As part of its Women Empowered initiative, Cognizant continues its sponsorship of MAKERS, an organization that tells the stories of today's trailblazing women to inspire the changeMAKERS of tomorrow.

Cognizant executives again participated in the MAKERS’ annual conference, held Feb. 10-12 in Los Angeles, with Meera Krishnamurthy, Senior Vice President, Insurance leading the company’s delegation. A member of the MAKERS@ board of directors, Krishnamurthy took to the main stage with more than 40 other board members to publicly announce Cognizant’s pledge to advancing gender equality in the workplace:

With a sharpened focus on accelerating gender diversity globally in our leadership pipeline, Cognizant pledges to put 1,000 high performing women in leadership levels through Propel—our signature women’s global leadership development initiative—by the end of 2021.

At last year’s conference, Cognizant pledged to employ at least 100,000 women around the world by 2020, a goal the organization reached in the fall of 2019.

Along with Krishnamurthy, numerous other Cognizant leaders were in attendance, and  three were recognized by MAKERS for their work:

• Sudarshana Bhattacharya, Vice President, Banking and Financial Services. Bhattacharya received the Innovator award for being a leader who has been responsible for a transformational idea or change within the organization.
• Amy Schuh, Chief Ethics Compliance Officer. Schuh was recognized with the Advocate award for being a tireless crusader, advocate and leader for women within the organization.
• Carol Cohen, Senior Vice President, Global Talent, Leadership & People Analytics. Cohen received the Groundbreaker award for being a natural leader and the first in any given area of the organization.

“The advancement of women in the workplace is critical for the success of any business,” said Krishnamurthy. “Cognizant continues to make strides via our Women Empowered and Propel programs, and with our hiring initiatives. Focusing on the talent we have internally and helping high-performing women develop into leadership roles is good for those individuals and for the organization as a whole – we are stronger when we grow talent from within.”

Bringing together more than 600 leaders in business, tech, finance and entertainment from around the world, the conference seeks to inspire attendees to ‘move to action via proactive conversations, compelling storytelling and onstage pledges to advance change.’  At last year’s conference, Cognizant pledged to employ at least 100,000 women around the world by 2020, which it achieved in the fall of 2019.

MAKERS, established in 2012, was launched to empower women to ‘break every ceiling’ by providing a ‘storytelling platform for the trailblazing women of today and tomorrow.’ Original MAKERS include Gloria Steinem, Ellen DeGeneres, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Madeleine Albright.

Click here to read more about MAKERS and the 2020 MAKERS Conference.