Tech Data

Company: Tech Data
Diversity Team Name: Tech Data Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity Team Leader: Calvin (Cal) Jackson
Website: www.techdata.com

 

Tech Data Diversity & Inclusion team members

Tech Data’s D&I program is focused on increasing its global strategy. Tech Data executives are provided with roles that engage their leadership and provide learning opportunities at all levels. Strong executive leaders are also integral to providing financial support for the following events:

  • Sponsoring business resource groups
  • Sponsoring D&I regional councils
  • Providing D&I subject matter experts for special events
  • Introducing and participating in D&I special events
  • Major external D&I events that have been funded by executives:
    • Martin Luther King, Jr. St. Petersburg, Florida, Parade entry
    • Pete Pride, the largest Pride festival in the Southeastern United States, with 1100 Tech Data parade marchers
    • First-time Phoenix Pride entry

Tech Data’s mandatory leaders’ development program has been created with an intensive D&I education module, exposing executives to unconscious bias and how it impacts recruitment, development, and succession planning.

The company’s D&I program has an internal and external focus. Internally, there is a robust cultural competence education curriculum that is influenced by workplace trends. Externally, Tech Data’s D&I office influences community outreach by collaborating with the community outreach manager to continuously identify new partnerships. This program promotes Tech Data as a good corporate citizen through new partnerships.

The majority of Tech Data’s D&I external efforts are partnerships with underrepresented groups in various communities, such as the following:

  • Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement
  • Parks Diversity
  • National Urban League
  • Tampa Diversity Chamber of Commerce
  • MacDonald Training Center for Persons with Differing Abilities

Tech Data also attends various Career Fairs put on by these groups:

  • Hispanic Serving Institutions
  • Historically Black Colleges and Universities
  • LGBTQ+ Career Fairs
  • Military Veteran Career Fairs

The D&I program strives to provide colleagues exposure to a plethora of communities and cultures they may never have experienced in the past. In partnership with the above mentioned groups, Tech Data negotiates volunteer opportunities for its colleagues, which in turn enhance their cultural competence of these dimensions of diversity.

This external immersion of colleagues has also enlightened many of them regarding any biases or misgivings they may have regarding the capabilities and business qualifications of underrepresented groups.

Internally, Tech Data’s D&I program educates the workforce regarding the capabilities of underrepresented groups. The D&I office manages the annual objectives of the company’s D&I councils and business resource groups. These groups develop and share a plethora of educational events to enhance the cultural competence of their colleagues. Topics have included these:

  • Transgender military
  • LGBTQ+ experiences (Italy, Costa Rica, & U.S.A.)
  • Women’s career growth
  • How men can support women in the workplace

Tech Data holds industry events for their vendor and reseller partners. At these partner events for large and small businesses, attendees learn about the various components of Tech Data’s D&I program. Events such as Tech Select and Vendor Summit have provided spaces for discussions about successful “Women in the Channel” and spaces to learn from Tech Data’s D&I global leaders and executives who are considered D&I ambassadors.