In August 2017, Project Evolve was set up with the purpose to understand and address the significant gap in engagement between men and women in nbn’s System Engineering and Operations Function (SEO), and to address the low numbers of women in SEO.

As such, the key objectives of Project Evolve were to:

• boost the engagement of women and make SEO a great place to work for women;
• increase the representation of women in SEO; and
• support the progression of women into leadership roles.

Project Evolve had three focus areas:

• Find: Build our female talent pipeline by using innovative sourcing strategies to attract more women into technology roles.
• Grow: Accelerate the progression of women into leadership roles through the Navigate Sponsorship Program which helped emerging leaders develop leadership skills and connections with Executive leaders.
• Keep: Make SEO a great place to work for women through a range of activities to support career development, wellbeing and engagement.

The project has been driven by a group of leaders and employees in the SEO team who wanted to drive change in building gender equality with Executive level sponsorship and support from People & Culture, Diversity & Inclusion, and other areas of the business.