Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers at our annual Women's Executive Summit.

As we prepare to wave goodbye to a month filled with celebration, positivity, and empowerment for women around the world, we happily reflect on Guidewire’s second annual Women’s Executive Summit. During three transformative days, San Mateo opened its doors to 125 outstanding women in leadership positions at Guidewire. Thanks to the efforts of our Global Head of DEI Brandi Riggins, PHR, CCDP and her amazing team, global offices came together under one roof - building bridges through genuine connections and advancing collaboration and empowerment within our industry, in hopes of breaking barriers.

The three activity-filled days started with a golf excursion organized by Christina Colby , inviting women to step into spaces where they are typically underrepresented and learning the rules of the game not just to play but to redefine them with the support of one another. Following, our welcome reception served as a way for most of the women to connect in preparation for a more intimate setting of workshops and keynote speakers. 

"I can’t speak highly enough about the overall experience and the valuable insights, connections, and learnings that I gained. It was an event that will undoubtedly shape our collective journey towards Inspiring Inclusion, both inside and outside of Guidewire." Carolee Dagenais, Global Chair of GROWguide (Global Recognition Of Women) Employee Resource Group

“Yes, and!”, ImprovEdge set the tone for the summit on day 1, as participants were inspired to think fast and creatively as leaders. Their radiant energy did not fail to influence the comfortability and vulnerability that was shared as the general session carried out. This then continued as all women were led through an accumulation of exercises in building trust, having tough conversations, understanding one another and ourselves, and embracing the power of positive risk-taking. 

Another special highlight included keynote speaker Haben Girma, who enlightened the audience of the nuances of ableism, the importance of designing an inclusive world, and how we at Guidewire can play a part in doing so. Haben, the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, pushed everyone to think even further than gender equality and inspired efforts to build bridges and break barriers on all aspects of diversity.

Expanding upon the foundational theme of building bridges and breaking barriers, it's important to emphasize the significance of actively practicing these principles throughout the summit, rather than merely treating them as a slogan.

Another way we saw this being executed was through our amazing allyship and our impactful Guidewire Gives Back (GGB) event - the program that enables any Guidewire employee to give back to the community by participating and being rewarded for any volunteering activity they engage with. Our allyship consisted of a few of our male Guidewire leaders expressing their support for honoring our women leaders, both with their presence and their kind words. For our GGB event, we collaborated with CORA, a local organization that offers safety, support, and healing to individuals experiencing abuse in intimate relationships. CORA also educates the community to break the cycle of domestic violence. CORA worked to further inspire us to work towards uplifting women all around the world experiencing all dimensions of hardships.

All in all, following our time together let us carry forward our newfound spirit of collaboration, empowerment, and inclusion into our daily endeavors, exceeding beyond the month of March. Together, we continue to break barriers and build bridges, creating a more equitable and supportive world for all.

This piece was written by Kaylee Cibrian and curated by the Employer Brand team as part of our #InsideGuidewire article series, that aims at highlighting Guidewire's culture and values through our best programs, initiatives and events.

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