NiSource program opens doors and offers guidance.

by Michael Puente

Saundra Taylor began her career at Northern Indiana Public Service Co. in 1979. She worked at the company's Merrillville office as a typist in the purchasing department. From there, she moved within the company, first as a supervisor at NIPSCO's power plant in Wheatfield and then on to other positions. Fast-forward nearly 35 years to today, Taylor is now director of field operations for Merrillville-based NIPSCO.

But Taylor is not done growing or learning. She hopes to continue climbing up the corporate ladder, and now there is a program designed to help her achieve her goals. “If we had then what we have now, it would have been a tremendous help,” Taylor says. “I think everything happens for a reason.”

Two years ago, NIPSCO's parent company, NiSource, also based in Merrillville, began “Building the Next Gen: Women in Leadership” initiative. The program is designed to provide opportunities for women throughout NiSource, a Fortune 500 natural gas and electric company with nearly 4 million customers from the Gulf Coast to New England and the Midwest. Under the effort, women at NiSource are provided opportunities to come together to share ideas, build leadership skills and, perhaps most important, ensure the pipeline of women leaders at the company grows now and into the future. “We're giving women more tools than they ever had before to be successful,” says Carrie Hightman, NiSource executive vice president and chief legal officer, co-founder of the Building the NextGen program with Violet Sistovaris, senior vice president and chief information officer for NiSource.

When the program launched in 2011, 150 of the top women executives in NiSource arrived for a summit to begin talking and discussing goals. “The goals were to develop women, retain them and recruit more,” Hightman says. “There is lots of literature that exists suggesting that the more women that lead companies, the better off the companies are, the more profitable they are, the more responsive they are to stakeholders' needs,” Hightman says.

The NextGen program involves three major components:

* National and regional summits: Female employees from across NiSource come together with company executives and external experts to share ideas, network and building leadership skills. Since 2011, five meetings have occurred, with more than 600 women in attendance.

* Mentor program: Women are paired with senior male and female leaders from across the company.

* Affinity group: A companywide women's affinity group, DAWN (Developing and Advancing Women at NiSource), launched in early 2012. It's made up of nearly 500 male and female employees, who collaborate and hold virtual meetings in an effort to supplement local onsite events to develop and advance women at the company.

Through these efforts, Hightman says, the program provides women substantive knowledge and practical advantages to not just to do their jobs better but to move ahead. “It's easy to learn your craft, but it's harder to learn how to navigate through a large corporation, because no one teaches you that,” Hightman says.

For Taylor, the program has already proven successful in bringing her close to other female leaders. “What impressed me the first year was bringing all these women leaders all in one room. It was a networking opportunity for me to meet women I've never met in the company. I've made some friends out of it,” Taylor says. “It provides an opportunity to contact other woman, to bounce ideas off and to realize that you are not alone.”

Overall, Hightman says, the program has developed credibility over time. “We've made this into a sustainable program. We need to have a happy, engaged, competent, supported workforce with all the tools that they need to meet the needs of our customers, our shareholders and other stakeholders. And, this is one of the ways that we do that.”