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'Raising the voices of those who may not always be heard is critical,' says Claire Thomas

Media 7 | April 28, 2023 | Read Time : 07:06 min

Fostering Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity for a Satisfied Workforce
Claire Thomas is responsible for developing and implementing a strategy for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across Hitachi Vantara through programs that reflect the diverse backgrounds, interests, and passions of their current and future workforce. Continue reading to learn her views on the significance of inclusion and diversity in an organization.

It’s really important that all employees feel seen and heard in order for everyone to have the opportunity to succeed.

Media 7 Could you describe what motivated you to pursue your current career path, and how did you enter this field?
Claire Thomas: I’ve been with Hitachi Vantara for 11 years now in various sales positions as well as leading many Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives on a voluntary basis such as employee resource groups, mentoring circles and Corporate Social Responsibility. When the role of Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer was created just over a year ago, I knew I wanted to go for it. My passion for the technology industry has grown over the last 15 years, alongside building inclusive environments and high performing teams, and I want to make sure all my colleagues have a sense of belonging and meaningful career. I also want to play a role in increasing the variety of people who enter the technology industry as it’s an incredible industry with a huge range of opportunities and career paths. By creating more opportunities in a high paying sector for previously under-represented groups, I can also play a role in closing gender and ethnicity pay gaps, as well as making sure the technology that is let out into the world reflects the society it was created in.
My role covers the business globally, which is around 11,000 employees in 35 countries. In each of these countries, DEI has a different meaning, so one aspect of my position is to make sure that our work engages all our employees while also feeling relevant for a global audience. It's a good challenge and something I’m committed to delivering on.

M7: Can you discuss how you prioritize innovation and experimentation in your role at Hitachi Vantara?
CT: I always seek to innovate DEI at Hitachi Vantara by ensuring we’re constantly studying our data to review what we know about our employees and where there might be any obstacles. When we analyse our findings in this way, we ensure we’re developing our offering and support through the creation of personalised initiatives, like more specific trainings based on feedback and needs. We’re currently experimenting with a different style of leadership development program and an allyship program to raise the profile of gender equity for all.
It's essential to also keep in mind the bigger picture of innovation in DEI – the UN for Women made this year’s International Women’s Day theme ‘DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality’. Currently, 259 million fewer women have access to the Internet than men, despite women being nearly half of the world’s population. We know at Hitachi Vantara that technology has the potential to help us create a better world for future generations – technology needs to be made for all, available to all, and inclusive of all to have the best possible impact, so we need to always be conscious of the digital divide and any steps that we can take to help to alleviate it.

M7: We are interested in learning about how the Dublin Tech Summit aims to create a diverse and inclusive environment for all attendees. Please share your thoughts on this?
CT: It’s so important to ensure everyone feels a strong sense of inclusivity at events, and it’s a relatively easy lift for event organisers to implement changes to help people do so. As a starting point, including options for pronouns for attendee badges can help to make people feel welcome as soon as they step foot into the event. Furthermore, allowing attendees to bring their children – perhaps especially those with children aged one or younger – would also allow those on parental leave to attend the event and stay up to date with industry news and conversations, meaning that they still feel they are part of the conversation.

Organisers should also take care to consider the spaces which may be needed – for example, ensuring appropriate accessibility requirements are provided, such as disabled access and facilities. Access to gender neutral toilets and the provision of a safe space for people who may need to pump breast milk, feed their child, or have time for prayer away from loud auditoriums, could also be welcome ideas.

Looking to the talks themselves, it could be an idea to commence each session with a short introduction where attendees are asked to be respectful of each other with all questions welcome, and stating that speakers have the right to decline to answer anything they’re not comfortable with. For any attendees who may be visually or hearing impaired, including the provision of an interpreter in the country appropriate sign language, or using closed captions and larger format text, would insure they benefit from the industry insights and have their needs catered for. During Q&A sessions, having a dedicated person to monitor who in the audience asks questions would also guarantee that there is balanced representation from everyone in attendance. Even simply providing an option to submit anonymous questions enables those who do not want to ask in person to gain insights and have their thoughts heard. Finally, a simple but crucial suggestion: regular comfort breaks! It's important to help accommodate peoples’ needs, as well as catering for those who may need to carry work commitments. It's touches like these that ensure attendees are comfortable throughout events and which can help to build an inclusive environment.

Read more: Q&A with Charles Southwood, Vice President, N. Europe and MEA at Denodo


Culture change or building an inclusive culture is everybody’s responsibility and is very much defined by the actions and behaviours of every individual within the company.

M7: How do you ensure that your company is fostering an inclusive culture, and what measures do you take to ensure that all employees feel valued?
CT: It’s really important that all employees feel seen and heard in order for everyone to have the opportunity to succeed. I’ve worked on several initiatives with the goal of creating an inclusive culture – creating safe spaces or a number of communities through our Employee Resource Groups, bringing in partners like the Equality Institute to provide opportunity to learn about being LGBTQ+ without asking our LGBTQ+ community to do the education, sharing lived experiences of under-represented groups through our DEI speaker series to create empathy for others and sharing my own personal stories to show that it is ok to talk about things that some may find uncomfortable if the objective is to help people learn about others’ experiences. We work with people managers to equip them with skills to have quality conversations with their teams and make connections with each individual. I personally think the relationship between a manager and a team member is that best way for an employee to feel valued.
We’ve recently started our gender equity program to make sure men have a voice in our DEI work. They too need to feel safe and empowered to advocate for their female counterparts and themselves, which we are supporting through our workshops and e-learning resources with Catalyst on Men Advocating for Real Change. Additionally, we’re co-creating an allyship program with Token Man Consulting and Potentia Consulting, led by our Women of Hitachi employee resource group (ERG). Our Rainbow Connection LGBTQ+ ERG also supports this program by providing us with additional insights around gender equality, which is essential to ensure that we’re always switched on to the unique experiences of all individuals.

M7: How do you assess the successful outcomes of your diversity and inclusion initiatives, and are there any metrics used to track progress?
CT: There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to measurement, so we explore a range of avenues. We firstly use general data capture on a centralised HR information system to understand current levels of diversity by function, country, seniority among other things, and measure progress. It’s important to caveat that these metrics present facts on representation and don’t necessarily capture the less tangible markers of progress: for example, are our employees happy? To supplement this effort, we also encourage employees to take part in surveys, which allow staff to share their thoughts and recommendations. We calculate a DEI index on an annual basis based on answers to eight questions.
We also conduct regular listening circles for small groups and often use a theme to tailor the conversation around events such as Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Pride. We’ve found these to be invaluable opportunities to simply listen to everyone’s views and understand how our colleagues feel we have progressed as an organisation.

M7: What are the most effective methods for training managers and employees on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues?
CT: Learning and development is a key priority for me this year. To understand the most effective methods for training, I’d recommend studying the data available to find out where the barriers or gaps are, and tailor trainings accordingly. I personally feel like smaller group training, where there is opportunity to discuss topics in a safe environment, is more effective than online learning, though I appreciate there is a balance between cost and scale to be found for organisations. Storytelling is also critical for me as we absorb so much more through stories than data alone.
It’s also important to review and update trainings regularly. We're constantly developing our learning platform which includes trainings on things like inclusive leadership and bias. Employees are also encouraged to deliver feedback on these sessions, so we can continue to improve them as time goes on and ensure they align with our colleagues’ learning styles.

Read more: Q&A with Charles Southwood, Vice President, N. Europe and MEA at Denodo


DEI is an increasingly important topic across the world and needs to become a standard operating procedure.

M7: How can we involve employees from diverse backgrounds in the decision-making process and make sure their voices are heard?
CT: Raising the voices of those who may not always be heard is critical. If you are in a leadership position, being aware of your surroundings is an essential tool to understand whether you have the level of representation you need. Stop and take notice when there may be group thinking occurring. Where there is diversity of thought, make sure everyone can contribute by encouraging all to have a say, speaking up if interruptions happen and following up with anyone who may not have contributed to see if they want to contribute outside of a larger forum. Lead by example by being respectful and open when people disagree with ideas, show that it is ok to think differently and create environments where healthy challenge is normal and valued.
I have been working on a talent development program on storytelling and public speaking with Ginger Leadership Communications. Thirty of our high potential employees will be spending the next six months honing their skills and then delivering a TED-style talk on any topic they wish to our leadership. The aim of the program is to give people the skills needed for authentic, impactful communication, so that when they speak, others want to listen.
What are the best practices that can ensure an inclusive culture in different kinds of industries?
For any industry, it’s important that building an inclusive culture is not seen as a HR activity. Culture change or building an inclusive culture is everybody’s responsibility and is very much defined by the actions and behaviours of every individual within the company.
I’d recommend companies find culture champions who role model the values of the organisation every day, look at the barriers that may be in place to creating inclusivity specific to your sector, encourage behaviours that reflect the culture you want and quickly address behaviours that do not, and get input from your employees on what an inclusive culture needs to look like for each of them.

M7: As you are committed to improving diversity, how does a position like Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer help to make diversity and inclusion a standard operating procedure rather than an afterthought?
CT: DEI is an increasingly important topic across the world and needs to become a standard operating procedure. I’m part of our leadership team at Hitachi Vantara, so sometimes the simple fact that I’m in the leadership meetings helps maintain focus on DEI as part of everyday work.
I think the specific actions taken by the CDIO influence how much DEI becomes part of a standard operating model. If you’re intentional about embedding DEI into core people processes, such as hiring, performance, promotion and pay, and measure progress, DEI will become a natural topic of conversation over time. If you speak in the language of the people who run your business functions and understand how DEI can contribute to their objectives, then prove the value for each individual, DEI will become standard. And celebrating people’s successes, progress and willingness to learn can also encourage others to engage more in DEI.

M7: In what ways can a CDIO establish collaborations across multiple business functions and ensure alignment with the objectives of the HR department?
CT: Establishing collaborations with other functions – particularly when it comes to any joint DEI action plan – needs to work for all parties, as well as aligning with the objectives of the respective HR departments. Typically, this would mean working with functions on DEI action plans that are specific to their area of the business and developing tailor-made strategies, rather than having one centralised strategy that governs all business units in exactly the same way. Building relationships with peers and an understanding of their responsibilities and objectives is critical. It’s also important that insights are shared during the process of implementation –reflecting on what has and hasn’t worked in order to find more suitable solutions moving forwards is very valuable.

ABOUT HITACHI VANTARA

Hitachi Vantara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., guides our clients from the present to the future by addressing their digital challenges. Together with every client, we apply our unparalleled industrial and digital capabilities to their data and applications for the benefit of business and society. Hitachi Vantara is trusted by over 80 percent of the Fortune 100 to help them develop new revenue streams, uncover competitive advantages, reduce costs, improve customer experiences, and deliver social and environmental value. To Know more about Hitachi Vantara please visit, https://www.hitachivantara.com/

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Organizations challenged with continuous data movement and transformation at scale can streamline complicated loading processes for complex data types and eliminate the need for standalone tools like Spark and Informatica that add latency and overhead to hyperscale workloads. Once data is transformed into a relational format and loaded or streamed, Ocient’s ELT capabilities support massive joins, groupings, and aggregations that enable customers to optimize query performance, activate transformed datasets, and prepare variations of source data for data science and operational data stores without needing to move or copy data. New real-time analytics features – Version 22 marks the general availability of Hyperloglog (HLL) sketches for Ocient’s suite of real-time analytics capabilities so customers can create rollups of data using approximations on aggregated metrics and accelerate query processing without sacrificing performance. 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Support for integrations with Metabase and Superset – Ocient version 22 offers new integrations with Metabase and Superset for easy data visualization and integration into existing customer environments. Both integrations leverage Ocient’s geospatial analytics and in-database machine learning (ML) so customers can quickly visualize and act on ML model results without the need for additional ELT processes or requirements. “In today’s economic environment, enterprises looking to scale their data and analytics requirements must pursue innovation while bringing greater efficiencies and cost savings to their business,” said Chris Gladwin, CEO at Ocient. “With version 22, Ocient is enabling customers with the capabilities they need to increase price performance, consolidate multiple resource-intensive tools into a single solution, and unlock new opportunities for product development and real-time decision intelligence to help grow their business.” From piloting new solutions to full production deployments, Ocient helps customers simplify complex data pipelines while facilitating the time-intensive task of engineering new end-to-end solutions with comprehensive migration support and services. When consolidating multiple databases and tools into a single solution, Ocient’s Customer Solutions team ensures customers move from pilot to production in weeks to months, with ROI delivered in a year or less. Ocient provides flexibility to deploy on premises and on cloud with Google or AWS, or as a fully managed solution in OcientCloud. To learn more about the Ocient Hyperscale Data Warehouse, click here. About Ocient Ocient is the leading hyperscale data analytics solutions company that enables organizations to unlock value by analyzing trillions of data records at performance levels and costs previously unattainable. Leading organizations around the world trust Ocient’s team of industry experts to design and deploy proven complex solutions that enable and fast-track new revenue opportunities and streamline operations. Ocient’s pilot-to-production solutions are rapidly deployed on premises, in the Ocient Cloud or in the public cloud, with little to no resource-intensive integration. Ocient is a carbon-neutral company, headquartered in Chicago, and backed by leading investors including Greycroft, OCA Ventures and In-Q-Tel. For more information, please visit www.ocient.com.

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BIG DATA MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS STRATEGY, BIG DATA

SingleStore Launches MongoDB API to Power AI and Real-Time Analytics on JSON

Businesswire | May 19, 2023

SingleStore, the cloud-native database built for speed and scale to power real-time applications, today announced the launch of SingleStore Kai™ for MongoDB, a new API that turbocharges real-time analytics on JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) and vector based similarity searches for MongoDB based AI applications — without the need for any query changes or data transformations. SingleStoreDB is a real-time distributed SQL database combining analytical and transactional workloads in one unified platform. In a new era of the ever increasing adoption of AI, making analytics real time and actionable is even more imperative. A vast majority of data accumulated in the world today is in JSON format, and MongoDB has grown to be one of the most widely adopted NoSQL databases to store and process JSON — powering a variety of use cases across martech, IoT, gaming, logistics, social media, e-commerce and content management applications. However, document databases are not optimized for analytics, and users often experience delays or lagging query performance attempting to perform analytics on JSON data. SingleStoreDB, by contrast, is architected to power real-time analytics on transactional data, enabling users to drive ultra-fast analytics on both structured and semi-structured (JSON) datasets. The new API is MongoDB wire protocol compatible, and enables developers to power interactive applications with analytics with SingleStoreDB using the same MongoDB commands. SingleStoreDB can effectively augment MongoDB as the analytical engine to power blazing fast analytics on collections of JSON data. More importantly, this powerful feature is available at no extra cost and is now open for public preview as part of the SingleStoreDB Cloud offering. Some of the new capabilities of the API include: 100x-1,000x faster analytics. With SingleStore Kai, you can perform complex analytics on JSON data for MongoDB applications faster and more efficiently. Based on the latest performance benchmarks, SingleStoreDB was able to drive 100x faster analytical performance for most queries — with some even 1,000x faster compared to MongoDB. The SingleStore MongoDB API proxy translates the MongoDB queries into SQL statements that are executed by SingleStoreDB to drive lightning-fast analytics for your applications. AI/vector functionality for JSON. The new era of generative AI requires real-time analytics on all data, including JSON collections. SingleStoreDB supports vectors and fast vector similarity search using dot_product and euclidean_distance functions. And with the launch of SingleStore Kai, developers can now utilize the vector and AI capabilities on JSON collections within MongoDB — powering use cases like semantic search, image recognition, similarity matching and more. Simplicity and ease of use. No code changes, data transformations, schema migrations or changes to existing queries. Developers can continue to use existing MongoDB queries and don't have to normalize or flatten data, or do extensive schema migrations to power fast analytics for their applications. Same MongoDB tools and drivers. By supporting the MongoDB wire protocol, SingleStore Kai allows MongoDB clients to communicate with a SingleStoreDB cluster. This means that developers who are familiar with MongoDB can easily power fast analytics on SingleStoreDB without having to learn a new set of tools or APIs — and can continue to use the same MongoDB tools, drivers, skill sets and ecosystem their customers are most familiar with. Easy data replication. As part of the MongoDB API offering, SingleStore is also introducing a fast and efficient replication solution (in private preview) that can easily replicate MongoDB collections into SingleStoreDB. This service is natively integrated into SingleStoreDB and leverages one of the most widely used features – SingleStore Pipelines — to drive speedy replication and real-time CDC (Change Data Capture), enabling customers to get started quickly and easily. Best of both worlds (NoSQL + SQL). SingleStoreDB is already MySQL wire protocol compatible. With the addition of SingleStore Kai for MongoDB, developers can essentially get the best of both worlds – the schema flexibility and simplicity of a JSON document store together with the speed, efficiency and complex analytical capabilities that only a relational SQL database can provide to power applications. “The demand for real time analytics is undeniable and critical to today’s economy,” said Raj Verma, CEO, SingleStore. “With SingleStore Kai, we’re enabling any developer using MongoDB’s NoSQL platform to use SingleStore’s SQL analytics data platform, at orders of magnitude improved performance, without changing a line of code.” “The reality is that MongoDB is not performant enough for powering fast analytics on JSON and joining complex JSON arrays can be both time consuming and costly,” said Yatharth Gupta, SVP Product, SingleStore. “With SingleStore Kai, developers now have a one stop shop to supercharge analytics on their MongoDB applications without having to recode or learn anything new - that’s a huge win-win.” “This is a fantastic solution and a timely one,” said Kumaran Vijayakumar, CEO and Co-Founder, DataDock Solutions. “At DataDock, we help the world’s largest hedge funds structure products and execute trades. SingleStore helps us make exactly the right data and analytics available to our customers at the right time, in real time, and allows us to handle large volumes of data with ease.” SingleStoreDB powers real-time data innovation for hundreds of customers including more than 100 Fortune 500, Forbes Global 2000, and Inc. 5000 brands across financial services and fintech, telecom and networking, streaming media, adtech, martech, supply chain logistics, and other verticals. Companies like 6sense, Cisco, Comcast, Dell, Disney, Heap, Hulu, LiveRamp, NBC, Siemens, SiriusXM/Pandora, Sony, Thorn, Uber, Western Digital, and others use SingleStoreDB to fuel real-time customer experience analytics and interactive dashboards. “SingleStore has consistently demonstrated its ability to innovate and evolve,” said Carl Olofson, Analyst, IDC. “We’ve seen a growing demand in the analytic database market for leveraging a range of data, including JSON documents, together with relational tables in a single system. SingleStore Kai is an outstanding example of such leveraging, as it makes analytics on JSON fast and easy within SingleStore’s traditional SQL system.” About SingleStore The world’s leading brands rely on data – to make the right business decisions, to deliver exceptional customer experiences and to stay ahead of the competition. This reliance on data brings with it a need for simplicity, speed and scale. SingleStore delivers the world’s fastest distributed SQL database for real-time applications, SingleStoreDB. By combining transactional and analytical workloads, SingleStore eliminates performance bottlenecks and unnecessary data movement to support constantly growing, demanding workloads. Digital giants like Hulu, Uber and Comcast, and many more of the world’s leading SaaS providers, choose SingleStore to unleash the power of their data – supercharging exceptional, real-time data experiences for their customers. Follow us @SingleStoreDB and @SingleStoreDevs on Twitter or visit www.singlestore.com.

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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, BIG DATA MANAGEMENT, BIG DATA

Atempo Partners with Do IT Now to Elevate Data Management Services for HPC Users

HPCwire | May 23, 2023

Atempo, a leading European software manufacturer of data protection and data management solutions, and Do IT Now, a European leader in HPC services, announce today their partnership to deliver enhanced data management services to support HPC users. To effectively solve their data services challenges, Do IT Now is integrating Atempo’s Miria, a comprehensive all-in-one data management platform for very large unstructured data, in its portfolio. European Alliance for HPC Services By integrating Atempo’s Miria into their solution product portfolio, Do IT Now provides HPC users with a full suite of data management capabilities from analytics to backup, archiving, migration and beyond. With key capabilities such as Air Gap and DR orchestration to control the risk of ransomware and analytics delivering actionable insights translated into data movement workflows to implement best-in-class data flow strategies, Atempo’s Miria Data Management platform is the cornerstone for HPC community to achieve their goal and support their growth. This collaboration is aiming to bring benefits to HPC users in a wide range of industries, such as research, financial services, pharmaceutical, life science and many others. By combining Atempo’s proven solutions with Do IT Now’s expertise in HPC, the partnership provides more effective management and protection of mission critical data. Whenever you are faced with challenges towards Data Mobility/Migration/Archive/Backup/Analytics on heterogenous storages with demanding performance requirements, Do IT Now through all-in-one Miria data management platform will provide you with a high-end solution solving your pain on-premises, in full cloud or hybrid environment regardless of the disk/object/tape/optical source and target involved. “We are excited to partner with Do IT Now to extend our data management and data protection solutions to HPC users across Italy, Spain, France, and Germany,” said Pietro Pugliese, Atempo’s Country Manager, Italy. ” Do IT Now’s recognized expertise in the HPC domain, together with Atempo’s top-tier technology, will allow us to provide the most effective solutions and support for our shared clients.” Cosma Belli, EMEA Business Development Manager, added: “We are proud to collaborate with Atempo, a company that mirrors our dedication to delivering high-quality solutions and services to our customers. With this partnership, we can offer HPC users a robust suite of data management and data protection capabilities that will help them better manage and secure their data.” About Atempo Atempo is a leading independent European-based software vendor with an established global presence providing solutions to protect, store, move and recover all mission-critical data sets for thousands of companies worldwide. With over 30 years’ experience in data protection and data management, Atempo offers a complete range of proven solutions for physical and virtual servers’ backup, workstations, and migration between different storages of very large data volumes. To continuously improve the satisfaction of its customers and partners, the group is committed to a process of continuous improvement of its solutions and services and has thus obtained the ISO 9001 certification for its Quality Management System. Recently, Atempo is listed as a Top Manufacturer in the Worldwide Scale-Out NAS Market in 2022. About Do IT Now Founded in 2020 Do IT Now is an alliance of Italy-based Do IT Systems, Spain-based HPCNow! and France based UCit. With more than 30 years of experience providing HPC solutions in the fields of science and engineering, the alliance has established itself as a leader in HPC services in Europe. Its group members generate about 10 million euro in annual revenue and consist of more than 100 HPC-focused professionals. Do IT Now, operates out of offices in Montpellier (France), Munich (Germany), Barcelona (Spain) and Turin (Italy).

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