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Schneider Electric has joined Connecting Women in Technology (CWIT) MENA, a regional initiative that aims to attract and retain women in the technology industry across the Middle East. Several Schneider Electric executives will join CWIT MENA’s leadership committee, and the company will share learnings on how it is promoting diversity and inclusion to help the sector improve how it attracts, empowers and develops women who have a passion for technology and who want to have a tech-related career.

Founded in 2012 in Dublin, CWIT’s mission is to encourage and empower women to join the technology industry through networking and development events. The CWIT MENA initiative began in 2016 and includes some of the largest technology firms in the world, including Amazon, Google, Visa and LinkedIn. Schneider Electric would be CWIT MENA’s seventeen member.

“CWIT MENA’s goal is to bring together tech companies that are committed to diversity and inclusion in our industry and use our collective voice to promote STEM careers for women,” said Christine Harb, VP Marketing CEMEA at Visa and the Co-Founder of CWIT MENA. “I’d like to welcome Schneider Electric to CWIT MENA, and I and our members look forward to hearing from Schneider Electric’s team on how they’re able to attract, retain and promote women in tech roles within the company.”

As of 2019, women made up 20 percent of Schneider’s global leadership, and over 40 percent of the company’s board. By the end of 2018, nearly 40 percent of Schneider’s new hires globally were women.The company’s makeup in MENA is just as diverse as it is globally, with 25 percent of women working in the company regionally and 35 percent of the management team being female. According to UNESCO, 34-57 percent of students graduating from the Arab universities with science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related degrees are women, a figure much higher than in the US or Europe, and Schneider Electric’s Natalja Kissina believes the tech industry has much to offer.

“The region’s female talent is remarkable, and we must do more to ensure that we’re making use of 100% of the talent, the creativity and the innovation in our population,” said Kissina, Schneider Electric’s VP for Human Resources in the Gulf. “We must do more to attract, retain and develop the best talent across MENA, and we’re going to do that through showing women that the tech sector is the best place for them to find not just a job but a career. The tech industry is shaping the Middle East and North Africa for the better, and we need more women engineers and innovators to be part of this transformation. And that’s why we’re excited about joining CWIT MENA, so we can engage with women and men as a collective and amplify our message about why women are the present and the future of tech.”