As a play on the word “genesis”, the company’s brand evokes beginnings and new life, but for chief sustainability officer (CSO) Bridgette McAdoo, arriving at Genesys was founded in a series of roles and achievements, delivering broad and deep knowledge and experience.
McAdoo started as an engineer at Nasa before moving into sustainability via pivotal roles at Yum! Brands and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund). She joined Genesys in 2020.
With her engineering degree supplemented by a master’s in business administration (MBA) from the Drucker School of Management, she understands challenges and devises solutions from practical, empirical, science-based and business perspectives.
At Genesys, she has worked on integrating sustainability into business key performance indicators (KPIs) with transparency and measurable outcomes, embedding sustainability into innovation and operations. Indeed, McAdoo emphasises an evolution towards formalised strategies and concrete practice since 2008.
“Back then, they had constraints, where people did not feel it was a business imperative. You didn’t understand how to move the needle, versus today we have established what we think ‘good’ looks like, what the need is, and why it’s such a value driver,” she tells Computer Weekly.
“And the unfortunate reality is now you’re facing a different battle of how to work with the inconsistencies across different regions on the importance of this space,” she says. “There’s so much misinformation now around sustainability.”
By the time McAdoo was finishing her MBA in 2010, she had been working as a contractor at Nasa for almost 10 years. That had included “good core engineering work” on the space programme for different companies, including Hamilton engineering and aerospace firms Sundstrand and United Technologies. The latter is now merged with Raytheon.
“Once I was taking my MBA classes, I really got into social responsibility and principles from Peter Drucker,” she says.
A 20th-century academic, Drucker became known for a human-oriented approach to organisational thinking and management science.
“I fell in love with this idea that my work could be my legacy, working to benefit society,” McAdoo confirms.
A taste of the supply chain
After a chance meeting for the National Black MBA Association at a conference, Yum! Brands’ then chief sustainability officer put to McAdoo that her specific background was valuable.
“He wanted me to come in and focus on the supply chain and the ops part of sustainability for them globally. So that’s what I did,” she says.
PepsiCo spin-off Yum! includes fast food giants KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. McAdoo was tasked with looking at ways to ensure the company examined the sourcing for its products, including how foodstuffs were grown. In addition, she had a focus on external relations on sustainability issues.
“I got into social responsibility and principles from Peter Drucker. I fell in love with this idea that my work could be my legacy, working to benefit society”
Bridgette McAdoo, Genesys
McAdoo “kind of fell in love” with the topic. One partner was the WWF, so she followed that up with the non-profit role at WWF eight years later.
“They were such a strong partner,” she says. “I loved working with WWF on that intersection between the food and water organisations. So all the restaurants, hotels, anything you can think of that has a large supply chain and food and water code, Pepsi had worked with them.”
The mission was partly to help WWF counter the fact that a lot of the time, while conservation organisations want conversations and want to work with businesses, they’re deep into the science – as they should be – it can come across to profit-driven entities as impractical, she explains.
Of course, science done right is not based on flights of fancy. It can be the most practical thing ever.
But McAdoo points out that sometimes science-based organisations, perhaps especially non-profits, can include stakeholders who have never been in a business environment. There’s not a shared language to have productive conversations about how to drive practical changes or integrate them into a business.
That can end up being seen as a utopian perspective with little reference to the day-by-day realities of earning revenues and staying sustainable in the business sense.
“That’s where the disconnect happens,” she says. “So you still have to show that there’s a business case behind it. Most companies want to do the right thing, but they also have to make a profit. You have to show them that you can do both. And that’s the power of the sustainability role.”
Onwards and upwards
Moving to Genesys in late 2020 realised a new opportunity for McAdoo to progress her mission.
You have to show that there’s a business case behind [sustainability]. Most companies want to do the right thing, but they also have to make a profit. You have to show them that you can do both. And that’s the power of the sustainability role Bridgette McAdoo, Genesys
“It’s been an absolutely beautiful ride. Night and day, people ask how you go from space shuttles to tacos and pizzas, to ‘being a panda’ (referencing the WWF logo), and into the AI [artificial intelligence] space and tech, and I always tell them it’s very intentional,” she says.
Regardless of product or sector, the overarching goals have been about ensuring knowledge and applying it. Organisations must have proper protocols and processes in place to scale responsibly. At the same time, they need to understand how employees can have a place where they feel seen and belong, while ensuring societal impacts do not hinder or harm the workplace or its growth.
“That’s the same, regardless. I’m just blessed that I get to do it at Genesys, a company 100% committed to it, top down and bottom up,” says McAdoo.
Every month or year, there’s something new to talk about when it comes to sustainability. At the same time, the role reinforces her “unwavering commitment to the work” of leaving society better than she found it.
McAdoo emphasises the need for transparency coupled with good, accurate, appropriate data, especially throughout the supply chain. For years, obtaining reliable data and information on which to base sustainability decisions, that don’t also harm a business in a two steps forward, three steps back kind of way, has been challenging. Only now is sustainability coming to the fore for many, if not all, businesses, partly as a result of CSO efforts.
It’s harder than it might sound. It’s about getting everyone to make sure they are being transparent and that the necessary supply chain information is available. It includes doing all diligence around developing and implementing guidelines that facilitate information sharing that ultimately feeds sustainability initiatives and environment, social and governance (ESG) audits.
“For any organisation, supply chain data is always going to be the hardest part, getting that transparency for your ecosystem,” says McAdoo.
Genesys has been reporting on its related strategy and measurable outcomes for almost five years now, showing “progress and momentum year on year”. That includes emissions reduction, growth in volunteerism, sustainable scalability, and sustainable design implementation and practices. This, too, has been quite intentional – it doesn’t occur by accident, she emphasises.
“We’ve integrated sustainability into our business KPIs. It’s become just an organic extension of how we work and how we grow. And it’s a passion for me whenever I get to merge my personal and professional values because of Genesys,” she says. “Because sustainability hasn’t just been an add-on. We’re not checking boxes.”
Sustaining the energy
McAdoo also says that, despite the politics of the past nine months or so – especially, as a casual observer might note, in the US – “the energy was already there” and has been sustained. The task of embedding and sustaining better policy and practice, setting goals and reporting on those goals continues. It was already embedded into how Genesys innovates and how it operates and grows.
We’ve integrated sustainability into our business KPIs. It’s become just an organic extension of how we work and how we grow Bridgette McAdoo, Genesys
Its sustainable supply chain initiatives continue, therefore, including the implementation of strategies to tackle Scope 3 emissions and green events and internal emissions management. The work of implementing and enhancing procurement guidelines in line with ESG audits, overseen by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified offices across the globe, also continues. Three new such offices have opened in the past year – in Budapest, Riyadh and Manila.
McAdoo adds that it also means thinking seriously about AI, working with the engineering and product teams on sustainable AI by design, to avoid wasting energy, including in the cloud.
“There’s a multi-layered approach. Different things that happen across our business and across our ecosystem to ensure that we continue to reduce our emissions,” she says. “Every decision we make is measured, not just by our business outcomes, but also the impact that’s going to have, with the future in mind.”
Regional differences in applicability remain, of course, not least with respect to inconsistent or patchy regulatory frameworks. Politics does and will likely always influence reporting requirements, including around climate and the environment.
McAdoo agrees that regions and governments could work together better sometimes, accelerating emissions reduction and sustainability. But that doesn’t mean companies are taking their eyes off the ball or expect to relax their commitments. Apart from anything else, sustainability remains a differentiator for Genesys, not least because that matters to customers.
There’s often a “very precarious balance” to strike, especially for global entities that must meet the needs of customers worldwide. And there have been headwinds. Rollbacks and dilutions thus far include anticipated US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) climate rules and European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) guidelines, she notes.
“I think that’s what people were hoping was going to happen with the CSRD, and then that got rolled back with all the political changes around climate reporting and just climate in general, whether it’s in the US or the UK,” says McAdoo. “But we’re going to continue to do the work.”
ISC2, the non-profit cyber professional membership association, has joined the UK government’s recently launched Software Security Ambassador Scheme as an expert adviser.
Set up at the beginning of the year by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the scheme forms part of a wider £210m commitment by Westminster to remodel approaches to public sector cyber resilience from the ground up, acknowledging that previous approaches to the issue have basically gone nowhere and that previously set targets for resilience are unachievable.
It is designed to incentivise organisations to pay more attention to the security of software products, and supports the wider adoption of the Software Security Code of Practice, a set of voluntary principles defining what secure software looks like.
ISC2 joins a number of tech suppliers, including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and Sage; consultancies and service providers including Accenture and NCC Group; and financial services firms including Lloyds Banking Group and Santander. Fellow cyber association ISACA is also involved.
“Promoting secure software practices that strengthen the resilience of systems underpinning the economy, public services and national infrastructure is central to ISC2’s mission,” said ISC2’s executive vice-president for advocacy and strategic engagement, Tara Wisniewski.
“The code moves software security beyond narrow compliance and elevates it to a board-level resilience priority. As supply chain attacks continue to grow in scale and impact, a shared baseline is essential and through our global community and expertise, ISC2 is committed to helping professionals build the skills needed to put secure-by-design principles into practice,” she said.
Software vulns a huge barrier to resilience
A study of wider supply chain risks conducted last year by ISC2 found that a little over half of organisations worldwide reported that vulnerabilities in their software suppliers’ products represented the most disruptive cyber security threat to their overall supply chain.
And the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) Global Cybersecurity Outlook report, published on 12 January, revealed that third-party and supply chain vulnerabilities were seen as a huge barrier to building cyber resilience by C-suite executives.
A total of 65% of respondents to the WEF’s annual poll flagged such flaws as the greatest challenge their organisation faced on its pathway to resilience, compared to 54% at the beginning of 2025. This outpaced factors such as the evolving threat landscape and emerging AI technology, use of legacy IT systems, regulatory compliance and governance, and cyber skills shortages.
Pressed on the top supply chain cyber risks, respondents were most concerned about their ability to assure the integrity of software and other IT services, ahead of a lack of visibility into their supplier’s supply chains and overdependence on critical third-party suppliers.
The UK’s Code of Practice seeks to answer this challenge by establishing expectations and best practices for tech providers and any other organisations that either develop, sell or buy software products. It covers aspects such as secure design and development, the security of build environments, deployment and ongoing upkeep, and transparent communication with customers and users.
As part of its role as an ambassador, ISC2 will assist in developing and improving the Code of Practice, while championing it by embedding its guiding principles into its own cyber education and professional development services – the organisation boasts 10,000 UK members and associates.
It will also help to drive adoption of the Code of Practice through various awareness campaigns, incorporating it into its certifications, training and guidance, engaging with industry stakeholders and members to encourage implementation, and incorporating its provisions into its work with its own commercial suppliers.
The wheel on the left side has options to adjust actuation distance, rapid-trigger sensitivity, and RGB brightness. You can also adjust volume and media playback, and turn it into a scroll wheel. The LED matrix below it is designed to display adjustments to actuation distance but feels a bit awkward: Each 0.1 mm of adjustment fills its own bar, and it only uses the bottom nine bars, so the screen will roll over four times when adjusting (the top three bars, with dots next to them, illuminate to show how many times the screen has rolled over during the adjustment). The saving grace of this is that, when adjusting the actuation distance, you can press down any switch to see a visualization of how far you’re pressing it, then tweak the actuation distance to match.
Alongside all of this, the Falcata (and, by extension, the Falchion) now has an aftermarket switch option: TTC Gold magnetic switches. While this is still only two switches, it’s an improvement over the singular switch option of most Hall effect keyboards.
Split Apart
Photograph: Henri Robbins
The internal assembly of this keyboard is straightforward yet interesting. Instead of a standard tray mount, where the PCB and plate bolt directly into the bottom half of the shell, the Falcata is more comparable to a bottom-mount. The PCB screws into the plate from underneath, and the plate is screwed onto the bottom half of the case along the edges. While the difference between the two mounting methods is minimal, it does improve typing experience by eliminating the “dead zones” caused by a post in the middle of the keyboard, along with slightly isolating typing from the case (which creates fewer vibrations when typing).
The top and bottom halves can easily be split apart by removing the screws on the plate (no breakable plastic clips here!), but on the left half, four cables connect the top and bottom halves of the keyboard, all of which need to be disconnected before fully separating the two sections. Once this is done, the internal silicone sound-dampening can easily be removed. The foam dampening, however, was adhered strongly enough that removing it left chunks of foam stuck to the PCB, making it impossible to readhere without using new adhesive. This wasn’t a huge issue, since the foam could simply be placed into the keyboard, but it is still frustrating to see when most manufacturers have figured this out.
Don’t call them hearing aids. They’re hearpieces, intended as a blurring of the lines between hearing aid and earbuds—or “earpieces” in the parlance of Lizn, a Danish operation.
The company was founded in 2015, and it haltingly developed its launch product through the 2010s, only to scrap it in 2020 when, according to Lizn’s history page, the hearing aid/earbud combo idea didn’t work out. But the company is seemingly nothing if not persistent, and four years later, a new Lizn was born. The revamped Hearpieces finally made it to US shores in the last couple of weeks.
Half Domes
Photograph: Chris Null
Lizn Hearpieces are the company’s only product, and their inspiration from the pro audio world is instantly palpable. Out of the box, these look nothing like any other hearing aids on the market, with a bulbous design that, while self-contained within the ear, is far from unobtrusive—particularly if you opt for the graphite or ruby red color scheme. (I received the relatively innocuous sand-hued devices.)
At 4.58 grams per bud, they’re as heavy as they look; within the in-the-ear space, few other models are more weighty, including the Kingwell Melodia and Apple AirPods Pro 3. The units come with four sets of ear tips in different sizes; the default mediums worked well for me.
The bigger issue isn’t how the tip of the device fits into your ear, though; it’s how the rest of the unit does. Lizn Hearpieces need to be delicately twisted into the ear canal so that one edge of the unit fits snugly behind the tragus, filling the concha. My ears may be tighter than others, but I found this no easy feat, as the device is so large that I really had to work at it to wedge it into place. As you might have guessed, over time, this became rather painful, especially because the unit has no hardware controls. All functions are performed by various combinations of taps on the outside of either of the Hearpieces, and the more I smacked the side of my head, the more uncomfortable things got.
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