Calvin G. Butler Jr. is the SVP of Exelon and CEO of Exelon Utilities

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As a devoted champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion, I want all people, especially those who have been traditionally underrepresented, to get their hard-won seats at the table. For everyone to gain employment that sparks pride, offers a family supporting wage, and is an inspiration to their families and communities.

It has been a long road for many groups, and we’re still not where we need to be. But what might help us get there is the other very compelling reason to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. It works. It’s the future of the workplace. And the future of the workplace looks like America—people of diverse races and religions, sexualities and genders, talents and abilities. It is a core value for me, and for Exelon, because inclusion drives excellence.

Consider Exelon’s partnership with The Precisionists, Inc. (TPI). TPI hires individuals on the autism spectrum and helps place them in technological and administrative roles, such as software testing, programming, scanning, indexing, data mining, and others. It’s a performance-based employment model that spotlights the unique gifts people with autism bring to their work.

Our EU Customer Analytics team gained a highly valued member through our work with TPI. EU Customer Analytics uses information to improve customer experiences, optimize operational efficiencies, and help design new products and offerings. Kyle Fedalen, a skilled software developer and budding data scientist, has been a huge asset to the team. Among other projects, he has worked on our “I Sign Up and Move” (ISUM) program, which helps simplify customer interactions in order to increase satisfaction and exceed expectation.

Yannis Katsanos, head of data science at Exelon Utilities, works with Kyle and praised his creativity. “Some of his design choices are so creative he has started influencing the appearance of our web apps.”

Kyle, too, benefits from the work.

Among his many professional accomplishments at Exelon, Kyle says he is most proud of getting the ISUM scorecards automated, able to run smoothly, and sent out monthly. The ISUM scorecards are essential to our analytics team, because they measure the program’s success and spotlight opportunities for improvement.

“We are always on a ‘higher, stronger’ pace,” Yannis says. “Kyle is comfortable following that pace, while, at the same time, being honest when he’s overwhelmed. That honesty helps us momentarily press the pause button. Coupled with his enjoyment at learning new things, this has created several ‘smell the roses moments,’ when we retreat from our regular pace to enjoy the new things we learned and new language we have uncovered.”

And that’s what we call a win-win.