Financial Empowerment

For the past seven years, Experian’s perennial presence on the Orange County Register’s list of Top Workplaces has been the cause for real celebration across our workforce, making this year more special with added honor of receiving the Award of Excellence for its corporate values. “We embrace strong corporate values and celebrate a diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. This diversity of thinking and the way we harness it at Experian helps to fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business,” said Craig Boundy, former chief executive officer of Experian North America. “This award is a credit to all the talented people who work here at Experian, bringing a strong drive to perform around a shared mission.” We celebrate our diversity through a range of fun, engaging and informative cultural events, including those supported by our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).  Employees can also join one of our many social clubs to share interests with colleagues, or volunteer with nonprofit organizations to give back to the communities of which Experian supports.  Our culture of inclusion is truly something to celebrate and that’s because of every single person who makes up the Experian family and brings our brand to life every day. Experian’s mission is to create a better tomorrow through data, connecting consumers and businesses with more opportunities than ever before. This is supported by our culture of continuous innovation, from the way we work to the solutions we create. This commitment to innovation has helped us create a workplace where our teams across the world have a desire to help change the lives of millions for the better. The diversity of thinking across Experian, and the way in which we harness it, helps fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business.  This makes our work relevant to our consumers and clients, adding more value in their own lives – creating a better tomorrow for them. As part of this, our culture works to connect employees to our brand, by involving them in the creation of new products and services. This has had a tremendous positive impact with employees providing valuable feedback and creating advocacy among team members. For example, when developing Experian Boost, which has helped millions of people raise their credit scores, we first beta-tested and shared the innovation internally and were able to garner valuable feedback and support from employees. As a result, we’ve seen tremendous success since the launch of Experian Boost earlier this year. Innovation and Business Success Our culture of diversity and inclusion has enabled Experian to grow and evolve while remaining at the forefront of innovation. For more than 40 years, Orange County has been the heart of our North America operations. We’ve remained focused on developing a culture that achieves and sustains higher performance while giving back to the community, and we’ve strengthened the business across every front. As a result, we continue to have a positive impact on consumers, businesses and the economy. We do this with our products, technology, and innovations -- from finding breakthroughs around better utilizing data, to identifying ways we can make access to credit faster and simpler for millions around the world. We’re very proud to be named a Top Workplace by the Orange County Register for our positive workplace culture, which attracts and retains top talent in Orange County, as well as our other locations across North America.      

This blog is written by Matt Dunn, GTM Managing Director at Experian. The Women in Sales Awards recognises the exemplary efforts of individuals in sales teams across Europe. Open by nomination only, the awards celebrate the achievement of women who go above and beyond in their career. It aims to promote the needs for greater gender diversity in sales and executive leadership teams across the corporate landscape. We place significant emphasis on helping and supporting women to reach senior roles, and I’m delighted that seven colleagues – Laura Webster, Kathryn O’Brien, Liz Clarke, Ivelina Mihaleva, Bally Ubhi, Clare Brown and Caroline McCrystal - were nominated as finalists at the awards. Even better, Caroline was named as the overall winner in the ‘2019 Best Woman in Inside Sales’ category. Not only that, Caroline was also the winner of the ‘Most Distinguished Saleswoman of the Year’ award too. In total, there were more than 1,000 nominations from companies in 22 countries, which goes to show what a remarkable and fantastic achievement to be recognised in such a way. We’re extremely proud of all their efforts this year and I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating all of the nominees and Caroline on their outstanding success.

This blog is written by Lisa Fretwell, Managing Director of Data Services at Experian. It’s no secret that women are hugely under-represented in careers relating to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In fact, research suggests that only 13% of the overall UK workforce are women in STEM and, as a consequence, we find ourselves with fewer female role models to inspire confidence and ambition in the next generation. Positive female role models are fundamental if we are to transform some of the preconceptions that girls have about a career in STEM. And part of encouraging new generations into our industry means recognising and celebrating the achievements of those women blazing a trail here and now. That’s why we are delighted to be sponsors of today’s Women in Data (UK) conference for the third successive year. This unique event helps inspire, educate and support women across the data industry. It’s a privilege to be part of the Women in Data community, to get to know more amazing women in our industry and to share their incredible stories. One of the highlights of the event is the annual ’20 Women in Data and Technology’ recognition, celebrating incredible role models who are motivating others to pursue their own career ambitions in the industry. We were particularly thrilled to learn that our very own Louise Maynard-Atem, has been included in this year’s highly prestigious list. Congratulations to Louise on a truly phenomenal and well-deserved achievement. Experian’s goal is to have a workforce that’s as rich in diversity as the people who use our services. That’s one of the many reasons we’re so excited by WiD’s mission. Together we hope to empower and encourage more women into the data industry, supporting the next generation of data scientists who can help shape the future.

Building a credit history takes time. Establishing a credit history early in life can help ensure you have access to affordable credit when you need it. The problem is that people tend to learn about credit and finances through trial and error. This is unfortunate because recovering from financial mistakes takes time, too. In fact, it could take years to rebound from one financial misstep. This trend is especially common for young adults who are just beginning to get their financial feet wet, and it’s one of the many reasons credit education and improving the financial health of consumers of all ages is core to our mission at Experian. As Director of Consumer Education and Advocacy, I get the opportunity to talk to a variety of students and young adults across the country on a regular basis. Millennials and Gen Z are often labeled slackers, but I don’t believe that for an instant. They experienced the financial crisis firsthand in their early years, and they really don’t want to repeat what their parents went through. Can you blame them, really? One thing we know for certain about young adults is they are very interested in learning as much as they can about money, finance and credit, and it’s our goal to be an educational resource to them. As the saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know. We have a chance to give younger generations the information and tools to know more than previous generations did at their ages. Here are some of my favorite tried and true tips to help set young adults up for credit success: Start small and grow slowly. A secured account with a small credit limit can establish your credit history and help you start saving at the same time. Good credit and strong savings habits go hand-in-hand. You don't need a credit card with a high limit to have good credit. Use the credit you have wisely. Good credit scores are not about having a lot of credit, but rather about how you use the credit you have available. Make a small purchase each month and pay it in full. That will show you can use credit well without taking on debt. Use your cell phone to improve your credit. With Experian Boost, you can add positive telecom and utility payments to your credit history and possibly boost your credit score. In the past, failing to pay your utility or cell phone bills could hurt your credit, but paying on time didn't help. With Experian Boost, that's changed. Use technology to make managing your credit automatic. Millennials and Gen Zers are the most technologically savvy generations in our history. Use technology, such as online banking apps and credit management tools like the Experian app, to automate savings and payments, to alert you to potential fraud and to track your progress as you build your credit history. We know helping people better understand and access credit is a team effort, and we work closely with our advocacy networks to increase our impact. We recently joined the American Bankers Association to provide young adults with financial education. Leading up to Get Smart About Credit Day, we hosted a Facebook Live with Jeni Pastier, Director of Financial Education Programs for the American Bankers Association to address credit topics young adults typically don’t understand or know about at all. You can watch the full video here and find additional articles to get smarter about credit on the Ask Experian blog.

We are delighted to have been placed on the inaugural Financial Times’ 2020 Diversity Leaders list, released today and accessible here. The organisers spoke to more than 80,000 employees across Europe to build the list, asking employees to rate their own employers as well as other firms around multiple categorise, taking into consideration areas including age, gender, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and overall diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. Over the last few years we’ve worked hard to focus on inclusion and diversity across our global business. We believe that embracing a truly inclusive culture, one where everyone has a real sense of belonging, is critical to building a diverse workforce and fostering innovation. Ultimately, it’s our ambition for our business to become as diverse as the people we serve around the world. We’re dedicated to encouraging diversity at every level within Experian. That means building our culture, our ways of working and our approach in a way that offers equality of opportunity. Supporting our employees from the moment they join our organisation, at every level. Letting people work flexibly, in the way that suits them and opens the door to new opportunities. One of the five key tenets of The Experian Way is “Value Each Other”. That means that each one of us is responsible for making this a great place to work. We treat each other with respect, trust and integrity. We support and invest in each other to help everyone achieve their potential and aspirations. We promote a culture of inclusivity and value diversity of all kinds, including thinking,  knowledge and experience. Our goal is to embrace and celebrate the diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. This diversity of thinking, and the way we harness it at Experian, helps to fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business. Like many companies, we have more to do to be as inclusive as we would like to be. But we are proud of the work we’ve done to date, and we are delighted by the recognition given to us today.

Today (Nov. 11) Americans celebrate Veterans Day to honor all of the men and women who have served our country in uniform and to thank those who are currently serving around the world. We also take time to welcome a new generation of veterans home from war. We remember our Gold Star families who have endured the loss of a family member making the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. More than 25 million veterans are now home in America. They are our friends, our families, and our loved ones. Far too many have endured the shock and pain of a combat deployment, some have become disabled, and many have made the ultimate sacrifice. All who have served have given up some of themselves as well as some of the best years of their lives. Experian is proud to embrace our veteran community and allow the flexibility for our coworkers who continue to serve. Our Military, Veterans And Patriots Employee Resource Group continues to be involved in many opportunities across our local communities from building wheelchair ramps for disabled veterans to participating in endurance challenges such as Carry the Load National Relay road march and the Murph Challenge. We recently launched Experian IDnotify, a credit and identity protection service, at no cost for those who are on active duty. We are committed to serving those who are serving us. If you have a family member or friend serving on active duty, please share the link. This Veterans Day let us take a moment to remember the sacrifices of the courageous men and women who heroically fought for the freedom and honor of America to make it the greatest nation on earth!  

At Experian we’re committed to creating a culture of continuous innovation, from the way we work to the solutions we create. This commitment has helped us create a workplace where our teams across the world have a desire to help change the lives of millions for the better. Justin Hastings, former Chief Human Resources Officer for Experian North America, recently wrote an article for the Forbes Human Resources Council which highlights the importance of creating an inclusive environment in the workplace -- and demonstrates how innovation, developing new products and services, and providing value are all crucial to a companies’ success. The article, “Deliver Innovation By Embracing Inclusion,” explores what it means to build a culture of innovation, and how to ensure employees feel comfortable bringing their different backgrounds and ideas to their role every day. This is the type of innovative culture we’re building at Experian, which celebrates these differences and works to make employees feel valued and empowered to be innovative and productive. Another concept Justin discusses in this article is “innovating to grow.” It’s important to make employees feel connected to their organization and involved in the creation of new products and services. This has a tremendous positive impact with employees providing valuable feedback, and also creating advocacy among team members. For example when developing Experian Boost, which has helped millions of people raise their credit scores, we first beta-tested and shared the innovation internally and were able to garner valuable feedback and support from employees. As a result, we’ve seen tremendous success since the launch of Experian Boost earlier this year. At Experian we truly believe that inclusion is the key to creating a culture of innovation. You can read the full article here.  

In the United States, June is observed as Pride Month by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGTBQ+) community. The celebration is in remembrance of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the U.S. Pride is not only about the parades and flags, but about the celebration and commemoration of the contributions members of the LGBTQ+ community have made throughout U.S. history—and there are many. Though the beginnings of Pride Month originate in the U.S., Experian is committed to supporting and uplifting the LGBTQ+ community on a global scale. This year was an especially important year, marking both the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising and the one year anniversary of the inception of Experian’s Pride Network Employee Resource Group (ERG). Our Pride Network executive co-sponsors, Michele Bodda and Todd Rudie, say, "As our culture continues to evolve, we feel especially empowered by Experian’s demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion. With great support from our leadership, we launched the Experian Pride Network just one year ago and have achieved success beyond our aspirations." Earlier this year, for example, Experian earned a "2019 Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality" designation by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). "We are proud to have achieved a perfect score on our very first submission to HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. This was a goal our ERG originally set out to achieve within three years," Bodda and Rudie stated. With so much to commemorate and celebrate, our Pride Network kicked off the month with numerous events around the world, including participation in official Pride parades, on-campus barbecues, bake-offs, spirit days, LGBTQ-focused webinars and so much more. It's important for us to not only provide a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community, but to also educate all of our non-LGBTQ employees about how they can be better allies. As part of the festivities, we had The LGBT Center OC conduct a webinar for ways we can develop tools and strategies for good allyship across the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. Here are some takeaways of what it means to be an LGBTQ+ ally: Allies have a deep understanding of LGBTQ+ people, terms, and experiences​ Allies speak up when they see discriminatory behavior​ Allies intervene in cases of bullying or harassment​ Allies always use the right name and pronouns for their transgender friends​ Allies recognize that they have privilege over other marginalized groups, and they want to use that privilege to help elevate the voices of the unheard​ Experian also hosted a webinar on navigating the workplace as a transgender individual. While several states have laws in place to protect transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in the workplace, harassment and discrimination are still large issues in the U.S. today. Here are some takeaways of what we can do to better support our transgender and gender non-conforming colleagues and friends: Understand the biases and hardships trans and gender non-conforming individuals face in the workplace — 75 percent of transgender workers experience discrimination, harassment, bullying, privacy invasion and suppression every day at work Know the laws in your state Empathize. You can do this by calling people by the preferred name/pronoun, refraining from making assumptions about others' sexual orientations and avoiding making assumptions that all trans people look the same or are going through a "transition" Be an ally — add gender neutral/all-gender restroom options, normalize the usage of pronouns, don't ask personal or inappropriate questions, etc. After taking measures to further educate ourselves, it was time to celebrate! Here are some photos from our Pride celebrations:   Costa Mesa, CA Allen, TX Schaumburg, IL Clearwater, FL Costa Rica  

As part of Experian’s commitment to the value of Employee Resource Groups (ERG), we recently hosted the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) ERG Leadership Symposium, ERGs Driving Change at our Costa Mesa headquarters. ERGs are a proven strategy for organizations to advance a diverse and inclusive company culture. At Experian, we believe the culture of inclusion also cultivates and advances innovation with the added diversity perspective that strengthens the community of professionals and ideas within the company. We were proud to host the 13th ERG one-day training program that was organized by the NAAAP to help companies and employees advance their ERG experience and learn how ERGs are change agents to enhance productivity and grow professional networks in the corporate setting. Speakers represented companies leading their industry, such as Bank of the West, Macy’s, Anheuser-Busch, Google, Facebook, UPS, Northrop Grumman, Boston Scientific, and many more, including Experian. The symposium this year featured numerous ERG thought leaders sharing their insights across a variety of sessions and panels, including; Best Practices in Demonstrating Value, Creating Connections through ERG Leadership, What’s Next Action Plans for Your ERG, among others. Caption: Hiq Lee, President, Business Information Services for Experian, shared insights as a panelist for The Crucial Executive Role in Driving Change session. She was joined by Judy Ting, SVP, Pacific Rim Region Manager, Bank of the West, and DeAnne Aussem, Managing Director & Founder of U.S. Leadership Coaching Center of Excellence, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC. The panel was moderated by Farzana Nayani, NAAAP ERG Architect. All speakers provided valuable takeaways for the professionals in attendance to motivate their organizations to positively impact their company with the diversity amongst its workforce and implement strategies to leverage the power of inclusion. Specifically, the hundred-plus attendees learned more about how Employee Resource Groups and Business Resource Groups are change agents for diversity, inclusion, engagement, productivity, and connection-building within organizational settings. Justin Hastings, former Chief Human Resources Officer for Experian North America, welcomed the ERG Leadership Symposium attendees with his introductory remarks, as he shared Experian’s perspective on inclusion leading to innovation. Therefore, we asked him some questions to share his insights with us on Experian’s ERGs. 1. How is Experian creating a better tomorrow? Hastings: The consumer is at the heart of everything we do. Our product innovation is geared towards giving consumers more control over how their data can enrich their lives. Experian Boost is a perfect example of this coming to life. Inclusion underpins our ability to innovate. The more we encourage a culture where everyone’s creativity is valued, the more we are able to innovate for consumers. Our ERGs play an important role in promoting diversity, and creating an environment where all our Experian people can bring their whole selves to work and be creative. 2. What role does The Power of YOU have in Employee Resource Groups? Hastings: We created a workplace environment where everyone is comfortable bringing their whole self to work, regardless of differences or backgrounds. We call this The Power of YOU, which creates an environment for employees to be their true selves. We advance our company culture by not only respecting the differences amongst Experian colleagues, but actively celebrating them with and through our ERGs. 3. What impact does the Employee Resource Groups have on Experian? Hastings: At Experian, inclusion is vital to the success of the company. Our ERGs provide us with a platform to be a more innovative business. Our ERGs now have around 1,000 employees actively involved across the eight current groups. They have helped create greater understanding of different cultures that are represented in our company, and they have also underpinned our recruiting efforts across diverse talent pools. This has helped us to keep evolving our employee base to be increasingly representative of the communities in which we operate, and the consumers we ultimately serve. Learn more about Experian’s Employee Resource Groups by visiting: https://www.experian.com/corporate/power-of-you.html  Learn more about the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) by visiting: https://www.naaap.org/   All photos taken by Nhan T. Nguyen.