FROM FLEDGLING DAYS TO EXPERIAN
Like all people, Beth Wheat says, she has a lot of interests and many facets. While some people are super-focused on one topic, others still strive to be renaissance women.
“When I first started out in college, I was a theater major. I was putting myself through school as the first person in my family to have a college education,” Wheat says of her fledgling days. “I was working to put myself through school, and I started working for a corporate conglomerate called TRW, which had aerospace and technology divisions, among others. That’s where I started, as an operator pulling credit reports and reading them aloud to a car salesman who would be frantically jotting it down.”
“Quick segue to the fact that the company saw potential in me and offered to help pay for my education if I were to switch to the technology field, which I did,” she continues, “and I started to move up pretty quickly. And I really loved it. It’s pretty far afield from theater, but it was fascinating to me. I liked the logic and the structure, and I loved the possibility.”
Her ascent within TRW’s tech operations continued until Wheat had children, at which point she decided she wanted to be home.
“A lot of women do that, and there’s a lot of literature around whether or not that’s a good idea,” she says. “It worked out well for me. It doesn’t work out well for everybody. So I left the workforce, but not for very long, and I ended up going back to TRW part-time as a consultant.”
After volunteering in her children’s classrooms, Wheat felt drawn to education, enjoying what she considered a “sidestep” into that field while her children were in school.
“Once my children were finished with school, and heading off to college themselves, I wanted to go back into technology,” Wheat says. “I was interested in working somewhere with global reach, and being a part of the digital transformation.”
Enter Experian. “I just celebrated my 12th anniversary with Experian in October,” she says. When I reflect on how much the company has changed in those 12 years, it’s pretty awe-inspiring. It’s an amazing place.”
CULTURE
“I’m going to reference what we call The Experian Way, which is a statement of our values,” Wheat says in describing Experian’s culture.
• “The very first one is delighting customers. And that refers to our direct-to-consumer business, our b2b business, and internally. We don’t call one another customers, but it is the expectation that we give great service, even when we’re working with our colleagues.”
• “Innovate to grow is another of our values. I’ve actually seen the innovation spark take hold, and it’s more like wildfire.”
• “Collaborate to win, which speaks to a very collegiate culture that we have.”
• “Safeguarding our future. We’ve put security first in all that we do, given the importance of protecting people’s data assets.
• “And then lastly, value each other, which has to do with supporting one another and also celebrating our successes, and embracing our diversity. I have yet to reach out to anyone at Experian that was unhelpful, or not open, or mal intended.”
“That collegiality that I mentioned is always a challenge in any company that is growing fast, is acquisitive, and has a really ambitious vision,” Wheat tells us. “Because you’re running full steam ahead all the time. And there are things changing. And a lot of times that can create a culture where people are just looking out for themselves. And while it is fast-paced, and it’s intense, and we set very ambitious objectives for ourselves, it is still very cooperative.”
INCLUSION
The difficulty of maintaining such an inviting culture while expanding and experiencing growth is perhaps even more challenging with increased remote working as a result of the COVID pandemic. New employees may not have had the chance to come into an office or meet anyone in person.
“One of the things we do at Experian that helps with that is to encourage networking, mentoring, and sponsorships,” Wheat tells us. “Our different Employee Resource Groups and our DE&I programming all are designed to bring people together from different parts of the company, and very intentionally learn what we do in the same ways and what we do differently.”
In fact, one of Experian’s first ERGs was for women:
“One of the female C-suite leaders was asked to start that effort up, and I was one of the people that she tapped on the shoulder. This is going back maybe nine years ago. And it was just very interesting to get together with groups of women from all around the world in all different parts of the business and say, ‘Remember, when we were the only one at the table? When we were the only one on the team, or the only one in the class? We’d all had that experience. And we could reflect on the progress that’s been made, and lay a path for even more expansion,” Wheat says.
And then it’s been phenomenal to see all of the other ERGs being created,” she continues. “Now we’re really at a place where we’re talking more and more about intersectionality. I think of it as threads in a tapestry, and there are different colors that pop out but we can all be an equal part of it. I’m often somewhat awestruck at the incredible change that’s taking place. And I think, in some ways, moving to remote working helped it. Everybody had some degree of stress or pain, and being authentic all of a sudden became even more urgent. And authenticity is key to diversity, equality, and inclusion.”
HURDLES
“My experience as an educator is going to reveal a little bit of bias, but having been in elementary school classrooms, I can tell you that we socialize boys and girls differently, and there are very clear points in time when boys and girls start to kind of separate themselves and young girls will tend to drift away from math and science,” Wheat says. “It’s an interesting phenomenon. I think part of it is making sure that teachers are trained to spot that, and to make sure that there’s no unintentional or unconscious bias in terms of leading students to where they their potential might lay.”
“I think everybody has potential to work in technology. But I think the hurdles can start very early. Parents and educators should be aware of that,” she adds. “And for those of us that are already working at mentoring young women that are in high school or in college, highlighting and spotlighting some of the amazing women in engineering and science fields is a really important thing to do. It’s also a real challenge, I think, that there is a scarcity of women who are pursuing technology jobs, and so it’s a very competitive market. It’s actually a great time to be a woman in technology. We just want to make sure that people know they’re going to have a comfortable place here.”
WHAT YOU MEASURE MATTERS
“We’re a data company. What you measure matters. And we look at the data,” Wheat says of the company’s DE&I-inflected hiring process. We’re setting goals and ambitions for our talent acquisition team to get more diverse candidates. We’re really paying attention. We have a robust talent management process, and increasingly we are connecting with people who may still be in school and are not yet in the job market. What kind of potential are they showing? What sort of structure or support could we give them to keep them interested in technology and help them reach their potential?”
Beth Wheat says Experian is a great place for those who love to learn, in part because of the rapid growth and change the company is going through.
“By design, we’re not ever going to reach an end state. If you love learning, and you want to be proactive about connecting and collaborating with others, this is a really great place to be. People here can really chart their own course, learn what they want to learn, set their goals and achieve their high ambitions.”
2022 AND BEYOND
“I’m excited about the overall mission and vision of the corporation, which is to really continue our growth with a strong focus on making the world a better place,” Wheat says, admitting that it may sound a bit corny. “In areas like financial inclusion, we’re really using the power of our data and our tools to help people. We’re very much committed to reducing our carbon footprint and committed to helping others with those sorts of challenges, among many others, as well. Altruism is part of our DNA, which certainly appeals to my soul.”
