This weblog is a part of our People Behind Purpose at Cisco collection that focuses on staff driving Cisco’s objective to Power an Inclusive Future for All. Each weblog highlights a special Cisco worker whose work positively impacts folks, communities, or the planet. The collection was previously referred to as folks behind Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Cisco.
The Purpose Report and ESG Reporting Hub, are the place Cisco describes our initiatives targeted on our objective to Power an Inclusive Future for All. This consists of our objectives and progress on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters which might be vital to our stakeholders and the place we spotlight our impression during the last fiscal 12 months. Setting clear public objectives, measuring our progress in opposition to them, and reporting on that progress yearly is how we maintain ourselves accountable to our stakeholders and society. We have been publicly reporting our efficiency on ESG matters since 2005.
So how is complete reporting on our objective and ESG initiatives put collectively at Cisco? Meet Amanda Cumberland, Director of ESG Strategy and Reporting, Insights, and Impact at Cisco, who leads the creation of our Purpose Report and the ESG Reporting Hub. She shares her educational background in analysis and statistics, her ardour for measuring impression, and the way folks inside and outdoors of Cisco assist drive our objective.
Please inform me a bit about your life earlier than becoming a member of Cisco.
Amanda: I moved to Arizona for graduate college. My purpose on the time was to work in academia and I assumed I’d be a analysis professor. I printed articles in numerous empirical journals as a result of we had a large analysis lab. My graduate advisor secured lots of grants, and we did every kind of nice analysis.
My focus was on social and developmental psychology and finding out how youngsters develop feelings and personalities with an emphasis on statistics. Understanding folks is advanced and the statistical strategies needed to be equally advanced. We have been fortunate to have a few of the finest statistics professors within the nation.
What introduced you to Cisco, and what are your job obligations now?
Amanda: My first job at Cisco fell in my lap towards the tip of my Ph.D. program. I solely had expertise working in academia, so I by no means imagined a job within the company world. I knew a scholar in our analysis lab who had been recruited to work for Cisco to do evaluation knowledge and evaluation and she or he steered I come and work for Cisco to assist measure the impression of the Networking Academy and different packages.
Sometimes in life you’ve gotten these sliding door moments the place you possibly can go somehow, and I selected to do one thing fully totally different. They have been searching for somebody who knew a selected statistics method to assist outline and measure the impression of Networking Academy and I used to be excited to use my abilities for one thing that was having such a world impression.
It was nice as a result of I bought to assist create one thing from scratch. We targeted on defining and measuring the impression of the Networking Academy and we have been capable of create and execute on an entire end-to-end measurement plan, and conduct predictive modeling which remains to be used to measure the impression of this system.
I had one other new alternative at Cisco after they created a technique group in Corporate Affairs underneath Mary de Wysocki. This position was thrilling as I used to be capable of create and work on many thought-leadership and market analysis tasks to tell our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) technique holistically together with key insights for bettering packages, measuring impression, and creating new initiatives.
Measuring impression is certainly one of my passions. The two roles morphed into having extra of a centralized group round something metrics or research-related, and some years in the past, ESG Reporting was added to the group. I’m in my third 12 months of getting the privilege to guide the creation of our annual Purpose Report and ESG Hub. The deal with ESG has accelerated lately and I’m very pleased with all of the wonderful work that Cisco does to assist Power an Inclusive Future for All.
Can you share extra about what it takes to create the Purpose Report?
Amanda: Between January and late March, we conduct a number of analyses, benchmarking and create our ESG materiality evaluation which incorporates inputs from our key stakeholders to assist information our focus areas, initiatives, and reporting. And, in fact, we do the benchmarking all 12 months spherical due to the ever-changing panorama. Many new analysis experiences come out in January. We additionally use these experiences to know what is occurring on this planet, akin to international challenges together with Ukraine or the pandemic, the financial outlook, objective and ESG developments, know-how developments, amongst just a few to assist information our efforts and reporting.
Next, we develop a advisable reporting technique as a result of that results in how we establish the correct material specialists (SMEs) for these matter areas throughout the corporate. It’s a large effort, with 40 groups and over 160 SMEs collaborating this previous 12 months. There are groups akin to authorized, finance, provide chain, round economic system, Workplace Resources, worker engagement, and extra. There are so many teams as a result of we need to get it proper. We do a kickoff assembly towards the tip of June, and we share the reporting technique, the method, the timelines, the expectations, and the way we’re structuring it.
We begin conducting deep dives with SMEs in early July to know the progress we made that 12 months on key commitments and vital areas of focus to spotlight. We information them primarily based on all of the frameworks we observe, inquiries we obtain, ESG-focused indices, and different areas of focus to cowl within the reporting. The group pulls all that each one collectively into an overview in the beginning of the brand new fiscal 12 months and can begin gathering knowledge about progress towards our objectives. We even have a radical knowledge documentation claims assessment course of, by means of which we work with SMEs to substantiate the claims with high quality backup, and work carefully with the finance and authorized group all through the method.
Why is it vital for Cisco to share what we’re doing yearly relating to our Purpose work?
Amanda: It’s vital to share the implausible work Cisco’s doing in direction of our objective for a lot of causes, together with the expectations of our stakeholders each internally and externally. Investors more and more make funding choices primarily based on an organization’s ESG commitments and initiatives. And our prospects are making extra choices about who to work with primarily based on their ESG insurance policies, commitments, and initiatives. Also, we all know folks resolve the place to work primarily based on our environmental and social monitor document. Current staff have a tendency to remain due to an organization’s objective, and for future staff, our reporting could possibly be an vital facet of their determination to work with us.
Cisco has an extended historical past of reporting on our ESG matters and we need to proceed to be a frontrunner on this house and proceed to transparently share our progress and our greatest practices that would encourage different firms to do extra so we are able to have much more collective impression.
The theme for this 12 months’s report is Purpose Personified. Can you inform me extra about why that theme was chosen?
Amanda: We landed on Purpose Personified as a result of everyone seems to be a part of reaching Cisco’s objective. Not solely throughout the totally different enterprise models, however there are additionally folks we work together with by means of our partnerships and packages that exemplify all this wonderful work. For instance, you possibly can learn extra about Agnes Chege, who, after experiencing a layoff early within the pandemic, discovered a brand new profession in cybersecurity by means of Cisco Networking Academy. The report additionally shares how Allison Wolff, co-founder of Vibrant Planet, a Cisco Foundation funding recipient, makes use of knowledge to deal with catastrophic fires. And you’ll be impressed by Cisco staff like Scott McGregor, Lead for Cisco Social Justice Action 8, who’s working to deliver connectivity to traditionally Black schools and universities (HBCUs).
We wished to showcase our progress by means of their eyes, too, as a result of we are able to solely obtain our objective by means of the folks driving the work ahead and making a constructive impression.
For individuals who learn the 2022 Purpose Report, what key takeaways do you hope they may stroll away with?
Amanda: I hope one of many takeaways is that Cisco is doing a lot, and all these vital matters and this work has all the time been a part of Cisco’s DNA. Whether it’s human rights, environmental sustainability, round economic system, training, well being and well-being, or responding to crises, we’re utilizing our differentiation as an organization, the facility of know-how, and the facility of our prolonged community of consumers and companions to make a distinction throughout all these areas.
When you learn the Purpose Report, I hope you additionally take away the breadth and depth of all the things we’re doing as an organization and are as proud as I’m of the impression we now have had and that we’ll proceed to make a distinction for folks and the world.
And lastly, I hope you see our efforts and reporting to be clear. We don’t have all of it found out but, however we need to continue learning and doing extra. We hope others be taught from us too in order that we are able to repeatedly enhance and have much more impression over time.
To be taught extra about our progress to energy a extra inclusive future, go to our Cisco ESG Reporting Hub, the place you possibly can learn our 2022 Cisco Purpose Report.
Share: