March is Women's History Month, and it also marks the first year of our mentorship program for women at OneSpan.

Mentorship serves as a critical resource for professionals – especially those underrepresented in their industries – to develop their careers and address diversity gaps in their fields. Women make up just a quarter of C-suite leaders, and women of color are just one in 16. Despite DEI commitments from technology companies, the gender gap in the industry remains significant. In the US, women account for half of the workforce, but only represent 27% of STEM professionals; in Canada, women are 25% of the STEM workforce, and in the European Union, they represent just 17%. Issues such as pay disparity, share of women in leadership roles, and representation of women of color in the industry continue to persist. At OneSpan, we are proud to have 31% of our employees identify as women, surpassing the industry average, with many of them being part of our Women@OneSpan Employee Resource Group.

I've been a mentor for the last 15 years of my career in technology, and when I joined OneSpan, I knew I wanted to bring this passion to the company through a formal program.

With the support of our executive team, we decided to start the program by sponsoring it through Women@OneSpan. The first year of the program taught us a lot, and we will use these learnings to improve upon the program in the future. But what this program really showed is that mentorship can inspire people to confidently lean into their strengths and passions. As we continue to expand the program, we'll use these lessons to iterate and improve it