Forbes Names Booz Allen No. 1 Best Employer for Women

In February 2020, Lindsay Zoeller, a Booz Allen user experience strategist, learned she was pregnant with her first child. Later, as she navigated new parenthood during a global pandemic, Booz Allen made one aspect of a challenging year easier: work-life balance. Zoeller received 14 weeks—and her husband 6 weeks—of parental leave, plus the flexibility to work part-time afterward to ease back into the workplace. Moreover, the firm encouraged both to put these policies into practice.

“It’s one thing to say that you have a parental leave policy and that fathers can also take leave to help a mother who is recovering, but it’s entirely different to work somewhere that encourages people to use that leave,” Zoeller said. “Not only did I have the support of the firm, but my husband had that same support.”

Experiences like Zoeller’s contributed to Forbes recently naming Booz Allen its No. 1 Best Employer for Women for 2021. Booz Allen rose from 43rd place in 2020 to lead a roster that in 2021 includes Sephora, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and REI.

For the 2021 list, Forbes and market research company Statista, polled 50,000 Americans, including 30,000 women, working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. Survey participants evaluated employers on criteria such as employee satisfaction, career development, salary, and initiatives to improve gender equity.

Another consideration was representation at the executive and board levels, an area where Booz Allen is a clear leader: Women make up the majority of C-suite executives and nearly half of the board of directors at Booz Allen, and this makes a difference for all women at the firm, according to Booz Allen Executive Vice President Betty Thompson.

“You really can’t underestimate how much of a difference having women in very senior positions and on the board makes in terms of how women see their ability to be supported and developed,” Thompson said.

With more women in leadership roles, Booz Allen has been able to listen to employees’ needs during the COVID-19 pandemic and respond accordingly, with benefits including an extra $2,000 in flexible spending for childcare and meeting-free mornings, which give parents an opportunity to get their children set up for virtual school.

As a result, while many employers experienced a “she-session” during the past year, “We saw less attrition from women,” Thompson said. “It was due to the fact that we were willing to work with them to balance.”

During the pandemic, female workforce participation dropped to 57%, the lowest level since 1988, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Booz Allen Executive Vice President Karen Dahut is committed to reversing that trend.

“If we don’t take steps to purposefully create a workplace flexible enough for the working mom, we are on track to reverse decades of progress,” she said. “This is the moment to talk about how we take what’s working—and keep it. It’s the moment to talk about what’s not—and change it.”

In the past year, Dahut has shared ideas with the business, technology, and defense communities for “resetting and reframing our expectations for the way we work,” including:

• Schedules that optimize employees’ daily routines—whether making time for kids sports or taking care of elderly parents
• The opportunity to work remotely to align with personal responsibilities, time away from home, or other flexibility needs
• Hybrid work schedules that allow for both purposeful in-office collaboration and remote work

The common thread among possible solutions is that they respond to employees’ unique situations. For making today’s workplace work for all, “There is no one-size-fits-all answer,” Dahut said.

Booz Allen Vice President Kelly Rozumalski is an award-winning cybersecurity professional, a cultivator of tech talent, and a force for making the cybersecurity field more diverse and inclusive.

As Booz Allen’s first-ever secure connected-health director, she helped overtaxed healthcare organizations reduce their exposure to cyber risks during the pandemic. Using next-generation security analysis, threat identification and remediation techniques, her team helped secure medical centers and research organizations nationwide and helped protect over 100 new digital technologies.  

Rozumalski is also strengthening her team’s ability to respond to future challenges. As Booz Allen’s cyber and engineering recruiting lead, she hired more than 150 cybersecurity experts, engineers, cloud architects, and software developers in the past year—54% of whom are female or identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC)—and chartered a cyber engagement program to connect technical talent to a community and training opportunities.

As co-chairs of Booz Allen’s African American Network (AAN), Organizational Transformation Specialist Ebony Thomas and Senior Program Manager Marvette Cofield are also working to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“2020 brought everything to the forefront and brought a focus on where are we in America? Are we really making the strides that we thought we’ve made?” Cofield said.

In February, Cofield and Thomas helped plan a full roster of Black History Month activities under the theme “Stronger Together: Reflecting on Our Resilience and Fortitude.” 

Throughout 2020 and 2021, AAN facilitated conversations across the firm, worked with leadership to shape Booz Allen’s Race and Social Equity Agenda, hosted Booz Allen’s Juneteenth celebration, and provided educational resources for employees to research and learn.

As part of Booz Allen’s Multicultural Business Resource Group (BRG), AAN complements the efforts of the Women’s BRG and other networks and resource groups to support the firm’s employees during good times as well as challenging ones.

“Booz Allen can be a big place if you don’t have a network. We want to make sure people have the resources to be successful here,” Thomas said.

Read the full list of Forbes’ Best Employers for Women and learn more about the women of Booz Allen and careers at the firm.