eleVate—The women’s leadership program at Veritas

Earlier this month, Veritas hosted a special graduation for 21 female leaders. These leaders completed a rigorous 12-month leadership development program called eleVate, which Veritas launched in October 2022 in partnership with Stanford Graduate School of Business. The journey to create the eleVate talent development program began in the Summer of 2021 when a project team was tasked with creating an offering specifically aimed at helping female leaders grow in their leadership journey.

The unique challenge of creating a program with excellent leadership content and a focus on women in technology set the team on a path of interviewing dozens of educational institutions, consultant groups, and leadership organizations to find someone that could create a bespoke program unlike anything else offered in the industry. After courting multiple organizations, the Veritas Project Team found the answer right in the backyard of their Santa Clara Headquarters. Stanford Graduate School of Business offered a custom service where a team of educational experts designed the perfect content, learning path, and support for this year-long journey.

“Being part of creating the eleVate women’s leadership development program has been tremendously meaningful to me. The program embodies a commitment to empower and inspire women to grow in their leadership excellence, foster connection and inclusivity, and drive a positive impact. It’s been a rewarding and truly fulfilling journey to be part of.” – Julie Hodge, Human Resources Business Partner Director, eleVate Project Team

The program design and planning took over 6 months to complete, but the result was an amazing combination of faculty-led leadership seminars, online learning modules, 1:1 coaching, executive spotlights, peer projects, group discussions, business acumen seminars, and so much more. The women gathered in Santa Clara in October of 2022 to kickoff this new program and launch into an exciting yearlong educational pursuit that many likened to a mini-MBA. The courses were time consuming and intellectually challenging, but helped the women grow personally and professionally in an array of topics.

“I feel I now have a greater understanding and appreciation of all of the areas that create a strong leader, and that I have a desire to ask myself more questions about why I'm doing what I'm doing.” – eleVate Participant

“Sharing experiences and understanding I'm not alone in the aspect of women leadership challenges - made it comforting and gave me strength … additionally, the different set of techniques shared [in eleVate] were very tactical, comprehensive, and most important executable.” – eleVate Participant

By the end of the year, many of the women shared how eleVate truly made them think differently about their role as female leaders in the technology industry and at Veritas. It was clear that they were able to immediately implement their learnings to impact their teams and coworkers.

“The Veritas Elevate leadership development program has truly been transformational. It has empowered our talented women leaders to amplify their impact and contribute to their personal and professional development. The program combines world-class faculty and instruction, senior leadership sponsorship, and insightful leadership development experiences in a highly impactful learning journey. The most fascinating aspect was hearing about the cohort applying their learnings in ways and a marked increase in confidence on core leadership areas.” – Karl Gheewalla, Sr. Director Learning, Performance, and Development, Project Team

With the success of the first cohort, Veritas is excited to launch its second eleVate class in early January 2024. There are 19 women eagerly awaiting participating in this development program that has already been enhanced based on alumni feedback.

“Helping build the eleVate program has been an amazing journey and truly a highlight in my career. Designing something that has inspired the growth of talented women leaders and enabled them to elevate their career has been incredibly rewarding. I’m thrilled that the program was so successful and cannot wait to watch this program impact leaders for many years to come.” – Sarah Roth, Director Global Administrative Shared Services, Project Team

eleVate is an opportunity for growth and development for women in tech and a testament to Veritas commitment to developing internal talent.