For the first time — after a decision made by UNESCO in November 2019 — the International Day of Mathematics will be celebrated on March 14, 2020. Surprisingly, until now the ‘science of the sciences’ has not had its own day of formal commemoration; and the date selected is no coincidence.

During the week leading to International Women's Day, BBVA held a series of events to celebrate the organization's advances in gender diversity. An event co-organized with the Inspiring Girls Foundation, in which a group of prominent women have shared their testimonials to inspire BBVA’s female workforce.

Diversity is a fundamental cornerstone of BBVA’s approach to people management and training. The holistic method the bank has adopted to address this topic encompasses the values of equal opportunity and inclusion. One of the initiatives to promote these values is to provide employees with the tools to help them remove barriers that hinder female talent and work-life balance. 'High Potential Women' is an example of one of the initiatives significantly contributing to this task.

As Head of Client Engagement for BBVA USA Talent & Culture, Reba Simmons plays an important role in helping the bank create opportunities for its employees. Her team of Talent & Culture Business Partners provides consultative advice to bank leaders to help recruit, retain, and develop talent, with our values central to every action taken and recommendation given. We took a moment to get her perspective as a female leader at BBVA.

If there is one thing that characterizes women’s fight for equality, it’s that it’s a global, intergenerational cause. It knows no borders, beliefs, age or race. As conduits of wealth in societies, companies play a fundamental role in the pursuit of equality and in the implementation of policies and measures that guarantee the same rights for men and women.

AVA Digital Awards recently recognized the BBVA Music Sessions for the second consecutive year, highlighting the unique concert series that features rising artists in multiple popular genres. These exclusive BBVA Music Sessions are part of the bank’s multiyear agreement with AEG to create one-of-a-kind opportunities for customers in the form of innovative events, concerts and brand activations.

The BBVA Foundation has honored Charles Bennett, Gilles Brassard, and Peter Shor with the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences for their respective roles in the development of quantum computing and cryptography.

There are more than 10,000 team members spread across BBVA USA’s footprint, each with a unique story to tell. This year, we’re introducing a new series to celebrate this rich diversity of experience: “Bringing Your Authentic Self to Work.” When we bring our authentic selves to work, we connect with others in a genuine way that allows ourselves to be truly seen and boosts our engagement, productivity, and well-being. To kick the series off, we’re celebrating Black History Month with employees’ personal stories about their heritage.

The BBVA Foundation has awarded Isabelle Guyon, Bernhard Schölkopf and Vladimir Vapnik with the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Information and Communication Technologies category, for helping advance the field of artificial intelligence with their seminal contributions to machine learning. Their work has been applied to fields as diverse as medical diagnosis, computer vision, natural language processing and the monitoring of climate change.

The financial industry has experienced a series of changes that have revolutionized the way banks engage with customers. In this evolving context, the next step is to apply this change to the way banks relate to their employees. Only the companies that manage to put their employees at the heart of their strategy will be able to attract, retain and develop the best talent. Some of our main challenges regarding Talent at BBVA involve empowering employees, diversity, and work-life balance.