Diversity at ThoughtWorks

Diversity is an all-encompassing term whose range of meaning reaches from diversity in gender, religion, race and sexual orientation, to socioeconomic, educational and political differences. At ThoughtWorks, we focus on the valuation of all types of diversity and we have this focus for reasons beyond business value or economic gain.

Our Vision Statement

ThoughtWorks believes in challenging the status quo in every field we enter. We do not accept that the demographic profile of the IT industry is "just the way it is" and we pledge to sacrifice short-term economic gains to attain the longer term goal of social justice and equality.

At ThoughtWorks, we encourage everyone to think and reflect on our place in society. We believe that promoting diversity is the right thing to do, both morally and socially, and that it is our obligation to foster inclusiveness. We are committed to being agents of change in our profession and our communities. As ThoughtWorkers, we apply this heightened sense of social awareness and responsibility to create an environment of respect, trust and collaboration. It is our goal to recruit, retain and develop exceptional individuals from diverse communities to redress historic discrimination.

Our Goals

ThoughtWorks' fundamental goal is to be a diverse organisation: rich with talented people of all races, ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. To accomplish this overriding goal, we set objectives on an annual basis that help us maintain our focus. However, just as we recognise and cherish the differences between people, we appreciate that each of our offices around the globe faces unique circumstances and local challenges. As a result, we have varied levels of activities related to diversity across the organisation and objectives specific to the challenges in location. For example, in the US, our primary objectives for 2007 include:

1. Continue to attract and recruit exceptional women while learning how to retain them through mentoring and development.
2. Learn how to more effectively attract and recruit African Americans.
3. Increase awareness around diversity across all areas of the organisation.

Why we like ThoughtWorks

We asked a group of our people what they like about working at ThoughtWorks, here's a few of the responses:

	'The People! Even after being with ThoughtWorks for some years I can honestly say every single day I am still inspired, challenged and in awe of the talented bunch of people I have the privilege to work with.' Amanda Keleher, ThoughtWorks Australia
	'Technical excellence at ThoughtWorks is at the level of brilliance you imagine while watching futuristic movies. People come to TW to up their game.' Chad Wathington, ThoughtWorks US
	'One word... Opportunity. Opportunity to work with exceptionally smart and talented people from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Opportunity to work with various clients; learning and growing my skill set with each project. Opportunity to travel abroad; I had the privilege of working on a project in China.' Renee Ovcina, ThoughtWorks US
	'It gives me opportunity to improve myself by continuously learning in and outside the purview of my responsibilities, and allows me to contribute to the progress of the organisation and myself.' Reshmi Buthello, ThoughtWorks India
	'It let's me be the person that I am. I am a person that likes to take care of things, kind of run the office. I have fun 95% of the time when I am here. On my worst day here, I would never even consider leaving.' Rainey McGinnis, ThoughtWorks US
	'The variety. I don't know of any other organisation where I can meet and work with so many amazing people, on so many different, challenging and worthwhile engagements. This is never a dull moment.' Roger Marlow, ThoughtWorks UK

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