Santa Monica, California

The gaming industry has had a clamorous time dealing with the fact that girls game too. Activision Blizzard has made strides to be at the forefront of appealing to women gamers, including the major billion dollar purchase of Candy Crush developer King Digital whose consumers are mostly female.

San Jose, California

Adobe Systems President and CEO Shantanu Narayen says success can be attributed to a corporate culture that believes, “Great ideas come from everywhere in the company. In today’s ultra-competitive environment, it’s critical to cultivate a strong, diverse workforce who brings their best ideas to work every day. We are committed to making Adobe a great place to work, where everyone can contribute and succeed.”

     San Francisco, California

Airbnb has a unique problem in that they not only worry about the diversity of their workforce, but also the ability for minorities to use the product in the same way as their white peers. This is why the company's diversity lead, David King, is titled Head of Diversity and Belonging. As a Peace Corps official, Mr. King traveled the world over: “The work I did at the Peace Corps involved the support of employees in 65 different countries. There might be an LGBT volunteer in Uganda, or an African-American volunteer in the Ukraine, which could be tough. Or a woman in Jordan. My job was to make sure that people felt like they belonged.” He continues that work at Airbnb.

     Mountain View, California

Google made waves when it released its initial diversity report in 2014, confirming that Silicon Valley had a severe lack of women and minorities. They were willing to take the press hit, however, as part of an effort to shake up those poor foundations. Yolanda Mangolini, Director of Diversity & Inclusion explained, "what was most important to us was changing the face of technology and driving the change in the industry. So we were willing to take that risk if it meant that more people were going to be brought into the conversation and that we could unite this dialogue around diversity in the tech industry."

     Seattle, Washington

     Cupertino, California

CEO Tim Cook has been very visible in supporting not only diversity in Apple's workforce, but the acceptance of diversity in the community at large. He believes our collective task is to reach out to all people who feel limited due to their differences and recognize that “creativity and innovation can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences.” His support for the LGBT community has served as an inspiration for many, leading to his Visibility Award from the Human Rights Campaign.

     Bedminster, New Jersey

Rick Gomez, Executive Director of Workforce Inclusion & Diversity, says it is important to tackle the talent pipeline by allying with student organizations like the Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities to “fill the needs of the organization, and at the same time, build our brand and recruit top campus talent – creating a win for the organization and a win for AT&T.”

     Irvine, California

Broadcom is using its women's ERG (BWN) to accelerate the advancement of women at Broadcom and cultivate a community of empowered leaders. With chapters in North America, India, Singapore and UK, BWN has more than 650 members. And with connections to groups like the Society for Women Engineers, Anita Borg Institute, Girls Who Code and IEEE Women in Engineering, members gain access to mentors, development opportunities and a range of leadership engagement activities.

     San Jose, California

Cisco is tackling the diversity question from the top down - promoting women and minorities into senior positions - and the bottom up - confronting the pipeline problem. The company is a founding member of US2020, a platform that helps connect STEM professionals with girls and underrepresented minorities from kindergarten through college age. Cisco has pledged that by 2020, 20% of its U.S. staff will volunteer at least 20 hours each year to inspire students in STEM education.

     Round Rock, Texas

Marie Moynihan, Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Talent, explains that diversity "forces a more challenging conversation and ultimately better decisions." There is vast evidence indicating that a "more diverse team can result in a better return on equity." Dell hopes that flexible work options will allow more women to grow into leadership positions without forgoing the benefits of growing a family.

     Redwood City, California

Electronic Arts is actively fighting the stereotype that the gaming industry doesn't accept women. Peter Moore, COO, stated, “We’ve gone from the personification of what we believe women should look like in a video game, to actually involving women in making video games, to today where at Electronic Arts we have some of our most powerful franchises overseen by women who manage hundreds of men,” including franchises like The Sims and Star Wars.

     San Jose, California

Though there is still more work to do, especially when it comes to technical jobs, ebay has continued to outpace its peer in the tech industry on its employment figures of women and minorities, all the way up to leadership levels. eBay General Counsel Mari Oh Huber talks about the importance in encouraging and promoting talented women from entry-level to corporate boardrooms. “Make it about the business imperative and have men, in addition to women, drive closing the gap,” she says.

     Menlo Park, California

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, COO, have been highly visible when it comes to diversity in tech. Diversity lead Maxine Williams says this is important; having "leaders that actually lead and not just talk about it. We lead by being open, being honest. We encourage people to have frank conversations about difficult topics all the time. We say, 'Just because you don't know exactly what to say, the worst thing is being paralyzed by your discomfort and we don't get through it.' So we invite the same openness that we want to see in the world and we spend a lot of time fostering internally as well."

Palo Alto, California

HP has the most diverse Board of Directors of any technology company in the US and plans to continue to grow its diverse representation at all levels of the company.  Chief Diversity Officer, Lesley Slaton Brown, adds, "we’re also in the process of appointing business and site-based diversity leads across the company to provide guidance and sponsorship" with the firm belief that "diversity and inclusion helps drive new business, fuel innovation, and attract and attain the best employees. "

     Armonk, New York

     Santa Clara, California

Danielle Brown, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Intel, told Tech Diversity Magazine that diversity & inclusion are "key to Intel’s evolution and driving forces for our continued relevancy and growth. That is why in January 2015, Intel set an ambitious goal to be the first high technology company to reach full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in its U.S. workforce by 2020. Intel invested $300M in the Diversity in Technology Initiative to support this goal and our broader goal of improving diversity in the entire technology industry." Already there's been progress with a 5.8% increase in technical females year over year.

     Bethesda, Maryland

Lockheed Martin has successfully partnered with the US Department of Energy to encourage more Americans in underrepresented communities to pursue careers in STEM fields. CEO Marilyn Hewson remarked, "at Lockheed Martin, we know firsthand that it's critically important and that we are at our best when we bring together talented people with diverse capabilities, perspectives and experiences to solve tough problems."

     Minneapolis, Minnesota

“As a world leader in medical technology, services and solutions, Medtronic is committed to global diversity and inclusion in our workplace. This focus is consistent with our Mission – to recognize the personal worth of employees – enabling us to better serve our patients, partners, and customers," says Carol Surface, Chief Human Resources Officer.

     Redmond, Washington

CEO Satya Nadella admits the tech giant is not near where it wants to be when it comes to diversity in its workforce, but states that they remain committed to the effort: "When we sort of say everything at Microsoft starts with our mission, and we want to talk about empowering the world and empowering every person on the planet, it has to start with diversity and inclusion right here at Microsoft, and us, representing the world internally."

Falls Church, Virginia

The Northrop Grumman Foundation and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) have launched a three-year, $2-million program designed to expand the nation’s engineering workforce through a partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Northrop Grumman Corporation/NSBE Integrated Pipeline Program, funded by the Northrop Grumman Foundation, will provide 72 engineering students with $8,000 scholarship grants, internships with Northrop Grumman and year-round academic and professional development support. The program’s three HBCU partners — Florida A&M University, Howard University and North Carolina A&T State University — will receive grants, technical assistance and a package of programs researched and managed by NSBE, to increase their already high capacity to recruit, retain and graduate engineers.

     Santa Clara, California

Senior Director of Corporate Responsibility, Tonie Hansen, says of Nvidia's progress, "In addition to enhancing our parental leave policy, we’ve upgraded our Mother’s Rooms, and our efforts on behalf of LGBT employees has brought us a 100% score in the Corporate Equality Index. We’ll soon be introducing unconscious bias awareness training, and we’ve launched a mentoring program that’s being piloted with over 400 women in technical roles. We’re working on improving the number of underrepresented employees we hire, and have made progress in the past few years. Last year, we tripled the number of diversity events that we attended and reached 30,000 diverse candidates."

     Redwood City, California

Oracle partners with professional associations and nonprofit organizations to increase their success in recruiting top diverse talent. Fostering strong relationships with many organizations across the US to ensure that no talent is left behind, their partners include: National Society for Hispanic Professionals, Women in Technology, Recruit Military, and Black Data Processing Associates.

     Palo Alto, California

     Norwalk, Connecticut

The Priceline board of trustees is holding its annual meeting today, June 2, already sent on the mission by the company’s nominating and corporate governance committee to include race and gender criteria when it considers nominating board members. In its pursuit of board diversity, Priceline seeks to leverage the diversity of thought that comes from unique backgrounds to enable greater business growth.

     San Diego, California

Central to Qualcomm's efforts are Qualcomm Women in Science and Engineering (QWISE) and Qualcomm Females Influencing Information Technology (QFINITY), two of their employee networks. QWISE’s mission is to promote the personal and professional growth of women in technology at Qualcomm and in the community. The group provides female employees with a platform for sharing ideas, seeking guidance, discussing challenges and supporting our recruitment and retention programs. More than 1,600 Qualcomm employees belong to 12 QWISE chapters in Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, Singapore and the United States. QWISE programs have provided one-on-one mentoring for hundreds of Qualcomm employees and interns, along with networking opportunities, community outreach, a popular bimonthly speaker series and more.

     San Francisco, California

Executive Vice President of Global Employee Success, Cindy Robbins, explained, "On the hiring front, we are addressing unconscious bias through more awareness training and by instituting more competencies-based interviewing processes. We’ve also put in place a process where we interview at least one female candidate or underrepresented minority for executive positions. We are on the path to increasing diversity and inclusion at all levels at Salesforce." Over the past year, Salesforce has experienced a 5% increase in women and minority hires in the U.S. along  with a 27% increase in females in leadership positions globally. Ms. Robbins continued, "We recognize we have a long way to go, but when we rally around a goal and work together as a team, we believe we can accomplish anything."

     Mountain View, California

Ruha Devanesan, Manager of Diversity & Inclusion, says, "Symantec is committed to workplace equality and strives to create an environment where all employees are valued and respected for their individual differences and unique perspectives" which earned the company a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's 'Corporate Equality Index.' Ms. Devanesan explained, "While our LGBT employee resource group, Sympride, provides community for our LGBT employees worldwide through a virtual network of global chapters, it is also a major way in which Symantec gauges what the needs of our LGBT employees are, in terms of workplace resources and policies. We’ve worked with SymPride to draft and publish our first set of guidelines for transgender employees looking to undergo gender transition in the workplace.  We also rolled out our first all-gender bathrooms at some campuses late last year and are working to make all single-stall bathrooms at our campuses similarly inclusive."

     Dallas, Texas

Chairman, President and CEO Rich Templeton remarks that "An inclusive environment is essential at TI. It enables our global workforce to contribute openly and without barriers. In this environment, diversity thrives and every employee – no matter where they are and what job they hold – has the opportunity to take part in the company’s success. We believe our rich diversity improves thought processes, encourages collaboration, and ignites creative solutions."

     Waltham, Massachusetts

Thermo Fisher Scientific has partnered with the Veteran Jobs Mission to improve employment prospects for U.S. military veterans. Alan K. Nevel, Director of Global Diversity & Inclusion, explains, “The unique skills and experiences that veterans bring to Thermo Fisher Scientific result in a competitive advantage for us in the marketplace. By partnering with the Veteran Jobs Mission and its member companies, we are not only strengthening our position as an employer of choice, but also making a real difference in the lives of Veterans and their families."

     San Francisco, California

A Pew poll found that Twitter is the social media platform used more often by minorities than Caucasians, signifying the importance for the company to speak to the desires of diverse groups. As part of that effort, Twitter appointed Debra Lee, chairman and chief executive of BET Networks, to the Board of Directors - which had been all-male until 2013 and all-Caucasian until 2015. Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO, has promised to continue the board's diversification.

San Francisco, California

Uber has been a wonderful tool for people of color who otherwise might be unable to hail a ride from traditional taxi services due to racial discrimination. Uber pledges to do more, partnering with the White House, Kapor Center and others in a commitment to ensure all Oakland students have access to computer science education and career pathways. “We are excited to do our part to empower the community we will call home,” said Damien Hooper-Campbell, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion. “Uber is committed to developing and mentoring Oakland youth so they become future innovators and leaders.”

     New York, New York

Verizon Wireless has shown a commitment to furthering the development of working women leaders in order to help close the representation gap of women in leadership positions. Verizon has been proactive in providing high potential women the opportunity to participate in personal and professional developmental activities, earning the honor of being named one of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women from Working Mother.

Sunnyvale, California

Yahoo has recently introduced a new cryopreservation benefit that covers the freezing, storage and thawing of oocytes (egg cells), sperm and embryos (when not undergoing covered active infertility treatment). Carolyn Clark, Director of Yahoo Communications explains, "Cryopreservation is part of a suite of family benefits that Yahoo offers including generous parental leave program, infertility benefits, adoption assistance and more." The sum total will greatly benefit working women who also want to be mothers.