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editor’s question
INDI SIRINIWASA,
VP AT TREND
MICRO SUB
SAHARAN AFRICA
D
iversity is critical
in the modern
business. But
often having the
will to make the
changes needed
to the way things
have been running in the past, in order
for the business to progress, isn’t always
seen in a positive light. Which is why it is
so important that diversity and inclusion
needs to run as a connected thread
throughout a business’ DNA.
As a global leader in the cybersecurity
space, we have a very strong stance
on diversity. In fact, we have a female
CEO, Eva Chen, who is also one of the
founding members of Trend Micro while
a large percentage of my management
in Sub-Saharan Africa are women
from various walks of life. In my view, a
diverse workforce is not as complex a
topic as most people make it out to be. It
boils down to the responsibility falling on
leaders in an organisation and the DNA
structure of the business.
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Issue 20
You have to start at the beginning, which
is the HR and employment process. The
relevant candidate, whether male or
female, should have a diversified range
of skills and experiences. You need to
look at how they fit the role in question
and how they will fit into a team. It is
a happy medium that isn’t as easy
to achieve as it sounds and one that
needs to be worked on consistently and
continually finetuned.
Diverse teams are productive teams,
especially when you bring together
different personalities that all work to a
common goal. Look at the Springboks’
recent victory in the Rugby World Cup.
A team of highly motivated people from
different backgrounds and upbringings
came together to beat arguably the best
team in the world at the time.
They had a common goal, a common
passion, but brought different emotional
and cultural aspects together along with
unique skills. The same goes for a global
security company such as ourselves. We
would be missing a chance to connect
with our people and our customers if we
didn’t appreciate the cultural makeup of
every country we engage in.
There are always risks in bringing
diversity into teams, but the rewards
far outweigh the risks. It is our role
as a business to stop treating this as
something that needs to be done and
start embracing it as a norm. Only
then will our world be more inclusive.
Inclusivity breeds creativity – bringing
perspectives to the business table that
are invaluable.
As a global leader
in the cybersecurity
space, we have a
very strong stance
on diversity.
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