31 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 around the world. Players everywhere interact with our products. We want to be smart and inclusive and make sure we’re applying that lens. How has your transition to IGT been, and what priorities are you focusing on as you take over from your predecessor? The transition has been exciting and rewarding. Joining a company with the scale of IGT requires a ramp-up period, and overall, I think the transition has been smooth. For the last five-plus years, IGT has been transparent and consistent, both internally and externally, about its commitments to and achievements in DEI, which provided me with a solid foundation. The people, channels and challenges are of course different between the NHL and IGT, but in many ways, the charters are similar. At IGT, our DEI mission is to create a fair and inclusive culture that values unity, difference, equity, and belonging in our people, players, customers, and communities. To that end, research has proven time and again that companies with greater inclusion, diversity, and an environment that values difference, boast higher performance, make better decisions, innovate more frequently, and overall achieve higher employee satisfaction – these are business objectives that apply to all sectors. My predecessor, Kim Barker Lee, did a wonderful job of building the foundation for DEI here at IGT, starting in 2018 and right through the end of 2022. In that time, IGT’s Office of D&I was created – which later became the Office of DEI to reflect equity as a core factor in this work. The company launched inclusive learning to help us with language and terminology and to help each of us to start becoming inclusive leaders. IGT’s Diversity and Inclusion employee Groups (DIGS) were launched – we now have seven DIGs with more on the way. The company’s Global and Regional DEI Councils were launched, and IGT began participating in indexes like Bloomberg, All-In, and the Disability Equality Index, to ensure we are engaging in DEI practices that benefit multiple dimensions of diversity. We have seen Talent Management DEI Interventions and greater focus on wellbeing in DEI programming. And our senior executive leaders participated in an Inclusive Leadership initiative that looked at how well they are engaging in inclusive leadership principles and how they can do so even better. Why are the company’s DEI initiatives important to customers? It’s critical to how IGT drives results and value for customers. Data is important to us at IGT, so I’ll share some data I came across recently: Research shows that more diverse organizations are 75% more likely to see ideas become products in some manner. Diverse teams, managed inclusively, are better at solving complex challenges and innovating ideas. And companies that embrace diversity and inclusion are 70% more likely to capture new markets. Our focus on DEI speaks to our mindset, to how we innovate, how well we understand players and consider the ramifications of new technologies. When a business unit is developing gaming characters, for example, and they’re applying that inclusive lens and making sure we’ve considered how a character will resonate — I’m loving those conversations, because that tells me our people are thinking about these things, whether it’s to do with how new retailers are onboarded or how we’re going to face industry challenges and support our customers in facing those challenges. Built into our DEI plan are specific metrics that are linked to business objectives. We’ve also established relevant benchmarks. At the recent NASPL conference, I shared with lottery customers some of the areas where we are making a measurable impact. For example, the representation of women on IGT’s leadership and executive teams has increased from 24.6% six years ago to 30% this year. This is higher than the Mercer benchmark of 26%, a metric drawn from various industries and business sizes. The representation of people of color within the U.S. segment of IGT’s leadership has grown to its highest level year in five years. We know we have more to do, and we’re proud of the progress we have made to this point. As we further enhance our equity programming, we will be better positioned to increase representation across IGT as a whole and in leadership ranks. The Office of DEI will be working closely with the company’s talent acquisition team to understand the gaps of underrepresented employees within the lines of business and provide guidance in recruiting with an inclusive lens by expanding where we source diverse talent, which affinity/ identity organizations we build relationships with, and how we market our job openings to underrepresented candidates so that we are an employer-of-choice for all. What inspired the addition of Equity into the name of the office you now lead? Equity is a critical piece of the puzzle, along with diversity and inclusion, because equity is about giving everyone the particular tools that they need to be successful. Most organizations focus on diversity first. Our philosophy is inclusion first, then equity, then diversity. To illustrate why, let’s take gender diversity, for example: A company may set out to recruit and promote more women. Perhaps they’ll achieve that goal and then
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