By Cathie Ericson
Lucy Sanders’, founder of NCWIT, interest in STEM fields started early. Her father was an early adopter, and her high school math teacher encouraged her by teaching her computer programming skills. Then she saw that her sister, who had earned one of the early computer science degrees, was enjoying enormous success and decided that was the path for her.
By Melissa Anderson
Last week, Deutsche Bank held its 20th annual Women on Wall Street Conference in New York City, placing an emphasis on the benefits of collaboration. In his opening talk, Deutsche Bank’s co-CEO Jürgen Fitschen suggested that by cultivating more female leaders, the financial industry could work to prevent the next financial crisis.
“I have not the slightest doubt that if we let people do this… we will not commit the same stupid mistakes,” he said. He called on men to become more engaged in efforts toward gender equality, although, he continued, it will take some outreach by women in the industry.
Guest Contribution by Anna Carroll, MSSW
Are you sometimes confused about whether your boss thinks you are doing a good job?
Does your male boss treat you politely, but you notice he doesn’t communicate with you often?
Are you puzzled about what it takes to be promoted in your organization?
By Robin Madell
One of the toughest career decisions you’ll ever make is choosing whether to stay with your current company, or pursue a new opportunity with another organization. While on some level it’s important to “go with your gut,” you don’t want to hinge your future job direction entirely on intuition.
Welcome to The Glass Hammer’s “Women in Tech” month! We will be celebrating successful women in technology all month long!
Doris Daif, Head of Digital Customer Experience at American Express, offers one important piece of advice for women. “Confidence and poise are two of your greatest assets,” she said. “When you possess these qualities, you will be able to articulate your point of view and make your voice heard.”
“You have to go through your own journeys in life to see what lies on the other side,” added Daif, “but if there is one thing I wish I knew earlier in my career, it would be how confidence is such a valuable career tool.”
By Cathie Ericson
The news has been astounding: People are face palming over the fact that only 15% of the tech employees at Facebook are women.
And they are atwitter that it’s even slightly worse over at Twitter – only 10% of the tech employees are women.
But while people immediately tend to fault the company’s hiring practices, Karen Catlin, a former vice president at Adobe Systems who currently works to develop women leaders in the tech industry, maintains that the companies aren’t necessarily doing a poor job hiring women; they’re just not finding the candidates they need. And then, even when women are hired, they tend to leave the company earlier than men.
Katrina Roberts never envisioned herself having a career in IT, but now, after joining American Express over twenty years ago, she could never imagine herself anywhere else. Originally, Roberts planned on entering the hospitality business as a hotel manager, but after gaining some hands on experience in the industry while she was still a student, Roberts determined that was not the perfect career fit for her.
Although Roberts was still unsure of her exact career trajectory leaving college, she knew that she had a strong interest in travel and tourism. With some encouragement from her father, a Kodak employee, Roberts applied to work at American Express.
Guest Contribution by Yesi Morillo-Gual
Happiness is sought and deserved by everyone, yet many don’t know how define it or if they truly deserve it. Considered “an elusive and evanescent thing”, according to a New York Times article published in December 2013, happiness is something we work against by behaving in ways that deplete us. Our belief of happiness is also dictated by society’s definition and expectations of what we should be, and have. Often associated with titles, money and material possessions, happiness easily becomes a checklist – a series of “to do’s” that should be result in total bliss.
By Michele Drayton
As the fall season begins, it’s a good time to check the progress of how countries are faring in removing the hurdles that hamper women entrepreneurs from reaching their full potential.
Look no further than the 2014 Gender-Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (Gender-GEDI) funded by Dell. This one-of-a kind global study identified and analyzed factors that influence whether a woman’s business stays small to middling or expands into a powerhouse. That is, it becomes an integral part of a region’s economic fabric, creating well-paying jobs, sought-after products and cross-border trade opportunities.
For this second annual release of the GEDI, researchers studied 30 countries, up from last year’s 17, with respect to factors such as business climate, access to education, capital financing, and cultural attitudes toward women in leadership.
The Gender-GEDI showed that even the highest scorers could do better and like any good progress report, identifies strengths and weaknesses that government officials, policy makers and the private sector can utilize to help women entrepreneurs reach substantial scale.
The Grades
At the top of the class, based on a rating scale of 0 to 100, were the U.S. with a score of 83; Australia (80); and Sweden (73). The next highest-scoring countries, France and Germany, were tied at 67. The United Kingdom, Chile and Poland scored above 50.
Seventy-three percent or 22 of the 30 countries surveyed ranked below 50, and the lowest scorers included Uganda and Bangladesh, where women’s access to education and basic legal protections remain elusive.
Importantly, the GEDI emphasizes that even the countries ranked at the top of the scale can learn from countries with lower scores, underlining the fact that no country has arrived at the appropriate formula that multiplies high-growth, women-led businesses.
The Impact
Marsha Firestone, Ph.D., founder and president of the Women Presidents’ Organization offers evidence of the impact of such high-growth, women-led businesses. WPO members run multi-million-dollar enterprises and those attaining the highest membership-tier levels run businesses generating at least $10 million in revenues or up to $50 million in revenues.
Firestone appreciates that the Gender-GEDI study offers a framework for this level of success. She recalls a time when the phrase “women’s business” connoted very small organizations. No more. The WPO issues its own annual list of global entrepreneurial stars, the “50 Fastest-Growing Women-Owned/Led Companies,” and those winners generated $4.9 billion in combined 2013 revenues and altogether employed 22,000 people.
“This study is very important because it clearly indicates that there are women who are succeeding who are not a small business, a young business or a microbusiness,” Firestone said. “Women are starting and growing substantial companies. We are seeing very substantial businesses grow and develop — and they are making an impact on the economy.”
Overcoming Barriers
How much more of an economic impact they could make with fewer barriers concerns Geri Stengel, author of Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One. Her book uses the Gender-GEDI as a foundation to study the experiences of 10 women helming thriving businesses.
Welcome to The Glass Hammer’s “Women in Tech” month! We will be celebrating successful women in technology all month long!
“Embrace the fact that you might be different and have a different way of approaching things,” said Emmanuelle Rivet, Partner at PwC US. “Focus instead on what drives you and find your internal purpose,” she continued.
This is just one key piece of advice that Rivet offered to young women starting out in their career, and it is something that helped her immensely when she was making an important transition in her own career; transferring from PwC France to pursue opportunities within the US firm’s Silicon Valley office.