Adaire Fox-Martin understands the needs of Big Tech. Prior to becoming CEO of Equinix (No. 446 on the Fortune 500) last year, she held senior roles at Google, SAP and Oracle. Now, the Irish-born former teacher is driving the expansion of the world’s largest global data center network, with more than 273 data centers in 36 countries. Fox-Martin recently spoke with Fortune about what she learned in her first year in the job and where she wants to go from here.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
We last met when you were starting out in the role.
It’s been an incredible year of learning and realizing that this job doesn’t come with an instruction manual. You bring the experiences that you’ve had in the past to the decisions that you make for the company for the future. We’ve laid out the strategy and optimized it into 10 simple words. The first of those is “build bolder.” which is how we’re designing and constructing the infrastructure that underpins the digital economy.
The second part of our ten-word strategy is “solve smarter.” This is about how we abstract the complexity of networking and architecture, which is our secret sauce, and render that for our customers, making Equinix the Easy button. The third piece is to “serve better.” Most participants in the data center industry have five or six customers; we have more than 10,000 enterprise customers. So those are the three pillars.
What are the other four words?
Underpinning that, we have “run simpler,” which sounds easy to say and is very hard to do. You’re taking complexity out of your business, looking at systems and processes. And the last piece is our people piece, which is to “grow together,” growing our business with our customers, linking our employee success to our customer success.
Is that a big change?
Equinix has been a company in this segment for 27 years, so we’re one of the long-term players in this industry. And in the next five years, we’re planning to bring on as much capacity as we did in the last 27 years. That’s a big capital investment for us.
Where do you sit in the data-center ecosystem?
I think there’s a general trend to think of data centers as a homogeneous mass of a singular thing. But there are four distinct categories of data centers, and each one has its own nuance and characteristics. We exist in one of those categories. There’s the hyperscale category, the ones built by cloud-service providers, where you see massive investment. The second category is wholesale, where you’re usually building a facility to lease back to one tenant, maybe two, usually supporting (AI) training. The third is enterprise, where big companies like banks want to have their own center structure. And the fourth category is colocation, which is where Equinix sits.
And what are the advantages of that?
Think of us a little like an airport authority. It manages the runaways and the facilities of the airport and gives you the ability to rent ticketing and other kind of facilities in there. Then it manages the process of passenger engagement, so an airline comes in, like KLM, drops a passenger, and then magic happens in the background to move that passenger and their luggage to United to go on to California. We’re a little bit like the airport authority of the internet: a data package comes into Equinix and then moves on to where its next destination is. The difference between us and an airport authority is that the airport lines will compete whereas a lot of our customers colocate so they can collaborate.
What do you do in terms of AI workloads?
We do both training and inference. A pharmaceutical company would do their training privately at Equinix because in the pharma world much of their research and drug discovery processes have to go through private models for regulatory reasons or intellectual property protection. Training is like teaching the model and then inference really putting what the model has learned to work.
What about the energy needs?
The different types of data centers have different characteristics when it comes to energy, who they’re starving, or how they’re supporting local economies and communities.
We’re smack bang in the middle of what I would describe as an energy super cycle. Data centers are one component of it, but so is the electrification of everything. You have the speed of an AI meeting the pace of utilities, and it’s a headfirst collision. We don’t think it’s an insurmountable challenge but it’s going to require collaboration, innovation and time.
How do you seeing it playing out?
Between now and 2028, it’s fair to say there is a power crunch. Anything that we’re delivering until 2028, we understand where our power will come from. From 2028 to 2032, you’ll see an innovation click into the power landscape, in the form of data centers and data center operators looking at how they can self-generate, how they can generate on site, how they can innovate with the grid, and give power back to the grid, how they can be flexible on and off the grid. You’ll see different aspects of innovation, including nuclear, looking at small modular reactors and how they can be utilized.
From 2032 on, the utilities have introduced some changes. In the past, you would go to a utility and say, ‘I want this much here in this time, just-in-time power provision.’ For someone like us, which doesn’t have the same power draw as a hyperscale data center, that was usually good enough. But utilities are looking at their power framework in the form of cluster studies, taking a group of requirements together in a cluster at the same time. You define the load that you’re going to ramp up to and it will likely take the form of take or pay. If you said you’re going to use this much, you will pay for it, whether you use it or not.
It’s important that large energy users, like data centers, pay a premium for what they’re utilizing so that we don’t impact small ratepayers, small energy users, so there’s a lot happening around collaboration. We’ve got a 27-year history of that kind of collaboration with the utilities and so we’re very involved in a number of those processes.
Talk about the challenge of building these centers.
One is supply chain, the things that are needed to construct a data center, some of which have been subject to tariffs. In the short term, that’s not an issue but longer term, that may become something that we have to navigate our way through. And then there’s the workforce, the plumbers and mechanical engineers and welders who are maintaining our environments that keep the internet up. A lot of trade skills, construction skills and technical skills are necessary to create the data center.
Are the centers you’re building for these workloads any larger than the ones that you built in the past?
We do support our hyperscaler partners with the provision of data centers, through a vehicle called xScale, which is a joint venture. We have partners who fund our joint ventures, so we do participate in what I described as the wholesale economy by building what’s called a build-to-suit data center industry for a hyperscaler. So a Google would come to us and say, ‘do you guys have power and land in location X? And would you build for us?’ So we do that through a joint venture off our balance sheet because the capital-intensive nature of that is high. We own 25% of our America JV and we own 20% of our EMEA and our APAC JV. We have 15 centers that are already operational around the globe.
What do you think is underappreciated about your business model?
I think the connectivity of Equinix is underappreciated. We have 270 data centers around the world, so we’re the world’s largest independent data center operator that’s still a public company. People see the physical manifestations of those centers, but the secret sauce is the connections that sit in every single one of those data centers. They take three forms. First is the ability to interconnect a company to another company. We have the trading hubs: 72% of the world’s trading platforms operate on Equinix. You have a trading hub and all their partners located closely to them that need to be literally connected so there’s no latency between the transactions. We have 492,000 deep interconnections between the companies that operate in our centers, between value chains.
The second piece of connectivity is to do with the clouds. They are an exceptionally important part of the technology landscape. Many customers store their data in clouds and most customers store their data in more than one cloud. They spread the love. We have a 35% market share in native cloud on ramps from our data centers. So you can pop into the cloud, get your data and bring it back.
And then the third piece is physically where we’re located. We’re not in the middle of the country. We are in cities, where human beings are with their devices. So many people refer to us as the metro edge, the city edge, the edge where people actually are. So we can connect the cloud, via the metro edge where humans are, to the far edge where devices might be utilized.
Do you think people appreciate the role that data centers play in their lives?
In many countries, we are designated as critical infrastructure, in certain states, too, but not at the federal level. When I think about moving home: water, gas, electricity, internet becomes that fourth utility. And 95% of internet traffic runs through the Equinix environment. If you were on a Zoom call this morning, if you did a stream from any of the major providers, ordered an Uber, purchased a train ticket, you were on a platform accessing Equinix at some point.
“95% of internet traffic runs through the Equinix environment.”Adaire Fox-Martin, CEO, Equinix
What are you seeing in terms of customer trends?
Many of our customers are moving from the proof-of-concept phase of AI into the real-world-application phase of AI. There’s a lot to grapple with in that. It isn’t just about taking a business process and putting AI over the top of it. There are a whole series of considerations around governance and the management of data that haven’t really played into the business picture yet that are very real, especially for industries that are highly regulated.
That’s why some have not even adopted that much AI.
Right. Even if they are frontrunners, now it’s kind of like coming back and saying, ‘oh, how do we make sure that we’re audible, traceable, accountable, all of the things that are good governance for business. If we’re going to deploy a technology that can automate so many things and take my human out of the loop, how do I report, manage, and maintain the governance framework of those processes in my business?
We’re seeing a lot of pushback in local communities where these mega hyperscale data centers are being built. How are you staking your claim to say we’re not that, but this is still critical infrastructure we need?
You look at it through the lens of what are the good things that a data center can do for a local community. We engage very strongly with local communities when we are beginning a construction. You do bring jobs to the area, particularly in the construction face, less so when you’re in the operation face because there isn’t a preponderance of humans across a data center. Second, you’re obviously going to pay tax in that location and that has knock-on benefit. Thirdly, we employ and source locally. I’m very excited about our apprenticeship scheme, where young women and men who maybe didn’t have a formal education path can become data-center technicians or critical facility engineers. And when there’s a build of a data center, there’s often an upgrade of the infrastructure around it, like whether that’s the power capabilities, the roads and so on.
Are people asking more questions about water, energy?
For sure. And we recognize that these are extremely important parts of the life system of our planet. We were the first data center operator to begin reporting on our water usage. When you bring in power, you want to maximize the use of that energy in the deployment of workloads for customers and not just empowering the data center itself. We measure our power and how effective we are in using power. The best way to save energy to use less of it. That’s absolutely an industry standard now.
And water?
Water was never at the same level of investigation or scrutiny as power was. Now, there’s a measure of water-usage effectiveness and we were one of the first to report on that. It’s not as standardized as power and so we’re working in the industry to try and standardize that a little bit more.
In the longer term, data centers will more than likely be cooled by liquid cooling, as opposed to air or evaporative cooling. And liquid cooling, in terms of water use, is a closed-use-loop system. You’re reusing the same water over and over again to cool the chips. The technology itself will become a determinant of sustainability.
All the big tech companies are working to make these models smaller and more efficient. Eventually, they’re going to want to have many little data centers that are colocated. Do you think you’ll benefit from that?
We believe the inference target addressable market, combined with the network, is about $250 billion outside of what the clouds are doing. By 2029, the inference opportunity will be twice the size of training. And that’s why we’re setting ourselves up for this opportunity.
You can think about training as a centralized AI emotion whereas inference is very much a distributed emotion. It will initiate on a device or maybe through voice, or glass, 0r whatever the device is. And it will probably have an agent conduct its orchestra, in terms of instructing other agents to get data from more than one location. That’s why we’ve been very selective about where we built.
You came to this job from Google almost a year and a half ago. Where are you now versus what you were thinking when you came in?
I would say on a journey, not at the destination but heading in the right direction. I’m confident that we have such a unique combination of characteristics—the metro locations, the connectivity, the secret sauce—that we’re ready for prime time. I’m working through the dynamics of some of the negative feelings around data centers. The challenge around energy has been very real in Europe, in particular. There are countries that have just issued a moratorium on data-center builds, like Ireland, my home country, until they can kind of take a breath and understand whether they can do. These problems are absolutely addressable. They’re absolutely surmountable. It’s a time-based issue that’s going to require collaboration and innovation to solve.
What about the regulatory environment? That’s been in flux.
There is a lot of noise on a variety of topics. I’m just working to control the controllable, and carry on the path that we believe for us is the right path. For example, Equinix has some goals around our sustainability narrative. By 2030, we set a goal for ourselves that we would be neutral as it relates to the use of carbon. We’re still on that track. And we’ve set a science-based goal for 2040 to be net zero and we will continue to innovate and work to do that.
It’s not just that we believe there is an opportunity for technology and innovation to exist with good environmental stewardship. Our customers are continuing to ask us for reports on how their usage at Equinix is impacting things that we may be measure.
There’s a lot of what about AI. What will it do? But there’s a where about AI. And we’re like the where of AI. There are physical cables, even under the ocean, and cable trays and billions of wires. If you’re in California, you get to see the history of data centers. The internet will literally be above your head. We have three decades of data center history, from our very first one to our latest one. I never thought I would come into a company where we have 56 active construction projects all around the world.
U.S. stock futures dropped late Monday after global equities sold off as President Donald Trump launches a trade war against NATO allies over his Greenland ambitions.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average sank 401 points, or 0.81%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.91%, and Nasdaq futures sank 1.13%.
Markets in the U.S. were closed in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. Earlier, the dollar dropped as the safe haven status of U.S. assets was in doubt, while stocks in Europe and Asia largely retreated.
On Saturday, Trump said Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland will be hit with a 10% tariff starting on Feb. 1 that will rise to 25% on June 1, until a “Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”
The announcement came after those countries sent troops to Greenland last week, ostensibly for training purposes, at the request of Denmark. But late Sunday, a message from Trump to European officials emerged that linked his insistence on taking over Greenland to his failure to be award the Nobel Peace Prize.
The geopolitical impact of Trump’s new tariffs against Europe could jeopardize the trans-Atlantic alliance and threaten Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
But Wall Street analysts were more optimistic on the near-term risk to financial markets, seeing Trump’s move as a negotiating tactic meant to extract concessions.
Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, described the gambit as “escalate to de-escalate” and pointed out that the timing of his tariff announcement ahead of his appearance at the Davos World Economic Forum this week is likely not a coincidence.
“I’ll leave others to question the merits of that approach, and potential longer-run geopolitical fallout from it, but for markets such a scenario likely means some near-term choppiness as headline noise becomes deafening, before a relief rally in due course when another ‘TACO’ moment arrives,” he said in a note on Monday, referring to the “Trump always chickens out” trade.
Similarly, Jonas Goltermann, deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics, also said “cooler heads will prevail” and downplayed the odds that markets are headed for a repeat of last year’s tariff chaos.
In a note Monday, he said investors have learned to be skeptical about all of Trump’s threats, adding that the U.S. economy remains healthy and markets retain key risk buffers.
“Given their deep economic and financial ties, both the US and Europe have the ability to impose significant pain on each other, but only at great cost to themselves,” Goltermann added. “As such, the more likely outcome, in our view, is that both sides recognize that a major escalation would be a lose-lose proposition, and that compromise eventually prevails. That would be in line with the pattern around most previous Trump-driven diplomatic dramas.”
Ahead of the World Economic Forum‘s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Fortune connected with Goldman Sachs’ global co-head of investment banking, Kim Posnett, for her outlook on the most urgent issues in business as 2026 gathers steam.
A FortuneMost Powerful Woman, Posnett is one of the bank’s top dealmakers, also serving as vice chair of the Firmwide Client Franchise Committee and is a member of the Management Committee. She was previously the global head of the Technology, Media and Telecommunications, among several other executive roles, including Head of Investment Banking Services and OneGS. She talked to Fortune about how she sees the current business environment and the most significant developments in 2026, in terms of AI, the IPO market and M&A activity. Goldman has been the No. 1 M&A advisory globally for the last 20 years, including in 2025 — and Posnett has been one of the star contributors, advising companies including Amazon, Uber, eBay, Etsy, and X.
Heading into Davos, how would you describe the current environment?
As the global business community converges at Davos, we are seeing powerful catalysts driving M&A and capital markets activity. The foundational drivers that accelerated business activity in the second half of 2025 have continued to improve and remain strong heading into 2026. A constructive macro backdrop — including AI serving as a growth catalyst across sectors and geographies — is fueling CEO and board confidence, and our clients are looking to drive strategic and financing activity focused on scale, growth and innovation. As AI moves from theoretical catalyst to an industrial driver, it is creating a new set of priorities for the boardroom that are top of mind for every client we serve heading into 2026.
What were the most significant AI developments in 2025, and what should we expect in 2026?
2025 was a breakout year for AI where we exited the era of AI experimentation and entered the era of AI industrialization. We witnessed major technical and structural breakthroughs across models, agents, infrastructure and governance. It was only a year ago, in January 2025, when DeepSeek launched its DeepSeek-R1 reasoning model challenging the “moats” of closed-source models by proving that world-class reasoning could be achieved with fully open-source models and radical cost efficiency. That same month, Stargate – a historic $500 billion public-private joint venture including OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle – signaled the start of the “gigawatt era” of AI infrastructure. Just two months later in March 2025, xAI’s acquisition of X signaled a new strategy where social platforms could function as massive real-time data engines for model training. By year end, we saw massive, near-simultaneous escalation in model capabilities with the launches of OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 Pro, Google’s Gemini 3, and Anthropic’s Claude 4.5, all improving deep thinking and reasoning, pushing the boundaries of multimodality, and setting the standard for autonomous agentic workflows.
In the enterprise, the conversation has matured from “What is AI?” just a few years ago to “How fast can we deploy?” We have moved past the pilot phase into a period of deep structural transformation. For companies around the world, AI is fundamentally reshaping how work gets done. AI is no longer just a feature; it is the foundation of a new kind of productivity and operating leverage. Forward-leaning companies are no longer just using AI for automation; they are building agentic workflows that act as a force multiplier for their most valuable asset: human capital. We are starting to see the first real, measurable returns on investment as firms move from ‘AI-assisted’ tasks to ‘AI-led’ processes, fundamentally shifting the cost and speed of execution across organizations.
Of course, all this progress is not without regulatory and policy complexities. As AI reaches consumer, enterprise and sovereign scale, we are seeing a divergence in global policy that boards must navigate with care. In the United States, recent Executive Orders — such as the January 2025 ‘Removing Barriers’ order and the subsequent ‘Genesis Mission’ — have signaled a decisive shift toward prioritizing American AI dominance by rolling back prior reporting requirements and accelerating infrastructure buildouts. Contrast this with the European Union, where the EU AI Act is now in full effect, imposing strict guardrails on ‘high-risk’ systems and general-purpose models. Meanwhile, the UK has adopted a “pro-innovation” hybrid model: on the one hand, promoting “safety as a service”, while also investing billions into national compute and ‘AI Growth Zones’ to bridge the gap between innovation and public trust. For our clients, the challenge is no longer just regulatory compliance; it is strategic planning and arbitrage – deciding where to build, where to deploy, who to partner with, what to buy and how to maintain a global edge across a fragmented regulatory landscape.
As we enter 2026, the pace of innovation isn’t just accelerating; it is forcing a total rethink of business processes and capital allocation for every global enterprise.
Given the expectation and anticipation for IPOs this year, what is your outlook for the market and how will it be characterized?
We are entering an IPO “mega-cycle” that we expect will be defined by unprecedented deal volume and IPO sizes. Unlike the dot-com wave of the late 1990s, which saw hundreds of small-cap listings, or even the 2020-2021 surge driven by a significant number of billion-dollar IPOs, this next IPO cycle will have greater volume and the largest deals the market has ever seen. It will be characterized by the public debut of institutionally mature titans, as well as totally disruptive, fast moving and capital consumptive innovators. Over the last decade, some companies have stayed private longer and raised unprecedented amounts of private capital, allowing a cohort of businesses to reach valuations and operational scale previously unseen in the private markets. We are no longer talking about “unicorns” — we are talking about global companies with the gravity and scale of Fortune 500 incumbents at the time they go public. For investors, the reopening of the IPO window will enable an opportunity to invest in the most transformative and fastest growing companies in the world and a generational re-weighting of the public indices.
In 2018, the five largest public tech companies were collectively valued at $3.3 trillion, led by Apple at ~$1 trillion. Today, the five largest public tech companies are valued at $18.3 trillion, more than five and half times larger. Even more significant, the 10 largest private tech companies in 2018 were valued at $300 billion. Today, the 10 largest private tech companies are valued at $3 trillion, more than 10 times larger. These are iconic, generational companies with unprecedented private market caps some of which have unprecedented capital needs which should lead to an unprecedented IPO market.
Each of these companies will have their own objectives on IPO timing, size and structure which will influence if, how and when they come to the market, but the potential across the board is significant. During the last IPO wave, Goldman Sachs was at the center of IPO innovation by leading the first direct listings and auction IPOs, and we expect more innovation with this upcoming wave. The current confluence of a constructive macro backdrop and groundbreaking technological advancements is doing more than just reopening the window; it is creating a generational opportunity for investors to participate in the companies that will define the next century of global business.
M&A activity exploded in 2025, are the markers there for another boom year?
As we enter 2026, the global M&A market has transitioned from a year of recovery ($5.1 trillion of M&A volume in 2025, up 44% YoY) to one that is bold and strategic. While the second half of 2025 was defined by a “thawing” — driven by a constructive regulatory environment, fed easing cycle and normalizing valuations — the year ahead will be defined by ambition.
We have entered an era of broad, bold and ambitious strategic dealmaking: transformative, high-conviction transactions where industry leaders are no longer just consolidating for scale, but also moving aggressively to acquire the strategic assets, AI capabilities and digital infrastructure that will define the next decade. CEO and board confidence have reached a multi-year high, underpinned by the realization that in an AI-industrialized economy, standing still is the greatest risk of all. The quality and pace of strategic discussions that we are having with our clients signals that the world’s most influential companies — across sectors and regions — are ready to deploy their balance sheets and public currencies to redraw the competitive map.
AI is no longer an isolated tech trend; it is a horizontal disrupter, broadening the appetite for strategic M&A across every sector of the economy. While the dialogue in boardrooms has moved from theoretical ‘AI pilots’ to large-scale capital deployment, the speed of technology is currently outpacing traditional governance frameworks. Boards and management teams are being asked to make multi-billion dollar, high-stakes decisions in a landscape where historical benchmarks often no longer apply. In this environment, M&A has become a tool for strategic leapfrogging — allowing companies to move both defensively to protect their core and offensively to secure the critical infrastructure and talent needed for non-linear growth. Success in 2026 will be defined by strategic conviction: the ability to turn this unprecedented complexity into a clear, actionable strategy and competitive advantage.
As AI continues to reshape corporate M&A strategy, we are also seeing financial sponsors return to the center of the M&A stage. Sponsor M&A activity accelerated sharply in 2025 — with M&A volumes surging over 50% as the bid-ask spread between buyers and sellers started to narrow, financing markets became more constructive and innovative deal structures enabled private equity firms to pursue larger, more complex transactions. With $1 trillion of global sponsor dry powder and over $4 trillion of unmonetized sponsor portfolio companies, the pressure for capital return to LPs has continued to escalate. Financial sponsors are entering 2026 with a dual-focus: executing take-privates and strategic carveouts to deploy fresh capital, while simultaneously utilizing reopened monetization paths – from IPOs to secondary sales to strategic sales — to satisfy demand for liquidity. With monetization paths reopening and valuation gaps narrowing, sponsors are entering 2026 with greater flexibility, reinforced by a healthier macroeconomic backdrop and improving liquidity conditions.
This Q&A is based on an email conversation with Kim Posnett. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.
Taking a career leap can be daunting, but all professionals inevitably have to face the music; most will change jobs or industries at some point, whether they want to or not. But for U.S. veterans exiting service and heading into civilian life, the transition has been especially difficult—and it’s an issue that’s intensifying their unemployment. That’s why financial services titan USAA is putting its money where its mouth is with a $500 million initiative to get members back on their feet.
“What we created here since I took over as CEO is a completely revamped way of hiring our veterans and military spouses,” the company’s CEO, Juan C. Andrade, tells Fortune. “This is not just for the benefit of USAA—this is for the benefit of the military community.”
USAA launched its “Honor Through Action” program in 2025, committing half a billion dollars over the next five years to improve the careers, financial security, and well-being of its customers—many of whom are active military, veterans, or related to them. It’s the brainchild of Andrade, who stepped into the company’s top role in April last year. As someone who also left a longstanding career in the federal government, he understands the growing pains that come with an intimidating career pivot. And for thousands of USAA members, the situation is dire.
Around half of veterans ditch their initial post-military jobs within the first year, according to the Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program, and USAA’s CEO believes a lack of thoughtful transition services is largely to blame. When colonels, generals, and sergeants leave behind their high-powered jobs, Andrade says some struggle to adapt both emotionally and skills-wise.
While businesses are required to re-employ former employees who return from military duty per U.S. federal law, those stepping into civilian roles for the first time often need a helping hand. And even before they exit the military, the careers of their partners tend to suffer.
The jobless rate of military spouses has hovered around 22% over the past decade, according to Hiring Our Heroes. That’s more than four times higher than the 4.6% nationwide unemployment rate. When their partners need to relocate for a new duty assignment, spouses are 136% more likely to be unemployed within six months, according to a 2024 Defense Department survey.
This trend of low job retention among veterans and spouse joblessness can be detrimental to the financial and professional livelihoods of American military families. So Andrade is leading the charge to get them on payroll. Corporations like JPMorgan have ramped up ex-military resources, and services like Armed Forces YMCA have long been assisting veterans; But USAA’s CEO says the issue needs a more targeted approach.
“While there’s a lot of organizations that are very well-meaning and do some very good work, the approach has been fragmented,” Andrade explains. “The problem with private sector companies is [if they] have not had that experience of service, or if they don’t have a large population of employees that serve, it’s very difficult to understand the fact that they’ve lost their tribe. The fact that, in a lot of ways, they’ve lost their sense of belonging to something greater than self.”
USAA’s $500 million plan and new fellowship pathways
USAA already has several veteran employment initiatives on the docket this year. This March, the company tells Fortune it will host a nationwide U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation program, Hiring our Heroes, in San Antonio to connect on the issue. And in the coming months, USAA will host events with nonprofit and HR association SHRM to brainstorm the best ways to improve military hiring in the U.S.
In stride with Honor Through Action, USAA also launched two 18-month fellowship programs designed to transition military personnel into full-time company positions: Summit and Signal. In three six-month rotations, participants cycle through different parts of the financial services giant to find the best fit. The future leadership track, Summit, rotates fellows through departments including business strategy, operational planning, and product ownership. Starting anew can be isolating, so USAA is ensuring that military personnel are not walking these career paths alone—veterans are connected to mentors every step of the way.
“Those 18 months are incredibly important, because it goes to show you: What is it that you can do? How does a private company actually work? What is it that you do on a daily basis?” Andrade says. “They get one-on-one mentorship and support every step of the way with people that have already walked in their shoes and been successful, so all of that helps.”
And just like what other companies are looking for in white-collar talent, USAA places a special emphasis on AI-savvy workers. That’s where the Signal fellowship comes into play: the pathway targets applicants with tech know-how, cycling them between assignments including technical solutions and data processing. The CEO notes that the military community is teeming with tech skills, and some already come with prior training from U.S. Cyber Command roles. Aside from getting ex-military members back into work, Signal is also proving to be extremely beneficial for the business itself.
“We’re always looking for people who have the expertise and skill sets in data science or data engineering,” Andrade continues. “As they retire from the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, we bring them into a specialized program focused on their skills and how they can help us from technology experience.”
Serving an overlooked population: veteran spouses struggling with joblessness
Even when they’re not deployed, U.S. military personnel are battling wars at home—depression, financial insecurity, and homelessness. But one group is often ignored in the fight: their spouses. The husbands and wives of military personnel face sky-high unemployment rates and long-term instability due to the nature of their partners’ jobs. But Andrade recognizes them as an overlooked and underutilized pool of professionals.
“Military spouses are an incredible source of talent—they’re literally the CFO and the CEO of their home,” USAA’s CEO says. “When their spouses are deployed, when there’s a permanent change of station for their spouse, they have to leave their job. And if they don’t have that flexibility, then you know that’s why the unemployment rate is so high.”
USAA is funneling its resources to get to the root of the issue; as part of the Honor Through Action initiative, the company tells Fortune it will host Military Spouse Advisory Councils in San Antonio this March. The mission is to help shape policy, programs, and resources to better serve the unique needs of military families. That same month, the business also plans to work with other organizations in funding Blue Star Families’ release of Military Spouse Employment Research with the aim of pinpointing actionable solutions to their raging unemployment. And reflecting internally, Andrade reports that USAA will continue to lead by example.
“We can offer a lot of flexibility… Having that level of empathy and understanding becomes very critical,” he says. “This is where we hope—with Honor Through Action—to be able to help companies understand the value that [military spouses] have, but also why you need to treat them a little bit differently given their personal situation.”
Politics8 years ago