Elevating Women in the Workplace

When Sabina Shrestha emigrated from Nepal at 16, she never guessed she’d teach herself to code. Now the SharePoint developer and task lead is doing exactly what she dreamed of as a kid. "I wanted to wake up and solve problems that would make a difference in people's lives," Sabina explains.

Women are an integral part of problem solving at Booz Allen, but they can often face challenges their male peers don’t. Booz Allen knows this is an issue in the community. We are paying close attention and have a focused effort on empowering and elevating women in the workforce.

Attracting, retaining, and developing female talent—just like Sabina—is the current focus of Booz Allen’s Women’s Forum, an agent of change to help facilitate career fulfillment for the women of Booz Allen. Diverse candidates with in-demand skillsets—as well as legacy employees who are hungry to learn, mentor, and lead—are some of our most valuable assets. So in alignment with our women’s agenda, we’re creating a women’s development initiative aimed at improving retention, development, and sponsorship to ensure balanced promotion opportunities. 

Our Problem Solvers campaign is another part of the effort to elevate women.  Inspired by the Academy Award-winning blockbuster “Hidden Figures,” which tells the story of three brilliant African-American women behind one of history's greatest NASA operations, we crafted an extensive series of profiles featuring our own brilliant women engineers. Booz Allen explored why each woman chose a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) related career and how their technical skills help solve today’s challenges.

This past year we also kicked off our Women of Washington radio program, featuring a Booz Allen woman leader on targeted panel discussions. The radio series covers various work-related topics, but also touches on each leader’s professional journey and the importance of mentorship.

We’re excited to shine a spotlight on the many talents of women, and we know there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to transformation. It will take uncomfortable conversations. Listening and acting with empathy. Inclusive leadership. Recognizing unconscious bias.

Unconscious bias occurs when our brains make snap judgments without our realizing. A prime example is the perception that female leaders are aggressive rather than assertive—a stressor that can’t be ignored.

“Unchecked, this leads us to make decisions that support unintentional exclusion,” said Cheryl Wade, Diversity and Inclusion lead. “We’re creating an unconscious bias and inclusive leadership curriculum that goes beyond training to create experiential learning and promote accountability.”

Army veteran and Project Manager Diane Wilkerson points out that this bias has other negative ramifications. “I’m much better than I used to be, but confidence is the thing that still plagues me. We must learn to walk into a room and project confidence,” said Diane. “As soon as someone hears a woman’s voice, there is this idea that you can’t stand up to the pressure.  At some point in my lifetime, I hope people will stop all the nonsense—stop thinking women aren’t tough enough.”

Equally important, men must act as allies—challenging their own unconscious bias and where it shows up in our systems and processes.

“The No. 1 way men can be an ally is by sponsorship. Be someone who will advocate and put their own political capital on the table to elevate someone else’s career,” said Cheryl. “It must be an active activity.”

But it doesn’t stop there. Booz Allen is also constantly auditing and benchmarking to make sure we address inequities as soon as they emerge.

IT Strategist Jenny Oh sees progress—both professionally and personally. “We’ve had huge struggles, but we’re making strides. It makes a big difference because it helps how we navigate our home life as well. Confident women change the world.” 

By the Numbers 

• ∼1/3 female board
• ∼1/2 female leadership team
• Working Mother Magazine named us one of the 100 best companies for 19 consecutive years
• In partnership with the Center for Talent Innovation, sponsor of the national Wonder Women in STEM study exploring the success differentiators for women in the STEM field(s)
• Elevated 250+ women over 9+ years for external award recognition via Women of Color in STEM, National Association of Female Executives (NAFE) and Society of Women Engineers (SWE)