender shades project - http://gendershades.org/overview.html
• Algorithmic Justice League - https://www.ajlunited.org/
• Corporate outcomes - https://open.buffer.com/diversity-inclusion/
• Diversity & Innovation - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-
smarter/
• McKinsey – why diversity matters - https://www.mckinsey.com/business-
functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters
• Diversity & Inclusion in Tech -
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startupnationcentral/2019/02/27/diversity-and-inclusion-a-tech-
story/#a3fd5014822d
• Forbes - https://images.forbes.com/forbesinsights/StudyPDFs/Innovation_Through_Diversity.pdf
• Qantas Group - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqVvZPpZUUc &
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pso7VtqViqw

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The inclusivity paradox

25. The inclusivity
paradox
People are individuals, not types. Organizations must
embrace meaningful mindsets to meet demand for true
inclusivity.

26. I&D drives innovation
Accenture research shows that a culture of equality—the kind
of workplace environment that helps everyone advance to
higher positions—is a powerful multiplier of innovation and
growth.
Employees’ innovation mindset—
their willingness and ability to
innovate—is six times higher in the
most-equal cultures than in the least
equal ones

27. Broad scale segmentation is
counter cultural
Everyone's instinct was, ‘Yeah, if you find out their age and gender
data, that's fantastic’. But what we learned is: it's almost useless.”
Todd Yellin, vice president of product, Netflix
“

28. What’s next?
• Organizations will have to re-evaluate their brand heritage within
a context in which new racial, social, cultural and sexual norms
have become established.
• More will realize that statistical modelling has limitations and will
switch to models that actively help them to achieve inclusivity.
• The wisest among them will interrogate the “why?” behind data
and work to achieve a true, 360-degree customer view. We’ll see
new frameworks emerging, blending big data, thick data, and
wide data.
• AI will provide solutions but algorithmic bias is a stumbling block.

29. But can we
design for it?
We’re in a world of
“post-demographic consumerism,” where we place
more importance on lifestyles and mindsets.

30. Mobility mindsets

31. Fjord suggests
01
Marry quant and qual
When designing services, carefully mix human
insights with data to breathe more color into facts
that are often black and white. Learn the
differences between qualitative insights and
quantitative statistics at scale and how each can
make the other more powerful.
02
Focus on mindsets
over segmentation
Move away from traditional marketing approaches
that treat people as a homogenized group
according to their demographics. Instead, focus on
the mindsets that group people together based on
their motivations, attitudes and behaviors.
03
Become a Living Business
Living Services are personalized services that
adapt to user needs in real-time context. To be
able to deliver them, you need to rewire your
business by putting humans at the center and
strive for ultimate customer relevance – you need
to become a Living Business.

32. Thank you

33. S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Attracting and retaining a gender
balanced workforce

34. Attracting and Retaining a Gender Balanced Workforce
Valeria Ignatieva | CEO | WORK180

37. Three years in

38. A transparent directory of supportive
employers

39. 30%Nearly a third of Australians plan to
change employers within the next
year
Source: Randstad 2018 Employer Brand Research

40. 56%
of women look at whether the organisation
publicly shares its progress on diversity when
considering a potential employer
Source: PwC 2017 Winning the fight for female talent - Executive summary

41. Financial benefits of a strong Employer
Brand
• 28% reduction in staff turnover
• 50% cost-per-hire reduction
• 50% more qualified applicants
*LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends 2018

42. Criteria evolution: Paying Superannuation
on paid & unpaid parental leave

43. Criteria evolution: minimum tenure required
to take paid parental leave

44. “Providing access to paid parental
leave after a stillbirth is quite simply
the right thing to do.”
James O'Reilly, Talent Acquisition Manager at Xero

45. Support for parents experiencing the tragedy of a stillbirth

46. Criteria evolution: intersectionality

47. 67%of women will look at whether there are positive role models
similar to them when considering a potential employer
Source: PwC 2017 Winning the fight for female talent - Executive summary

51. HR Health Check

52. HR Health Check findings: Paid parental leave

53. Paid parental leave: Australian average
10 weeksprimary carer leave
Source: WORK180 Report (2018)
1.4 weekssecondary carer leave

54. Paid parental leave: WORK180 Endorsed Employer
average
Source: WORK180 Report (2018)
12 weeks
primary carer leave
2.33 weekssecondary carer leave

55. Pacesetters for Gender Equality
Source: WORK180 Report (2018)
• Primary carers: 26 weeks paid
Parental Leave
• Secondary carers: 16 weeks paid
Parental Leave
• Pay Equity Ambassador
• Primary carers: 26 weeks paid
Parental Leave
• Superannuation on paid Parental
Leave
• Pay Equity Ambassador
• Primary carers: 18 weeks paid
Parental Leave
• 3 months minimum tenure for paid
Parental Leave
• Superannuation on paid & unpaid
parental leave

56. Pacesetters for Gender Equality
• Australian Agri-Tech Startup,
employing 20 people
• Increased paid parental leave from 0
weeks to 6 weeks for both primary &
secondary carers
• Zero minimum tenure to take paid
parental leave
• Stillbirth clause included

57. In the past 12 months, 33% of all external hires at
Incitec Pivot have been women
- October 2018

58. BHP have gone from 10% to 50% of new female
hires
- August 2018

59. In the past 12 months, 42% of Xero’s new recruits in the
Product & Engineering teams have been women.

60. Thank you
LinkedIn: Valeria Ignatieva
Twitter: @valeria_WORK180
Email: valeria@work180.co

61. S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Q&A

62. Thank you!
S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Michelle Hardie
hardiem@amazon.com

63. S U M M I T © 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.