How Trainline is working on diversity, culture and adaptation

Deliberate choices have taken Trainline's female representation well ahead of the industry average

Computing's delegate director and associate editor Evert Lombaert recently talked to Mark Holt, CTO of The Trainline, about diversity and inclusion in the technology industry, the importance of culture and how the company's use of data is helping its customers.

Women represent just 17 per cent of workers in the technology industry, but 35 per cent of Trainline employees - including CEO Claire Gilmartin. This is very deliberate on the company's part: any senior role will always have both women and men in the final shortlist, and the Trainline employs people from more than 45 different countries.

"This isn't altruism," says Holt, "this is a real business benefit that we see from diversity. If you look at any literature, the one statistic that's most correlated with innovation is diversity."

Accusations of positive discrimination often accompany discussions around diversity. The 'safe option' is to hire the best person for the role on paper, but this does not lend itself well to inclusion. Rather, "The best person for the role is the best person to be part of the team. If your team is not sufficiently diverse, then that team will be sub-optimal."

Culture underpins everything that we do - Mark Holt

The culture of Trainline is another piece of the corporate makeup that it arrived at very deliberately. Ensuring that everyone is empowered and engaged in a company comes down to culture; almost everything does, eventually, from how it feels to be an employee to customer interactions and the company's place as part of a wider tech community.

Watch the video to hear more about Trainline's culture and how it is helping customers across the UK.