[nfbwatlk] Moving forward on accessibility: Announcing new structure and leads; Microsoft Shuffles Staffers in Renewed Accessibility Push; January 20 & 21, 2016

[Nightingale, Noel]

Link:
http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2016/01/20/moving-forward-on-accessibility-announcing-new-structure-and-leads/

Text:
Moving forward on accessibility: Announcing new structure and leads
Posted January 20, 2016 by Brad Smith- President and Chief Legal Officer

Today we're announcing new steps to strengthen Microsoft's work to make our products more accessible and better serve people with disabilities.  As we've discussed over the past year, accessibility is core to our mission of empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more, and we are committed to delivering great technologies that enable people to lead richer lives. Today's steps build on the initiatives we've pursued over the past year to better serve people with disabilities. We are continuing our work to strengthen our engineering capabilities and making new investments to prioritize and build out accessibility features in our products and services. We are also putting key people in new leadership positions to help us advance our goals related to accessibility.

Today I'm pleased to announce additional details about our new organizational structure to guide these efforts, which included the creation of a centralized accessibility team as well as newly appointed technical leaders in the key engineering groups across the company.

Jenny Lay-Flurrie will be joining my team as Microsoft's new Chief Accessibility Officer.  Jenny has been with Microsoft for 11 years and has been a champion for people with disabilities throughout the company. As Chair of the Disability Employee Resource Group and Senior Director overseeing Trusted Experience, she has sparked a culture change in how Microsoft thinks about employment of people with disabilities and led innovations in how to better support our customers through efforts such as the Disability Answer Desk. She was recognized as a 'Champion of Change' by the White House in 2014 for the results she has driven at our company and in the community. Jenny, along with many members of her accomplished team, will be joining the Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) organization effective immediately.  We're also creating new positions so Jenny can grow this team and take new steps to ensure that we are connecting effectively with stakeholders outside Microsoft and with groups throughout our company.  This will help ensure that the voices of our customers who care about accessibility are heard across Microsoft and that our products and services better meet their needs.

Jenny and her team will report to Susan Hauser, who has moved this month to be Corporate Vice President for the new Business and Corporate Responsibility Group (BCR), reporting directly to me.  Susan brings a wealth of experience as a global leader with 26 years of deep external relationships and a strong reputation of being a great advocate for our customers, partners and people across the company. Most recently she led the company's Enterprise and Partner Group, with global responsibility for one of the most important customer segments at Microsoft.  This experience will be valuable in making sure feedback from our customers is heard, translated across our product groups and incorporated into our product design today and as we look to future technologies that will deliver on our company mission.

Our engineering teams play a central and incredibly important role in our work on accessibility. Indeed, without them, we cannot succeed in meeting the needs of people with disabilities. I am pleased to announce that Rob Sinclair will be leading the accessibility efforts in the Windows and Devices Group. Rob has done tremendous work as our Chief Accessibility Officer over the past five years, and I thank him for his work. Prior to taking on that role, he led the engineering team that created the accessibility platform that is key to our goals for Windows 10 experiences. His experience and expertise will be incredibly valuable as he plays this key leadership role on our technical and engineering work to advance our accessibility goals.  In addition to Rob at Windows, we are tapping engineering leads within our Applications and Services and our Cloud and Enterprise Groups to lead the accessibility work in their respective business groups. These leads, along with accessibility champions across the company, will comprise a new cross-company advisory team led by Jenny that will ensure we deliver on our goals of inclusion, transparency and accountability.

Accessibility is a shared goal across every team at Microsoft. Our new structure, with these great leaders, will better enable us to ensure accessibility is embedded into how we think, design and build technologies to empower every person on the planet.


About the Author
Brad Smith
President and Chief Legal Officer

Brad Smith is Microsoft's president and chief legal officer. Smith plays a key role in representing the company externally and in leading the company's work on a number of critical issues including privacy, security, accessibility, environmental sustainability and digital inclusion, among others.

Link:
http://www.eweek.com/it-management/microsoft-shuffles-staffers-in-renewed-accessibility-push.html

Text:
Microsoft Shuffles Staffers in Renewed Accessibility Push
By Pedro Hernandez  |  Posted 2016-01-21

The software giant names a new chief accessibility officer as part of an initiative to make Microsoft's products more accessible to users of varying abilities.
Jenny Lay-Flurrie, chair of the Disability Employee Resource Group at Microsoft, has been named the company's new chief accessibility officer as the Redmond, Wash., corporation turns its attention to making technology more accessible to people with disabilities.

The appointment bolsters Microsoft's recent efforts to drive accessibility throughout its product portfolio, according to Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer.

Last month, the company announced its support for the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict) charter. G3ict calls for governments to demand only accessible technology from their suppliers.

"We are continuing our work to strengthen our engineering capabilities and making new investments to prioritize and build out accessibility features in our products and services. We are also putting key people in new leadership positions to help us advance our goals related to accessibility," wrote Smith in a company blog post.






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In her new role, Jenny Lay-Flurrie will lead a cross-company advisory team focused on accessibility, inclusion and transparency. She replaces Rob Sinclair, who is now heading the company's accessibility efforts at Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group.




"His experience and expertise will be incredibly valuable as he plays this key leadership role on our technical and engineering work to advance our accessibility goals," said Smith. "In addition to Rob at Windows, we are tapping engineering leads within our Applications and Services and our Cloud and Enterprise Groups to lead the accessibility work in their respective business groups."
Jenny Lay-Flurrie reports to Susan Hauser, corporate vice president for Microsoft's new Business and Corporate Responsibility Group. Hauser was the former head of "one of the most important customer segments at Microsoft," the Enterprise and Partner Group, said Smith. "This experience will be valuable in making sure feedback from our customers is heard, translated across our product groups and incorporated into our product design today and as we look to future technologies that will deliver on our company mission."
Microsoft isn't the only technology heavyweight committed to promoting accessibility.
In 2014, IBM appointed Frances West as the company's first chief accessibility officer. She was formerly head of the Human Ability & Accessibility Center at IBM Research and served on the board of the American Association of People with Disabilities.
"We believe that technology can bridge individual differences, enable a diverse pool of talent in the workplace and improve lives. We are at a crossroads where we can begin to personalize every experience and integrate technology in ways that will be very powerful," said West in a statement announcing the new post.
Last year, IBM created the Mobile Accessibility Checker tool to help make iOS and Android apps more accessible to the hearing- and vision-impaired. "With mobile, the development cycle is much shorter compared to software development that designers and developers ignore, or in most cases, are unaware of basic accessibility conformance requirements-such as color contrast or ensuring they work with screen readers. Mobile Accessibility Checker ensures that accessibility is done right from the start," West told eWEEK's Nathan Eddy at the time.