Cultural Cookbook Volume 11: Supporting women in tech
I’m Stacey, a Solution Manager in the CIO Solution Engineering team. I lead teams of engineers to make sure that AXA is making the best use of technology and everyone has the right skills to help our customers. I’ve also set up a Women in Technology Community to help tackle the gender gap in tech. So here’s my recipe for creating an innovative and supportive team.
Ingredients
- A supportive community
- Career growth
- Innovation and collaboration
- Mentorship opportunities
Method
Step 1: Create a supportive community
I formed the COO Women in Technology Community in 2024. The community aims to support the growth of women across all areas of COO with a focus on attracting more women into technology roles, retaining them and also creating a sense of community and belonging.
Step 2: Break down stereotypes
For insurance, the stereotype is middle-aged white men in suits spending most of their time in meetings. For engineering, the stereotype is men (again) with their heads down, writing code with very little interaction with others.
But at AXA, the people working here reflect the diverse customer base that we have. In engineering the teams work collaboratively as part of a project team, looking for ways to innovate and ensure we’re doing the best we can for AXA and our customers.
There is still a gender gap within my area, but in COO we have an action plan in place to make meaningful changes. We have recently launched our COO female mentoring programme which sees 45 women working in all areas of technology being mentored by one of our technology leaders.
Step 3: Give everyone opportunities to progress
In engineering we have invested in our career paths ensuring that there are routes for engineers that want to progress their career into management positions and also those that want to become an individual contributor.
A lot of skills in my area are transferable, so no role is really out of reach. I’ve only been at AXA a short time, but I have many people that have worked here for 10+ years and have had the opportunity to work in different roles and departments.
Working for a global company, the opportunities are endless and you have the freedom and support to shape the career that you want.
Bon appétit!
