Ada, the leader in Automated Customer Experience (ACX®), has been named to the 2021 List of Best Workplaces™ for Inclusion and 2021 List of Best Workplaces™ for Mental Wellness. Ada received these honors after a thorough and independent analysis conducted by Great Place to Work. The announcement comes in conjunction with the appointment of Michele (MB) Bettencourt to its Board of Directors today. MB is a respected tech industry veteran with years of company leadership and experience navigating global cultures.

The 2021 Best Workplaces list is based on direct feedback from employees of the hundreds of organizations that were surveyed by Great Place to Work®. To be eligible for this list, organizations must be Great Place to Work Certified™ in the past year, and at least 90% of employees must agree they are treated fairly regardless of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation. The best were determined based on employee responses to inclusion-related Trust Index statements.

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Surveyed employees at Ada said, “Ada’s culture is a rare combination of kindness and intensity…Ada’s growth is the result of every individual Owner’s personal growth,” and “The only way to win in a hyper-competitive world is by hiring well and treating teams with the utmost respect. Nurture your talent and they will pay it forward. Ada is a very caring, people-first organization.”

Ada CEO and co-founder, Mike Murchison, added, “At Ada we believe that when it comes to long-term success, building a company culture is as important as building a product. Ada is committed to diversity and inclusion not just in words like a mission statement, but through our concerted actions each day.”

Ada believes that diverse teams make significantly better decisions, driving stronger business outcomes. This philosophy on diversity, equity, and inclusion follows three pillars: invite diverse voices to the table, ensure diverse voices have influence on decision making, and support diverse voices in the tech community.

This ability to “walk the walk” is part of what attracted MB to the board role.

“I love the market opportunity. It’s digital transformation that cuts across every line of business within the enterprise,” she said. “But more importantly, I really liked the team. They are genuine and authentic with a common thread of decency and humility in all of our conversations. That, added with a ferocious will to win and achievement for the right reasons, is very attractive to me.”

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MB joins as an independent board member and will work closely with Ada’s leadership team on go-to-market, sales, and marketing strategy. She previously served as the CEO and chairperson at Imperva, leading the company from $130 million in revenue to more than $350 million over three years, as well as the CEO and director of Coverity where she shifted the company focus to subscription-only revenue and added a software security platform. MB led the company until its acquisition by Synopsys in March 2014. In addition, MB is the Co-CEO and Founder of He Said/She Said, a film production company, and the Executive Producer of the documentary film, “Beautiful Lie”—the story of her transition from Anthony Bettencourt to Michele, a non-binary male-to-female (m2f) transgender.

Ada’s growth has propelled the Toronto-based company to unicorn status, recently raising a $130M Series C round at a $1.2B valuation that positions Ada firmly as one of Canada’s largest software companies. Ada ranked 15 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. In addition, the company was chosen by the Canadian Innovation Exchange as a Top 10 Growth Company and placed number 11 of 400 on the Globe and Mail’s 2020 business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies.