Equifax Advances Platforms for Women in Technology in Communities Around the World
Four years ago, the Equifax Chile Technology team set out to build a program to make women a significant part of its workforce. They set an aggressive goal of 30% and in four years are more than halfway there with an IT workforce of 18% women, which is more than triple the average in Chile. This incredible growth can be attributed to a multifaceted program of employee and community engagement focused on developing opportunities for women in IT and building the reputation of Equifax as an employer of choice for women in Chile.
The success of the Equifax Chile team has not gone unnoticed. Equifax was recently recognized by Laboratoria, a tech bootcamp for women, as one of the top 30 companies in Latin America for inclusion of women talent in technology in 2022 and among the top six companies in Chile. Companies were recognized for efforts to seek out new talent and contribute to a more diverse and inclusive region.
These efforts have been driven by the team at the Equifax Santiago Development Center (SDC). The development center is a hub for product development, innovation and talent development, making it an ideal location to grow women in IT. While located in Chile, the scope work in Santiago is global, powering work critical to our Cloud transformation and supporting all of our business units across the globe.
The success of the program has been driven by a team effort and working across a series of community outreach focused events and programs. Recent highlights of the program have included the inaugural "Women SDC" Technology Conference and Talent Factory, an internal initiative to train and hire new technologists.
The first Women Santiago Development Center conference was held at the Equifax Santiago Development Center (SDC) and live streamed for Equifax employees. The event focused on highlighting female technology leaders, introducing attendees to potential technology jobs, empowering them to pursue a career in technology and spreading the word about opportunities at Equifax. Speakers also shared the role that the development center and its female leaders play in our industry-leading cloud transformation.
Speakers included Equifax technology leaders Carolina Flores, Maria Cofre and Fabiola Castro with presentations on topics including a deep dive into the importance of quality engineering. Attendees also learned about data engineering including the data ingestion process and the challenges faced by data engineers. The event was capped off by an Engineering recruitment session with a practical discussion of the most in demand technical skills in a Development Center and the importance of soft skills in the recruitment process.
The conference was held in partnership with local tech organizations and bootcamps including Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Laboratoria, Technovation Girls Chile, Coding Dojo, 4Geeks Academy Chile, Duoc UC, Talento Digital para Chile, Woman Who Code and Generation.
The event was a success with more than 70 attendees and benefits beyond the formal presentations.
“While we had the opportunity to share an overview of technology at Equifax and potential career paths in our presentations, the conversations we had with attendees made the difference,” said Carolina Flores, speaker and Equifax Software Engineer. “The opportunity to spend time with women considering a career in technology and answering their questions for me was the highlight of the event.”
Along with the conference, Equifax Chile recently completed its third session of Talent Factory. This technology recruiting and training program for women brings in potential employees in partnership with local boot camps for weeks of paid training. Successful program graduates move into roles at the development center and the most recent program resulted in seven new hires, 100% of the class.
“Talent Factory demonstrates to the local community and to our employees our commitment to developing and hiring women in IT,” said Gustavo Rivera Alves, leader of the Santiago Development Center. “We are seeing first hand how partnering with the community and creating a path into a technology career can be beneficial for everyone involved.”
Along with these high profile programs in Santiago, Equifax employees have built on these efforts, participating in their own and company wide activities. Employees in Chile have become active participants in Women Advancing Technology Together (WATT), a community of technology focused women at Equifax who aim to empower one another through personal and professional development, as part of Equifax’s Global Women’s Network. Along with localizing WATT activities, efforts by the women at the development center have included serving as lecturers at universities and technology schools in their community.