The technology industry is inclusive when it looks for customers, so it seems common sense that a diverse workforce would be an asset to create products and services that appeal to all segments of society. Though the tech sector still struggles with successful diversity initiatives, the research arm of an enterprise organization can be a haven for innovation.

Reporting from the Accenture International Women’s Day — Creating a Culture of Equality event at the Hotel Nikko in downtown San Francisco, theCUBE host Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick) spoke withMarc Carrel-Billiard (pictured, right), global senior managing director at Accenture Labs, and Mary Hamilton (pictured, left), managing director at Accenture Labs, to discuss how the Labs group is bringing diversity into its workplace.

[Editor’s note: The following answers have been condensed for clarity.]

How do you see [diversity] in your customer base, and how do you see it within the work that you do within your own department at the Labs group?

Hamilton: Innovation that taps diversity is stronger innovation. Our clients are delivering products and services to a diverse audience, and as we serve our clients and try to help them transform and be more digital, we have to reflect the consumers or the buyers for their products. If we don’t have that diversity, we’re not going to deliver the right kinds of innovation.

Carrel-Billiard: Also, the nature of some of the projects we’re doing [is] driving women to be involved. We’re using technology and innovation to bring change to the world and society, and everything. We really believe that women are on track today to build solutions or projects, with meaningful projects that really have purpose, that are meaningful to society.

Do the clients get now that for whatever — good, bad or otherwise — they just need more good people?

Hamilton: I’m not just a technologist, I’m also a mother of three small kids, and I try to bring that to work. I try to show people I’m not just taking the hardcore path; I’m balancing a family; I’m doing all these things that probably the rest of you are trying to do too, and I let it show.

There’s true support for being truly human, bringing yourself to the workplace, and I think that that culturally seeps into how we bring diversity to innovation, too. It’s, ‘bring your whole self to how you think about innovation.’

What are you working on, what are your priorities, and how does this integrate into what you guys are doing at Labs?

Hamilton: [The] whole mission is about how to create that diversity of thought. How do we bring people together that wouldn’t have collaborated in the past?

Carrel-Billiard: I‘m going to continue stretching the limit of others’ research. Because I think that there’s nothing better than to do that hard research to solve that hard problem, to elevate our people. And to be honest whether it’s woman or man; they’re all Labbers, they’re all part of our family, and there’s no better reward for you to see these people shining and explaining their passion to our clients. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Accenture International Women’s Day — Creating a Culture of Equality event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE