Smart Targets, Stronger Business: Using Data Simulation to Drive Gender Equality Actions
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In Switzerland’s competitive energy market, where women remain underrepresented, Axpo set ambitious gender targets. But as we began tracking progress, it became clear that traditional, top-down approaches often miss the mark. Numbers alone don’t reveal the real challenges on the ground; the dynamics that shape each business area. To truly advance best practice, we needed a smarter, data-driven approach that linked our ambitions to the realities of our diverse operations.
In cooperation with Thriving Talent we worked on a data-based simulation model to assess what it would take to meet our gender ambition. The model incorporated current demographics, hiring, promotion, turnover, and retirement data, including the growth rate of each business division. Based on this, we calculated what shifts would be needed and translated the findings into concrete targets and realistic hiring rates needed for each business division.
The simulation results revealed that achieving our gender target requires targeted action beyond overall ambition. It enabled us to define tangible measures tailored to each business division, based on their specific starting points and dynamics. This helped to create ownership, focus, and transparency. We learned that data-driven clarity is essential to move from intent to impact—and to embed DE&I into business reality.
This Best Practice was first published in the Gender Intelligence Report 2025.
At Axpo, we believe that setting ambitious DE&I goals is just the start. In Switzerland’s competitive market, where women remain underrepresented in leadership, we committed to increase our female share to 30% at total workforce and 25% at senior leadership level. Monitoring progress was part of our journey — but we realized that numbers alone don’t tell the full story. Often, top-down targets overlook the real dynamics at the working level. We wanted to do better: by building bottom-up, business-specific pictures of what was feasible, grounded in actual hiring, promotion, turnover, retirement, and growth data. This enabled us to reality-check and refine our targets, ensuring they matched the unique challenges of each business area. Linking targets to historical behavior proved essential: only when numbers are relevant to their context can ownership and real change happen.
Our ambition was clear: we wanted to turn our DE&I vision into tangible, achievable outcomes across the Axpo Group. As an energy company operating along the entire value chain, we employ a wide range of profiles — from blue-collar roles and technical fieldwork to engineering and corporate leadership. This diversity brings both opportunity and complexity: each area faces different market conditions, talent pools, and cultural norms. To make real progress, we need to understand where opportunities exist, where challenges remain, and how every unit can contribute meaningfully to our targets. The goal is to break down ambition into business-specific actions, linking DE&I directly to workforce planning — from hiring to succession strategies. By grounding our efforts in data and context, we aim to build ownership, enable clarity, and empower leaders to act with confidence.
To make our ambition actionable, we worked together with Thriving Talent who developed a simulation model based on our real and historic workforce data: demographics, hiring, turnover, promotions, retirements, and expected growth. But this was not about forecasting for its own sake. The model was designed as a predictive planning tool — a way to guide concrete decisions and actions, not just observe trends. By simulating different future scenarios, we could see which specific measures would be needed in each business area to realistically meet our goals. Tailored insights were shared with leaders, helping them understand the specific levers they could pull. This grounded approach aimed to make the ambition tangible, while shifting the conversation to facts by giving business areas clear direction to move forward.
The simulation provided a critical breakthrough: it uncovered systemic constraints and showed that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Each business area had a different starting point, shaped by its turnover rates, growth projections, and upcoming retirements. Particularly in senior roles, where turnover is naturally low, we saw the need for long-term, targeted planning. By sharing tailored insights and realistic hiring targets, we enabled a new level of dialogue and planning across the organization. While work is still ongoing, this approach shifted the focus from generic ambition to fact-based action planning. Our key learning: lasting progress starts with a realistic understanding of the conditions each business area faces — only then can ownership and effective measures take root.
At Axpo, DE&I is embedded in our strategy, culture, and daily actions. We offer over 150 job profiles across the full energy value chain and welcome employees from around 60 countries. Our DE&I mission is backed by data, clear goals, and executive sponsorship. We’ve launched inclusive hiring practices, training on unconscious bias, policy updates, and employee communities such as ERGs. These efforts aim to foster an inclusive workplace where all talents can thrive and contribute fully. Thriving Talent can support by offering strategic DE&I consulting. Their expertise helps organizations embed inclusion into workforce planning, talent development, and leadership practices, making DE&I a natural part of business success — not a separate initiative. Together, we believe that long-term change requires both vision and daily action at every level.
For more information about this Best Practice, reach out to the author:
Dr. Nicole Kalindaga
Culture Transformation Manager & Global DE&I Lead
nicole.kalindaga@axpo.com
Tom Waterhouse
Associate Consultant Thriving Talent
tom@thrivingtalent.solutions
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