Ivonne Valdes
Chair, iMasons Hispanic/LatinX Global Member Resource Group (MRG)
As a champion for inclusion, diversity and education, Valdes serves on the Infrastructure Masons Educational Committee and is the recipient of the 2019 iM Global Inclusion and Diversity Champion award. She also serves on the board of the Hispanic Information Technology Executive Council (HITEC) foundation.
Claudia Massey
Vice-Chair, iMasons Hispanic/LatinX Global Member Resource Group (MRG)
Massey is the vice chair of the iMasons Hispanic/ LatinX Global Member Resource Group. An experienced leader with a focus in driving operational excellence, digital transformation and strategic execution in the IT industry, she has a track record for developing high performing teams, inspiring employees, and advancing diversity/inclusion.
As women in a predominantly male dominated industry, we appreciate being part of organizations like Schneider Electric and Infrastructure Masons (iMasons) that value diversity and inclusion. We share a passion for inspiring, educating and introducing young talent to the opportunities within our industry.
iMasons provided us with the platform to start a global member resource group (MRG) focused on the Hispanic community. We are the chair (Valdes) and vice-chair (Massey) of the newly formed LatinX MRG. These positions have allowed us to follow our passion. We build on the work that we are already doing within our company and communities to drive industry awareness and introduce young minds to the exciting careers that currently exist and the those that still need to be forged.
The goal of the LatinX MRG is to create a collaborative ecosystem within the Hispanic community that drives digital infrastructure awareness. We have launched an initiative that connects the iMasons’ MRGs to our company, community and educational institutions. Next, we plan to share more about the iMasons’ organization, specifically how our vision is becoming a blueprint for best practices linking actions to outcomes. We envision this blueprint being leveraged by other iMasons members to enhance their company’s employee resource groups.
iMasons is a non-profit professional association of global technology and business leaders who represent over $150Bn in infrastructure projects in over 130 countries. The vision is to: “Unite the Builders of the Digital Age.” We strive for the organization’s motto to “Connect, Grow, and Give Back” by leaving our companies at the door in order to connect as individuals.
Shortly after we kicked off the LatinX MRG, we realized the impact could be greater than we originally thought. As we peeled back the layers, we saw an opportunity to collaborate with other organizations, like Schneider Electric’s Go Green Program and its internal employee resource groups, volunteer organizations, the datacenter experts community, and educational institutions. We conducted multiple town hall meetings where we received an overwhelming interest in wanting to make a difference. Our plan evolved into the creation of a repeatable framework that we call: The iMasons MRG Blueprint.
The iMasons MRG Blueprint provides guidance on how to identify and articulate the what-and-why issues, execute the how-to solutions and consider the now-what path. We wanted to share with you how we break down the high-level framework (see: following page).