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Xbox (International Women's Day) : Women make up over half of Xbox's gaming leadership (Women represent 29.7% of MS global Workforce)

JINX

JINX

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Oct 25, 2017
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news.xbox.com

Xbox Celebrates International Women’s Day in Support of Women in Gaming - Xbox Wire

In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month 2022, Xbox will celebrate the important role of mentorship — to uplift and support the next generation of women in gaming. As a champion and member of the fellowship of the Women of Xbox UK initiative, I had the opportunity to help...
news.xbox.com news.xbox.com
We know that while according to the ESA, 45% of gamers identify as women, there is an underrepresentation of women characters in gaming. Additionally, among video game developers, only 30% identify as women globally. By increasing diversity and representation in the people who make games, we can create new and unique gaming experiences for everyone. While there is more work to do, at Xbox we are proud that women make up over half of our gaming leadership team and are forging the future of gaming and at Microsoft, women now represent 29.7% of the core global workforce. This is also true of my team at Rare, where half of our design and production team are women because of our investment in making inclusivity and diversity core to how we build teams, and we remain committed to this goal. It's also imperative to continue to support women once they're part of the industry, and at Xbox, the Women in Gaming group provides career development, networking opportunities, mentoring and more to encourage retention.
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An interview with Agnes Larsson (Minecraft Game Director), Jenn Panattoni (Xbox Social Impact) and Britt Brombacher (What's Good Games.)


The article lays out a number of upcoming Xbox programs, panels, support, spotlights, tournaments, podcasts and events to celebrate women in gaming.
 
Cranster

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Oct 25, 2017
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They still have work to do. But it's good to see some progress made.
 
Rowsdower

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Good to hear, will watch the interview later. There's still a ways to go, and I know from personal experience MS has its issues, but nice to see some change in the Xbox division at least.
 
Frieza

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Oct 25, 2017
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This is good. Hopefully Sarah Bond leads Xbox after Phil. Women need to be in more senior positions.
 
Azerth

Azerth

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Thats great news.

It also seems like bond is being trained to take over for phil once he leaves.
 
OtisSpunkmeijer

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Oct 25, 2019
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More people who identify as women in leadership positions is critical to an inclusive culture. It's not the only thing by far, but it's probably a good first step to a truly inclusive and positive workplace for more people.
 
Jogi

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Genuinely shocked tbh. Definitely a step in the right direction by getting women in positions of power.
 
Pancakes R Us

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I would love to see a breakdown of ethnic background from the group of women leaders. In most companies I've worked at, they make noise about senior female leadership but when you look further, it's all white women. Women from other backgrounds tend to only have lower hierarchy roles.
 

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Pancakes R Us said:
I would love to see a breakdown of ethnic background from the group of women leaders. In most companies I've worked at, they make noise about senior female leadership but when you look further, it's all white women. Women from other backgrounds tend to only have lower hierarchy roles.
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Here is the leadership team at Xbox now:
microsoftgamingglt_118.jpg
 
Chippewa Barr

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TheUnsungHero26 said:
The news post is written by Louise O'Connor, a long time Rare veteran. Very cool to see.
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Holy crap, she's been there forever! Like I'm pretty sure she was there during the N64 days.

Impressive for sure!
Frieza said:
This is good. Hopefully Sarah Bond leads Xbox after Phil. Women need to be in more senior positions.
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Yep.

I feel Phil has her shadowing him for this exact scenario.

Not to mention she's been amazing in her current role. She exudes influence anytime I see her present something.
 
DrFreeman

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May 9, 2020
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More than 50% is very impressive for leadership positions. And as someone hinted at in the leadership image, they're actually a diverse group.

Other companies (cough Sony) take note. More female voices and diversity to feed ideas is only a good thing.
 
Scottoest

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TechnicPuppet said:
They should put a woman in charge of Activision when they get a chance.
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I remember hearing an interesting idea a while back, about Microsoft hiring Jen Oneal as an "advisor" or something until the acquisition was completed - then promoting her to running Activision. She and Mike Ybarra could then be equals running the A and B of ABK.

Of course, she might've since found a new gig already.
 
T0kenAussie

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Frieza said:
This is good. Hopefully Sarah Bond leads Xbox after Phil. Women need to be in more senior positions.
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It's the running theory that will happen, Sarah is a lot more visible in the media and with external studios than Matt or Bonnie

I think she will do a great job personally and it seems Phil really wants someone who lives the gaming for everyone mantra he has built at Xbox
 
crazillo

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Apr 5, 2018
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The Xbox division is doing some great work around representation, diversity and inclusivity in general. Good to see these numbers.
 
T002 Tyrant

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I wonder what the pay gap is? It's great news, but it does make me wonder if there's some kind of underlying negative counterpoint to this?
 
cyrribrae

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T002 Tyrant said:
I wonder what the pay gap is? It's great news, but it does make me wonder if there's some kind of underlying negative counterpoint to this?
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Worthwhile question. We'll never know, since none of their salaries are made public in MS. (Perhaps worth noting that Amy Hood, CFO, is the #3 highest paid person in the entire company.) But, at these levels, pay is so variable from person to person. How do you determine what the salary ratio should be between a 10 year marketing veteran that just joined the team vs a 30 year MS veteran who's been running hardware and devices this whole time? Jen ONeal and Mike Ybarra could be compared because they were promoted into the same position - and so THAT was clear and egregious.

I'm curious how bad the pay disparities are across less unique positions. Microsoft reported in 2020/2021 that they had reached gender pay parity. But, of course, the devil is in the details, and there are definitely women in technical fields (which are still under 25% women) who are pretty sure they're getting paid less than men in the department. And like too many big companies, there's a mountain of harassment cases just lying around. Should be better nowadays, but certainly not all gone.
 
HBK

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Cranster said:
They still have work to do. But it's good to see some progress made.
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It'll never be enough (until patriarchy is burnt down altogether), but while there is always room to be cynical, the leadership team slide is good to see, especially as I doubt it to be a carefully calculated quota. It's probably just a testament of corporate culture not giving a shit about gender or ethnicity as long as skilled people are skilled and bring something to the company.

Patriarchy is more than just denial of meritocracy of course, but more leadership teams should look like this.
 
Prine

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Nice to see, and would love for Sarah to become gaming CEO after Phil.
 
Azerth

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Caiusto said:
Not sure about that, she's still pretty new to MS. Lots of veterans in there that could do that, he seems to favor Bonnie Ross a lot since they know each other for more than 20 years now.
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I can see bonnie but imo bond is probably the one. I think her job lets her work closer with phil and we see her at every xbox event. Also while i could be wrong i think her job lend its self to taking over xbox better then bonnies
 
Skiptastic

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Definitely a good start and great for one of the three hardware platforms to have this kind of representation. Hopefully they can continue this progress in the years to come and across MS globally.

And a big shout out to Britt for being featured on this video. I remember meeting her back at the first PAX East back in 2010, when she was a blogger on IGN. So good to see people who love the industry succeed in it!
 

thevid

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Oct 25, 2017
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rras1994 said:
Here's their gender gap report that they are required to publish due to UK law (may only apply to UK employees):
https://gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk/Employer/uH4NnzOp/2020
Still a bit to improve but in general not that bad.
Though I am still salty at the moment on how awful my own employer's was…
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Microsoft's claim has been that gender pay is equal for the same jobs. But that just means the problem with the pay gap is that women are being put at higher paying positions less often than men. Not in terms of raw numbers, but even as a ratio.

Remember, this wasn't that long ago: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...ft-women-discrimination-harassment-complaints

That said, I think Microsoft has shown a commitment to change and the leadership slide is a good start.
 

rras1994

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Nov 4, 2017
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thevid said:
Microsoft's claim has been that gender pay is equal for the same jobs. But that just means the problem with the pay gap is that women are being put at higher paying positions less often than men. Not in terms of raw numbers, but even as a ratio.

Remember, this wasn't that long ago: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...ft-women-discrimination-harassment-complaints

That said, I think Microsoft has shown a commitment to change and the leadership slide is a good start.
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The link I quoted is Median hourly pay gap so it's designed to account for that, it also breaks down the high paying jobs by percentage. This is what the UK government requires them legally to publish, not just their own claims though it does have the limitation that it's based on employees in the UK
 

thevid

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rras1994 said:
The link I quoted is Median hourly pay gap so it's designed to account for that, it also breaks down the high paying jobs by percentage. This is what the UK government requires them legally to publish, not just their own claims though it does have the limitation that it's based on employees in the UK
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Doesn't that support what I said? The issue isn't necessarily that women are being paid less for the same job (this has been Microsoft's defense in gender discrimination lawsuits) but that there are fewer women in higher paying positions. Only 25% of the top earners at Microsoft are women and 50% of the lowest earners are women (UK employees at least).
 
vixolus

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Panic Freak said:
I have a feeling they will put her in charge of ABK after the merger.
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That seems like a bad idea. She's doing great in her current role and i feel like it would make sense to have someone (good) from within Activision to step up and lead in reporting to Phil. It's likely going to be similar to Bethesda where they're mostly left in their own (minus any clean house efforts ofc)
 
Scottoest

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vixolus said:
That seems like a bad idea. She's doing great in her current role and i feel like it would make sense to have someone (good) from within Activision to step up and lead in reporting to Phil. It's likely going to be similar to Bethesda where they're mostly left in their own (minus any clean house efforts ofc)
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I don't think the plan is to leave them alone at all, post acquisition. I expect them to make a big public show of very much getting involved in Activision's business, and trying to un-fuck the situation there. One because it'll be good PR for them, and two because they know the Activision/Blizzard brands are damaged because of it. It's the reason they made a note of saying the company will report directly to Spencer.

I'm sure they eventually get handed off to someone to manage and report to Spencer (assuming he's still in charge by then), but I don't think that'll be for a while.
 
Rndom Grenadez

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I'm sure there are issues at Microsoft too, but I'm glad to see the push for greater inclusivity.
 
Rowsdower

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