In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, we take a closer look at how software giant SAP embraces diversity and inclusion in workplace.
In 2020, SAP has been selected– for the second year in a row– for inclusion in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI), which recognizes companies committed to transparency in gender reporting and advancing women’s equality. Through the past decade, the German company has set out gender equality as a core company value and has made it a priority to bring SAP to the forefront of inclusivity in the software space.
Since 2011, SAP has planned to increase women leadership by 25{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} in 2017 and 30 percent by 2022. Six months ahead of the 2017 goal, SAP has achieved the 25{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase in women in management and has been on track based on its 2019 numbers (26.4{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}). Currently, 43{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the Intelligent Data & Analytics team and 26{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of its leadership team are comprised of women – with an increasing trend over the last twelve months.
Diversity and Inclusion in Workplace in India
Sindhu Gangadharan, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at SAP Labs India, is a testament to SAP’s advocacy on equality and inclusivity. An SAP long-timer and as the first woman to lead SAP Labs India, she is breaking the glass ceiling not only in the tech space but most importantly in India where women empowerment has just started to gain momentum.
Gangadharan started her career in the CRM Middleware space as a young developer in SAP Labs in Bangalore back in 1999 before moving to Walldorf in 2001. Uprooting her family in India and mastering the foreign language, she built her career in Germany for 18 years witnessing the growth and development of SuccessFactors, Fieldglass, Concur, Ariba, the cloud platform, S/4, and Digital Business Services. In her last role in Walldorf, she was involved in driving the Intelligent Enterprise strategy– SAP’s cross-Board initiative and number one strategy.
In 2019, Gangadharan was called for a leadership role back in SAP Labs India as Managing Director to replace another SAP veteran Dilipkumar Khandelwal. Sharing about her appointment, she said:
“When I first came back to Bangalore, I spent a lot of time just talking to as many people as I could. Clusters, individuals, experts, different age groups, men, women, young joinees who’ve been here only a few months, senior leadership teams. What’s absolutely unique is the fact that here we have an equal distribution of development that goes across SAP’s product portfolio. If you go to Vancouver, it’s analytics. If you go to Palo Alto, you have significant chunks of technology and parts of S/4. Or if you go to Israel, it’s technology. In Bulgaria, it’s Java development. But here, I was like, wow! Every single element of the Intelligent Enterprise is all here in Bangalore.”
“I’m grateful to the mentors who guided and shaped my career. Now, one of the huge opportunities in my present role is to give back. I think this is the beauty of SAP. If you can really help influence people’s lives in a positive way, both inside and outside this company, we really can live up to our sense of purpose and our promise to make the world run better. There is so much that we do as a company, and that is a big part of what drives me,” she stressed.
Supporting Women in Data Science
As part of SAP’s diversity and inclusion in workplace initiative, the software enterprise acknowledges the need to increase the number of women in the data science field, especially that the company has the capacity to bring in and hone talents across its massive global presence. Since 2016, SAP has been a trusted collaborator and sponsor of Stanford University’s Women in Data Science (WiDS) initiative supporting WiDs mission “to inspire and educate data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and to support women in the field.”
On March 8, the WiDS Worldwide Conference kicks off in line with the celebration of International Women’s Day to shine a spotlight on incredible female data scientists working on innovative technology across business, academia, government, and nonprofits. SAP will virtually host the NYC regional session to bring together data-driven business professionals, students, and aspiring data scientists to explore “The Path to Data Science Leadership”. Furthermore, the “WiDS @ SAP” regional series on SAP Purpose Network Live will run throughout the year in North Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
Dr. Katharina Schäfer, Global Head of SAP University Alliances, said:
“It is great to see how many amazing and inspiring women this event brings together from all over the world. Female role models are crucial in fostering female leadership in the field of data science. They show the next generation what is possible to achieve, and that is very powerful.
I’m excited to see Karina Edmonds, a globally recognized visionary leader in the field of innovation, technology transfer, and commercialization, represent SAP at the WiDS Worldwide Conference, where she will share how data science education can effectively empower future leaders to tackle big global and environmental challenges.”
