Thanks everyone for joining us for this session. Uh We would love to share with you today.Uh Not only how um we sort of think about diversity and women at Zs, but also how we think about a lot of the intersectionality um in our colleagues, uh which of course, then uh spills into our work um makes us a, a better firm to uh solve problems better. So I think with that, um we'll just give you a brief intro about our firm if we want to go to the next slide and um I guess we can introduce ourselves. Uh So I'll go first. My name is Melissa Singin and I'm an associate principal at Z si lead user experience. Um And I am currently based in the east Coast out of our Philadelphia office.

Great. And my name is Karissa Mashlin. I am a consultant with Zs um that with CS for about 1.5 years. Um I am based in our Evanston office. Uh and I'm also very involved with our Den I groups, um especially women at CS. Um And I also serve as an ally to a number of other Den I groups. So we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Great. So, just to give you an overview of Z uh we are a professional services firm, we have offices all around the world and we do work in a number of industries um where you're about 12,000 strong. And uh our folks work in analytics technology strategy. Um And again, leveraging all their expertise um from Pharma, healthcare, life sciences, uh financial t uh transportation, travel. Uh So there are some of the sort of highlights and you can see on the slide where all of our offices are. So it's nice to kind of get around and visit our colleagues, we can go to the next slide. Um So here at, we sort of a deeper focus. Uh we do, as I mentioned, you know, strategy work, helping our clients under uh figure out uh their portfolio and their franchise strategies, growth strategies, um helping them do business development, mergers and acquisitions as well as org transformation and org design uh to sort of help them run better.

We also have a significant uh footprint in R and D um A place where we help our clients figure out how to not only leverage evidence strategy and life cycle, how to navigate medical affairs, but also we help them um by creating and, and co creating software with them that will help them do things like uh clinical trial feasibility, um Things that are really complicated.

Um to try to make things faster and more accurate for them. So we do quite a lot in RD. Um We do a lot in marketing, helping our clients do things like launch their new products, doing branding, understanding who their market is. Um market research, channel management. Um Sales uh Same, probably familiar to many folks um how to engage with our customers and go to market, um how to find and acquire and retain talent and how to, of course incentive incentivize. And then uh sort of lastly, we have our technology and operations capabilities. Um And there we help our clients either uh you know, build their tech, implement um some of the latest and greatest technologies that everyone wants to leverage natural language processing, um A I, things like that, um commercial operations and outsourcing and um help them implementing their systems.

So that's a bit of our services and we can go to the next slide. And one of the things that we're extremely proud of at Zs is we are consistently ranked as one of the best places to work. Um Also one of the best places for women to work. Um So we've had uh been on these lists. I'm not going to drain them. Hopefully, you're familiar with a lot of them like fairy God boss. Um And you've sort of seen how they analyze these things, but we're incredibly proud that we received this award um multiple years in a row. OK. And the last thing about CS, and I think one of the reasons that it makes CS such a good place to work is because our culture sort of implies just three things, except we take these three things very seriously. We want to do the right thing for our clients, for ourselves, for our colleagues, we want to get it right for our clients. Um And we also want to treat people right? And sort of those three things intersect and we take it really seriously. Uh We want people to be treated incredibly well um with respect and, you know, creating an open environment where people can speak their mind. Um This is something that I think stood out to me the most when I joined the firm.

Um I've been here for a while now, seven years, but it's something that really grounds, I think. Um Yes,

great. Thank you so much, Melissa. Um And I think kind of just leading off of that part of treating people right is making sure that we have diversity equity and inclusion built into everything that we do. Um So you can see on the slide, a number of different locals for some of our current diversity equity and inclusion groups. And I'll just give a quick overview of some of these. Um So, for example, I'm very involved with women at CS. Um And I lead a number of work streams that are focused on professional leadership and career development. But overall, women at DS is helping women build successful careers. Um So very proud of that. We also have a new ID, Id Grden I group called Accessibility at DS, helping provide resources um or um just safe spaces for sers with disabilities. Um We have Asian at Z which is a group centered around making sure that there's representation for Asian voices or those who are Asian American Pacific Islanders. Um We have our Black and Hispanic Alliance, which is a space for Black Hispanic or Latin X um perspectives. Additionally, we have Jewish ad which is for our Jewish community. Um We have pride at DS, which is for our Lbegtq community. Um We have veterans at DS which helps veterans transition from active duty to professional careers. Um And I think I've covered all of them here.

Uh But just gives you a sense of the number of different groups that we have. Um making sure that all of the are represented. And I think that this is really key because we truly honor the different identities of our ZE series, right? Um We want to have a, a diverse and interconnected world. Um We do make it a priority um to foster that very inclusive welcoming environment so that every or can be successful. Um So I just talked through the number of inclusion and diversity groups. Um We also have a diversity and equity and inclusion council. Um And we have a center of expertise as well. And actually, as a matter of fact, today, um we published our very first internal report on de and I so measuring kind of our metrics and, and um just making sure that it's at the, at the heart of what we do. And um I'm gonna talk a little bit more about women at CS. So we really have three pillars. Um We're focused on building successful careers by shaping an inclusive working environment, enabling professional growth and supporting individual choices. Um So a few examples, we have women's hiring events where we have like results about, you know, hiring female managers. Um We have those pillars sort of uh about individual choices, right? So having kids at Zs, what resources do you have around that?

Um For example, like getting an MB A, what resources do you have around that? Um We hold in person summits specifically for women at DS actually, as a matter of fact, there's one happening just this week. Um We also support women in spaces based on those different uh areas where they focus. Um Finally, we have like empowering allies and champions which we call each. So we have a number of different initiatives going on at all times, both at a global and a local level for women at CS. And we're always kind of um you know, making sure that we're offering what our CS need to be successful. So we're gonna pause here because we gave you a lot of information and we want to hear from those in the audience to understand what do you want to know a little bit more about CS, we want to take the time to dive into some specific topic areas that maybe you might want to learn more about.

Um So feel free to drop into the chat if there's something you want us to go a little bit deeper into. We're happy to do. So. Um And, and let us know, where can we tell you more about CS Melissa? Let me know if you see anything coming through? Um I'm not able to see with my,

I actually can see so great question. Um So, so Jackie's asking in your women, it's the group, is it only women or do you have men? No. Yes, we absolutely do have um men as well as, um you know, frankly anyone, right? So whatever you identify as from a gender perspective, you are absolutely allowed to join women at CS. In fact, we don't even necessarily make a distinction in that everybody's a member. And this sort of helps then people feel less awkward if they're like, well, I don't personally identify, but I very strongly support this. So, yeah. Mhm

And adding on to that we also have allies of all of these um different groups. So for example, if you aren't like involved in a lot of the events or sessions, you can still be an ally and you can learn how to support your fellows. Yes. Um And so that's something that I think you really foster is that inclusive, inclusiveness throughout the firm um as

well. Yep, we have another question and then I think we get to flip slides to mentorship. So, in creating new groups, that's a great question. Um because we are now watching or um standing up new groups, right? And so what happens is you have to have at least a small cohort of individuals in our firm who believe that um we, you know, have enough people have enough interest to make, to make an ID G. And then uh as kin mentioned, uh you really just have a conversation with the ID G Council. Um And that's it. And so uh with that, um let's move on to the mentorship question and k if you wanna uh take that one, let's see, I'm reading the chat. So, and then we can go back to Id GS because you guys are putting them in fast and furious. So we're here with mentorships. How involved are you with mentoring others? Um Do you stay with them in every step of their career? That is a great question. Um So, what we actually do is we have a multi pronged approach when we do mentoring at Z. And you can see by the slide um individuals get multiple paths and multiple mentors um because it's always better to hear from more than one person. But also, as people are on their Zs journey, they might choose to change their role, expand their role, try something new, um things of that nature. And because of that, um we want to make sure that everybody, every step of the way is supported.

So you have a professional development coach and that person can stay the same, that person can change the individual often. Um, after they've been here a couple of years and they've gotten to know people may request, you know, their own coach, right? Who they, who they want to.

We also have um a buddy that we give you. And those are folks that have been here and they're, they're pretty close to your cohort and they can teach you, hey, this is about the office, this is about the space you're in. This is about, you know, the, the projects you're going to be working on. So somebody who's already been there and then somebody's connected to a person that they can always ask questions to. And of course, we have, you know, relationship building with trusted peers as well as the senior people on the team. We're calling them project managers. But really, it's also space leads and anyone who's sort of been around and has more seniority. And in addition to that, the ID GS also play a role in mentorship, both formally and informally, our ID G groups afford people um leadership opportunities as well as to make connections with newer leaders. And so then they become connected and also get mentored.

I would love to elaborate on something that Melissa said that I think it, it's worthwhile like elaborating on it's noteworthy. Something that struck me as really incredible when I joined Z is the number of people that I talked to that had reinvented their careers and really had this path of like continuous learning and development, right? Um So I think as Melissa said, like, you constantly have to mentors throughout your career because you're gonna learn and grow and try new things and solve different kinds of problems. And so it's fantastic to see kind of how broad of a network you build. Um And you have so much support along the way, especially as you try to, you know, work with different clients or work at different spaces and solve new problems. Um So we definitely have that support throughout our

careers, which is great. I want to go back to a question. Um And I can read this and uh ka you might want to take this one, but I can also take you back in your, in your women uh group, diverse inclusion group. What are some of the topics that we review and how do you action them? Um She says a lot of the E I resources are performative as opposed to actually helping women. So, um do you want to talk a little bit about how we've actually put some things into action that we've heard from, from our women. Yeah.

Absolutely. Um, so, for example, there's like two different work streams that I specifically work on that are global. Um, and there's specific programs for women and so they're designed to basically be a solution for an unmet need. So we have a lot of surveys, we have a lot of data about, like, how can we support women at CS? What kind of resources do they need? What kind of um networking do they need? So, um for, I'm going to speak specifically to one of the work streams that I'm leaving, we really dive into. How do we provide you with the professional development resources? Um The like leadership development resources, the career development resources that you're needing at that stage in your career.

So that program that I'm speaking about is designed for um yes, at a certain stage in their career and we're always thinking about. OK. Um How do we support you through that? Right. How do we provide you with the networking that you need that sense of belonging that you need? So it is very data driven and it's also very innovative. We are constantly hearing from Zers, like how is this working for you? What else do you need from us? How do we make sure this is an excellent experience for you and that you're very satisfied with it and that it's adding on to your experience overall at Zs. Um, so hopefully that answers your

question. Yeah, I want to give another example because it's, it's a related example for how we help our women. But it's on a different topic. Um, and this is one that's near and dear to my heart because I was sort of around when we put it into action. Um, and that is around, you know, helping women. Uh, you know, you heard, you heard us say, uh you know, it's all about supporting women's choices, right? And sometimes uh those choices involve, you know, things that are external to work. And one of the things that we offer and then have put into action because it wasn't explicitly around when I joined the firm is flex time. So it's a flex schedule like, hey, I'm a mom. Hey, I'm a new mom. Hey, I'm a single dad. I mean, frankly, these are for everyone, but this idea, I specifically remember, um we sort of really started thinking and talking about it at one of the women's summits. And, you know, not only do we allow people to work on a flex schedule, but we also, you know, when they reach out, we tell them how to do it, we connect them with other people that work on flex schedules. Um And you don't need, you know, any kind of, you know, authoritative permission to do this. Um We have plenty of folks that are doing this.

Um, and so that's something that we've gotten feedback that's tremendously helpful for people, depending on what they're doing in their life and what they need to do, um, to be successful.

Yeah. Absolutely. And we also have leaders who truly model those behaviors. Right. Um, if I'm going to be on a flex schedule, how do I model that for others? Yes. So that they can, they can do that as well. right? Um Maybe, you know, they have like certain times where they're like, hey, this is when I'm, I'm out of office, I'm on a flex schedule. How do I model that behavior? How do I communicate to that, to my teams and my clients? And so it helps others. Yes, sers you know, embed that into the way they work as well. Um Another example would be like the having kids at, right? How do we give you the resources that you need to navigate that journey? Um And so it's great to see that firm leaders truly are living and modeling those behaviors um because it truly becomes embedded into what we do.

Yeah. And we have another question about um how do we promote ally involvement in our ID G groups? Um They, they said they always uh they find that allies often feel that they support the group but they don't have a role within the group. So Chris, do you want to take this one? Start this one out?

Yeah. Absolutely. Um So I think that we give our allies a lot more information about how they can be supportive. So, for example, at wl I, we actually have some sessions that are just designed for allies or resources that are designed for allies, right? How do I become an ally? And what does that truly mean? And so sometimes we actually partner with like, you know, external resources to bring some of that into the firm. Maybe we'll have like sessions or like, you know, one, two day event around like, OK, how do I think about being an ally? And how do I, how do I live that? Right. What, what things do I need to do or what things can I do to be a strong ally? Um So making sure that the resources are there, right? The communication is there. Um One of the great things we also do at Zs is like, we have a great communication channel internally to let everyone know like, hey, here's what's going on with some of our den I groups this month, right? Here's how you can be involved, here's what sessions are available to you. Um So regardless of if you are like involved in the group or you're an ally, you can also, you know, make sure that you're keeping informed on what's going on.

Yeah. And just to add to that, you know, we have a lot of resources for helping allies feel free to speak. Up on behalf of the, the members and what that looks like that can be um scary and intimidating, right at first, right. If you see something at work, what do you do? Because the answer is clearly not to stand by, a lot of people want to know how to do that. Right. So the allies come to us and they ask that in addition to that, um I find that, you know, I get a lot of questions on allyship. We're also there to really support the members to be able to do this communication and this education and you know, the other things that, that our RDGS want to do. So I always encourage allies to really help, think about how they can be an enabler, right? Because it is, this is also a bit of a change agency and you don't want to be performative. So like I personally do a lot of, hey, let me help you get the logistics set up, boy. Is that not glamorous boy? Is that sometimes a pain in the neck? Right? But as an ally, I can do that, right? And, and that way they can focus on their content and you know, the things that, that the members are trying to put forth for the different communities.

Um So that's, that's another way. Great.

Any other questions coming through Melissa?

So we have a question. Uh Da da da, let's see. Um Do we offer remote roles? Um I think the answer is going to be and it depends. That's, we are, we're a firm as you saw all over the world, um, in many, many different, um, areas. So typically that is, um, that is, that is dependent on where you are, what you're doing. But we, we obviously have them. Do we have a space for communications and content? Like an internet? Yes, we do. Um, we absolutely do. In fact, we are getting a brand new internet. Um I believe later this summer, but we've always had an internet and it's the kind where anyone can also post. So, of course, it's organized by, here's your practice area, here's your ID D group home page, right? And things of that nature, just like a typical internet would, right. Here's your hr information. Um But it was also the kind of thing where anybody could post anything um using um AJ like the drive platform if you're familiar with that. And as a result, it also wasn't this like gate, gate kept piece, but I think things that need to be governed, governed, um things that don't, don't do we support working remotely. Um I would say yes and a caveat with that. Um Again, it depends on who your team is and where you are. Um I don't believe that we have, I, I think, I think we have some roles but I'm not sure that we would have 100% working remote. I also think that, um, for doing a management consulting.

Um, yeah, we don't have anything that's like fully remote. You're absolutely right. That doesn't mean that you can't, you know, work remotely. But I do. But the expectation is, you know, we will see you in, in an office. I also don't know how much, um, how good of an experience that would be. Right. If you started a new company and you never really get to meet all of your colleagues. I don't know if that would be fulfilling for a lot of people. OK. We have only just a few minutes left. Any other questions?

Do you see any other questions coming through? Melissa?

I don't.

Great. Um I would love to like just add on to the topic about the fully remote or the remote roles. Um I think that's something as well where like, like we can certainly chat offline or you could, you know, we could put you into the right question, the right person if that was a question. Um But I think it's something to where, you know, we are evolving in this, in this new world, right? Of working. So um we can certainly take that offline if you had other questions. Anything else that we can tell you about? Yes.

No, I don't see any other questions coming through in the chat.

OK. It looks like we have four minutes left so we definitely can make ourselves available if any other questions do come through. Um We can certainly tell you a little bit more about professional development, career growth. Um diving a little bit more into our values, ID GS.

Um, what our on boarding process looks like or what a day in the life looks like. Um We can certainly tell you more about mentorship if you have any other questions on that or our offices or of course, any other things that you might want to ask

on boarding,

is that a question coming

through? Yeah. So on boarding, I guess, what is your first three weeks? Like? It looks like what that's the question is. Yeah, there we go. So, um obviously this, this might look a bit different for different people, but this is basically the gist of it. Um This is a great question. We do want to sort of help folks have, you know, get off on the right foot. Um And so we think about things like what is, what is the role or the space that the person is going to be joining into? Um And then we spoke a little bit prior about we have buddies and we give you a PD coach, but you'll also get not only like CS hr on boarding and you guys are all familiar with that, right? How to set things up, but you'll also get a space on boarding. Um So that's anything specific to, um like, for example, I am in user experience we have specific tools, we have specific processes, right? That other folks will not, you know, know about. So our new folks, we point them to specific on boarding training that we give people joining the user experience base, right? And so that sort of happens um for your first three months and then you'll notice on this, on this little diagram, right? You day one, you get your buddy, you get your PD coach, you start your space on board and you get to rate your car on boarding, but you also then are placed into a cohort. Um Sometimes this cohort is um around the level, right that you come in.

So there are people that are at the same, on the same career um level that you're on. Sometimes um your cohort might be something else like all people that are working in analytics. But you know, we're, we're because we're trying to find common ground and have people make these meaningful connections. So that kind of happens. And then we sort of give, we start after the three month mark giving you kind of like a curriculum that you can go through, right?

Because we don't want to inundate people with training, but we also want to make sure that we're giving them the tools to be successful. Um By the six month mark, you get your first review. Hopefully you would be getting feedback from everyone that you've been working with throughout that journey. And not at the six month mark, right, we very strongly encourage continuous uh feedback. So there are no surprises. Um So then by then probably an in person or a remote uh or a hybrid learning day, either for your space or your office um or knowledge fair or something is going to pop up. So people then again, begin to learn more about the firm. And, you know, with all the firm's facets, it would be incredibly um inundating to try to give everybody all that stuff like in the first three weeks or even the first three months, we try to ease people into that. Um And then by nine months, right, you, you might have seen enough where you can take a request and this is the evolved piece that Kissa had mentioned where people say, hey, I've learned enough about this. I'd love to go work in this space. I'd love to go work on this topic. So we really want people to express where are their interests if, if they have any.

Um And then, you know, by the 12 month mark, they've had two reviews, lots of feedback, multiple sessions with their PD coaches, probably another learning opportunity in a learning day or a space showcase. Um And that's kind of the first year, but you can see that we build in many, many touch points and there are different types of touch points. Um not only to give that variety but also to give access to a wide variety of ZSR so that people can begin to build these relationships of other folks that they're going to be working with.

Great. So I think we're at time. Um Thank you so much, everyone for joining us. Um I hope that we added a lot of value in the last 30 minutes. I know we covered a lot of topics in the last 30 minutes, but hopefully it was helpful to all of you. Um So thank you for taking the time to join us today.

Yeah, thank you so much and thank you for your fantastic questions. Have a great day. Everyone. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Bye.