Breaking Barriers, Building Futures

As the world celebrates International Women’s Day 2025, Infosys reaffirms its commitment to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace where women can thrive. Aruna C. Newton, Vice President and Head of Diversity & Inclusion, ESG Governance & Reporting at Infosys, shares insights with Dataquest on the company’s robust DEI vision, groundbreaking initiatives like Restart with Infosys and #IamtheFuture, and the critical role organizations play in shaping the future of women in tech. From leadership acceleration programs to creating equitable growth platforms, Infosys is not just bridging the gender gap—it’s redefining the path to success for women in technology.

What key aspects of Infosys’ DEI vision are driving your current initiatives?

Our Code of Conduct drives our people and culture initiatives – and an important tenet there is – Respecting Each Other. Infosys offers a non-discriminatory and equal opportunity workplace across race, color, religion, disability, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, genetic information, military status, or any other legally protected status. This ensures fair and equitable treatment across the employee life cycle.

What are some of Infosys’ most impactful strategies for attracting, retaining, and promoting women in the workplace? Could you provide more insights into specific programs like #IamtheFuture, Orbit Next, or Restart with Infosys, and their impact so far?

Restart with Infosys, our flagship program to hire women from career breaks has helped us hire 700+ talented women and many with niche skills over the last 3 quarters alone. Some of our flagship interventions that focus on career and leadership development for women include #IamtheFuture: a program that brings a concerted and holistic approach to enabling women leaders for senior leadership roles in the organization.

The program, through various phases spread over three years, focuses on developing  key leadership and business skills as well as helping women leaders navigate their careers. Since its inception four years ago, more than 500 women leaders have successfully completed various phases of their learning journey offered in partnership with Stanford GSB. 

Orbit Next is a year-long program for high performing women in middle management focused on strengthening the talent pipeline of women for leadership positions. Nurturing equitable platforms for growth is our flagship program Tech Cohere. It is led by technology leaders across Infosys with the common goal of sharing knowledge, showcasing achievements, celebrating achievers, leveraging artifacts & publications and learnings across the organization. 

Over 25% of tech sessions conducted in the program this year are by women technologists. Women have published 9 whitepapers through the forum. TechCohere, is also driving the CTO Mindset cohort program for a select batch.

From your perspective, what are the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing women in tech today, and how does Infosys' approach address these?

Women’s challenges, the world over, across sectors, continue to be around juggling exciting careers with equally exciting personal lives including but not limited to a focus on health, wellness, hobbies, relationships, care giving and more along with a burning desire to excel in every pursuit.  Our efforts around women inclusion focus on continuing to enable everyone to #ThriveAtInfosys.

What are your thoughts on the future of women in the tech industry, and what role do companies like Infosys play in shaping that future? Beyond formal programs, how does Infosys foster a culture where women are actively encouraged and supported to pursue leadership roles?

According to a WEF Report, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the way we receive information, how we process it, how we work and what jobs we will do. It is happening at an unprecedented pace. Because of this, we simply cannot afford to have any less than our whole population engaged and contributing. STEM fields are also key to dealing with the revolution’s potential downsides, such as climate change, cyberwarfare and the reorientation of job sectors, to name but a few.

Beyond metrics and measures, the active commitment of the leadership through governance, role modeling and engagement of employees through energized employee resource groups continue to inspire a culture where everyone is included.