About the TBM Council
Statement of Position on Diversity & Inclusion
The Technology Business Management Council, a community of over 10,000 business technology and finance professionals, recognizes that diversity of race, gender, age, orientation, religion, identity, disability, military status and experience is essential to the success of our mission. Not only do we continuously strive to be an inclusive community, respectful and appreciative of our members’ diversity, but we also believe diversity and inclusion are good for modern enterprises and the technology teams that enable them.
Therefore, we embrace three tenets of diversity and inclusion:
- We will seek diversity of our own membership and leadership, starting with our board of directors and extending to all aspects of what we do. We will increasingly seek members and engagement from other walks of life and intentionally drive collaboration from more diverse groups of people. We will also make TBM-related education, mentorship, jobs and internships available to diverse professionals and college students.
- We believe that diversity and inclusion are important components of competitive advantage. Inclusiveness extends beyond traditional diversity demographics such as race, gender, and sexual orientation to other traits such as intro- and extraversion, learning styles, communication styles and more. Effective inclusion practices therefore expand the talent pool, attract and reward different perspectives, enhance collaboration and problem solving, drive additional innovation and align to your customers and their ways of thinking and buying behaviors.
- There are specific ways in which technology leaders can and should foster inclusiveness within their own companies. These range from developing talent to enabling those with different perspectives or challenges (e.g., introversion, communication styles, physical disabilities) to preventing discriminatory practices (e.g., through AI and machine learning). Technology leaders are in a unique position to both empower diversity internally and shape their business processes that affect external stakeholders.
We have a lot to learn regarding these three tenets. Today, they are largely aspirational. However, we believe our community can help us learn faster, share the lessons we learn, and begin to put in place best practices that will help the members of our community and the organizations they represent be more successful as well.
