Female CTOs: You Can Make a Difference

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Female executives can leverage a data driven approach to make an impact in business

Sixty-three percent of IT leaders say their IT budget is increasing, according to the 2015 Society for Information Management (SIM) IT Trends Study. More than 1,000 senior IT leaders and CIOs responded, and based on the results, one trend is clear: IT budgets are growing not only in scale, but importance as well.

diverse women in the boardroomThis equals power for executives who take data seriously enough to grasp its effect on the bottom line. Understanding a notoriously costly IT asset portfolio can influence business and budget decisions, for both IT and the entire company. For example, an organization may uncover that the human resources department uses 15 unique enterpris applications, which cost $1.3 million annually in subscriptions. What they do not see is the cost of maintenance and risk, the infrastructure it sits on, the IT support, and the human capital and headcount associated with those assets.

Imagine that a female executive leverages the company’s IT asset portfolio through data analytics to discover it can save millions by culling valueless applications. She has now played an instrumental role in bolstering the budget, and her strategy is rock solid because she has based it on numbers. In most cases, numbers do not lie. She has asserted her value to the organization and made a significant impact.

Women in technology leadership roles seem to understand IT’s impact on business. Gartner reported that in the fourth quarter of 2013, female CIOs expected to increase their IT budgets 2.5 percent in 2014, whereas male CIOs reported an average increase of 0.2 percent.

Awareness is especially critical now, as the business landscape shifts in terms of budgeting strategies. Just as a CEO would evaluate cost centers and money pits, eradicating those that don’t drive business value, CIOs need to evaluate their own operation and eliminate valueless IT assets. For example, while software represents 34 percent of enterprise technology spending, CIOs spend 55 percent of the applications budget on maintenance and support, according to Forrester Research’s most recent “State Of Enterprise Software And Emerging Trends” report.

Studies show, however, technology leaders are failing to cull wasteful applications, as leadership in other departments has a tendency to regard it as an intense and long-term effort. As a result, CIOs feel pressured to allocate talent to keep IT running rather than transform it.

But armed with numbers, a female executive could step in and make the case for more thorough asset portfolio analysis. After all, it does not matter who has the loudest voice in the room when millions of dollars are at stake. Money talks, regardless of gender.

Plus, executives who enter the data analytics fray are making a positive impact on operations in several ways. In 2011, Gartner predicted that by 2015, at least 50 percent of organizations would be “regularly assessing business value relative to application costs and risks as a part of the IT budget process.” This process would provide great value, revealing which applications were worth the expense, which they should phase out, and which IT assets would benefit from extra security precautions.

“Sadly,” Gartner writes in the latest report on the topic from 2014, “most organizations don’t have an application strategy, and, because APM (application portfolio management) is one of the poorest-scoring disciplines in our ITScore assessment, we can assume that most organizations don’t have APM, either.”

The risks that come with not having an application strategy could also spell trouble as cyber security concerns rise. Respondents to PwC’s 2015 Global Information Security Survey reported the total number of detected security incidents in 2014 exceeded 42.8 million, a 48 percent increase over 2013. Moreover, the survey found security-breach-related financial losses to be 34 percent higher than the year prior.

So this female executive would not only contribute to budget health, she would also play a role in facilitating more efficient processes and tighter cyber security.

Identifying applications and their associated business functions enterprise-wide reveal redundancies, as well as applications that do not justify the high overall costs. These valueless IT assets perpetuate the idea that IT is only “keeping the lights on,” consistently maintaining status quo projects rather than introducing new digital capabilities.

Forrester Research experts surveyed more than 3,700 IT leaders in late 2013, and respondents estimated that an average of 72 percent of the money in their budgets was being spent “keeping the lights on,” meaning supporting ongoing operations. Only 28 percent went toward spending on new projects. This is a recipe for business growth stagnation.

Identifying and removing valueless assets can help the entire organization achieve a more balanced split of innovation to maintenance. When female executives step up to the plate with a data driven approach, they can transform IT into a business driver that pushes the bottom line company-wide, and make a name for themselves in the process.

Guest Contributed by Lindsay Bather, Business Operations Manager, KillerIT

KillerIT, a division of Forsythe Technology, Inc., is a Gartner-recognized IT program and portfolio management (PPM) software suite that provides a data-driven roadmap to optimize IT and accelerate digital business. In 2014, Gartner named KillerIT both a “Cool Vendor in Program and Portfolio Management” and in the Visionaries Quadrant of its “Magic Quadrant for Integrated IT Portfolio Analysis Applications.”

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Voice Of Experience: Mary McDowell, Global Technology Executive and Independent Board Director, Nokia

Mary McDowallFor Mary McDowell, the secret to a fulfilling career is finding a work environment that works for you. “You’re going to work a lot, and work hard. Make sure you choose a career path that you are passionate about and that you’re working with people who bring out your best. You are going to spend a lot of time with them and the more you like them, the better your experience will be. Life is too short to work with jerks.”

McDowell’s entire career has been in the technology industry, where she first grew her expertise in product management, then held division president positions at global companies. Over the years, she has been able to build a lasting legacy, which is the achievement she is most proud of today — creating enduring product franchises. As an example, she cites her experience with Compaq, which she joinedright out of school, as part of the team that developed the first Intel-based servers. It subsequently grew into a multi-billion dollar business that she ran, and though the company no longer exists, the product line lives on.

For the past two years McDowell has focused on corporate board work. Currently she is involved with a UK-based exhibition and media company called UBM and two tech companies that are carving out new space: Autodesk is revolutionizing how people design great stuff and Bazaarvoice is pioneering how the voice of the consumer is heard by brands.
“Over the course of my career, the chain of how you listen to the consumer to make effective product decisions fundamentally changed,” she says. “Earlier in my career we’d watch focus groups through one-way mirrors and get these little cards that people would fill out telling us how they liked our products, and we would go through and note the salient comments. Now there are millions of points of consumer data you can use to make decisions and the bigger issue is how you distill it down to what’s important.”

She notes that her career has taken her through exciting technological changes – she began as part of the PC and mobile revolution and now she is enmeshed in the next waves of the tech revolution, which will include 3D printing, martech and the “Internet of things.” “There’s a whole new wave of advances in process and it’s exciting to be part of it,” she says.

Negotiating for Success

McDowell has seen that women need to have the confidence to advocate for themselves. Recently she was meeting with a college senior whom she’s mentoring, who was relating an exciting and lucrative job offer she had received. However, not long after accepting it, she spoke with a male colleague who had received a similar offer and negotiated it even higher. The student’s remark that the offer had been so good she hadn’t even thought to negotiate resonated with McDowell, who shares a similar story. After a merger, the human resources department had come to her with a six-figure raise that she had immediately accepted, elated. But now, she muses, “How much money did I possibly leave on the table all those years?”

McDowell sees that this mindset can start early, citing the behavior she’s seen in trick or treaters. “In my neighborhood we get lots (over a thousand!) of kids on Halloween. I’ve noticed that the girls will accept the candy politely (even if it is something they really don’t like) while boys might ask if they can have more, or a different kind.”

Career Advice that Works – Whether You Are Just Starting Out or More Seasoned

Some of the first advice McDowell received was to get to the office before the boss does and stay until they’re gone. “That sage advice is actually disastrous when you work in tech,” she says. “It’s an environment where you could work constantly, unless you prioritize your time and your life. What you deliver and how you add value to an organization are far more valuable than hours on the clock. You have to focus on what really matters and let the small stuff go.”
But she also learned lots of valuable lessons along the way, including that you have to put yourself forward and accept some of the less structured opportunitess and challenges. “Being more open to risk is very salient for women. I was fortunate to work with some great guys who guided me that waiting for your good performance to get noticed for the big promotion doesn’t work. You have to raise your hand.

McDowell mentions that when she and her peers began their careers, they were just behind the first wave of women pioneers. “They were tough because they had fought to break through some very challenging environments,” she says. “I believe that’s where the stereotype of tough women comes from, butI see less and less of this. What I see now is lots more collaboration and engaging to help other women succeed. And all that stuff your mom said about being nice to people — it’s not a quid pro quo but it does lay the right foundation for your whole career.”

Outside the Office

McDowell is an active member of the Committee of 200 (C200), a professional women’s organization that attracts the world’s most successful women entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. She initially joined the group when she lived in London and continues her collaboration today in New York, specifically enjoying the networking and the work they do reaching out to women in university and mentoring entrepreneurs.
Her husband is CEO of the National Kidney Foundation and a transplant recipient himself so she also promotes the cause whenever she can. Her other well-rounded interests including travel, reading and singing in a choir.

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Voice of Experience: Lori Fellela, Senior Director, TIAA-CREF

I’ll take it.

Lori FellelaThis simple, but powerful phrase has been the mantra of Lori Fellela, senior director at TIAA-CREF. “I’ve been fortunate throughout my career to have leaders who’ve given me feedback and the opportunity to take on more challenges, and part of that is because I have been the person who has stepped up and said ‘I’ll take it.’ It’s crucial to raise your hand and volunteer for the projects no one else wants, to get yourself outside of your comfort zone – that is how you’ll get to your next role,” says Fellela.

Fellela started her career — literally learning by doing — when at the New York Daily News, she was responsible for installing and configuring PC components. “Not only did I learn a lot about PCs, hardware and software, I also got a lot of insight into what not to do, since my manager did not hold back on providing pointed feedback,” she says.

After that, in a software development role at PepsiCo, Fellela worked with a talented management team. It was in this role that she realized software development was not the best fit — interacting with a keyboard all day drained her energy. She subsequently moved to a project management role, where she led an initiative to bring in the company’s first major database platform. She soon relocated to New England and signed on with Fidelity Investments.

Hired to provide production support for a niche piece of software, after six weeks Fellela concluded the role was not challenging enough. She walked into her manager’s office and told him the work required wasn’t a full-time job. Her manager offered her the role of managing the UNIX team – something that was outside of her general comfort zone.Recognizing her capabilities, attitude and expressed willingness to take on additional responsibility, her manager continued to offer her challenging opportunities to build her leadership skills. For example, when she learned that the firm had one year to replace an old piece of software, a project that no one else wanted to take on, she volunteered.

“That’s how you make a name for yourself, by doing something no one else wants to do. This approach has been a consistent theme for me, and something I credit for the trajectory of my career.”

The project ended up being highly successful, which cemented her importance to the team, a
cohesive group of four with whom she still stays in touch.

After 16 years at Fidelity, Fellela relocated to Charlotte to work for TIAA-CREF where she says she again has a wonderful manager who gives her plenty of leeway. “You have to show that you have confidence in your own decisions,” she says.

Technology at the Forefront

In her current role as executive infrastructure manager, Fellela has responsibility for end user technology for the firm. She is proud of the work she is doing and the team that she has built. “My bench of direct reports is very strong. They have had a huge, positive impact on how the employees of TIAA-CREF do their jobs, and ultimately service our clients.”

One aspect of the job that she is most excited about right now is the conversations that they are having about what the user experience needs to be. Concepts being discussed include how users leverage elements like social collaboration in the business place, and what physical devices they will want to use in the future. The goal is to drive flexibility in choice for the end users, while still maintaining best practices in security — which she acknowledges can be a dichotomy. “The common thread is around figuring out where our end users will want to be in a few years, and helping to get them there in a secure way.”

The Value of Networking

When TIAA-CREF wanted to launch a women’s council last year, Fellela again raised her hand to say “I’ll take it.” She came up with the out-of-the-box idea to host a “Food Truck Rodeo” event to provide information [and snacks] while getting volunteers to sign up for council activities – an event which received great reviews.

Fellela recommends that women take advantage of mentoring and networking programs not only by attending events such as the Rodeo, but also by volunteering to be part of the teams that make them happen. These opportunities offer employees the chance to raise their visibility because others can see you in action. This also helps one establish and expand on their firm-wide network. “I have made wonderful connections that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible without a reason to meet and work with these women outside of my day-to-day routine.”

She credits her current manager with helping her see the importance of developing a network. As a “master of relationships,” he gave her some wise advice: it’s important to know someone before you ask them for something or they ask you. She has since made it her mission to get out there and meet people and has seen a huge pay-off.

As a tool in the arsenal of networking, Fellela recommends people arm themselves with three questions to ask to start conversations; though she cautions that it shouldn’t be about what you need from them, but what you can do for them. However, she adds that it’s perfectly ok not to be an expert and for other people to know that. “I wish I’d had the self-confidence to ask people to explain things,” she recollects. “It’s important to learn to ask for information or help without concern for appearing weak.”

Family Ties

Outside the office, Fellela, a self-described gym enthusiast, says she loves to work out and is a weight lifting coach on the weekends. Her 22-year-old daughter has started enjoying it as well. “The whole coaching aspect is fun,” she says. “I work with a lot of women in the gym, providing technical coaching and encouragement, and I see how getting stronger really helps boost their confidence. They are all great — they just need to hear it.”

Her 26 year-old-son is a professional chef, and her daughter is finishing up her undergraduate degree in physical therapy and is planning to attend grad school. Her husband, an officer in the National Guard, is currently stationed in Kosovo.

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Mover and Shaker: Maureen Erokwu, CEO, Vosmap

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Maureen Erokwu“Anything worth having is worth fighting for,” says Maureen Erokwu, CEO of Vosmap.

“We hear success stories about career journeys, but more people need to see what the process looks like and understand that it’s going to be hard. Sometimes we give up right before it all comes together, but you have to go through the ugly stage first and resist comparing yourself to those who have already been through those phases.”

This sage advice comes from someone who created her own thriving career by focusing on her skill sets and passions.

After graduating and beginning a career in business development, Erokwu decided to take a step back and mindfully determine what impact she was going to have in the world.

She focused on developing her interest in photography, which not only showed her the importance of passion but helped her meet people who opened up a new world – as they were inviting her places to capture a moment, she determined that she could parlay her passion into a career.

“I learned that in some ways, it doesn’t matter how good you are; it’s how you market yourself and tell your story, and that’s what determines if the world will know who you are.”

Having begun her career in Florida, she returned to the livelier pace of New York and landed a contract with Google. Most people consider Google a technology company, but she discovered that with Google Maps, there’s the element of life imagery which gave her the opportunity to combine photos and technology — two things she loves — into her current role creating imagery of businesses on Google and ensuring the photos meet technical standards.

Erokwu says her success has come from three simple steps: have a vision, build the team and then constantly test and pivot if you have to. “Don’t give up when it gets hard, but use those failures as learning opportunities,” she says. “It just means you are that much closer to getting it right.”

Appreciating the Chance to Mentor and Role Model

The professional achievement she is most proud of so far — being able to monetize something she loves – is also allowing her to fulfill another one of her goals. “I am finally getting to a place where I can share my story and inspire other women to explore career paths. It’s not just about me, it’s about the people that I can impact. That’s my high,” she says.

And it stems from her early experience not having the mentors she needed, which she now realizes made her journey more frustrating than it had to be. Although she always had great support from her family, it wasn’t the guidance she needed to run and build a business and therefore her success took longer. And that’s why she encourages people to seek out mentorship early on. “It helps you fast track,” she acknowledges.

Though she never had one particular role model, she worked to create her own. “If I read about someone in an industry article who had wisdom I could capture, I would make them a role model in my mind. I encourage people who don’t have a dedicated role model to keep their eyes open for qualities that are what you need,” Erokwu says, adding that she also greatly admires the foresight of Elon Musk and what he’s done with his brand.

Her desire to be a mentor also plays out in her daily work, which involves helping local businesses find marketing opportunities. “We’re not only mapping them, but we’re hosting events and giving them tools they can leverage online to really stand out and make their business successful.”

She encourages women to find support groups because she has seen that something incredible happens when women work together. “Sometimes when there are men in the room, women get silent, but when you find spaces with just women, you are going to be your best self.”

When women find spaces that validate them wholeheartedly, they can move to the next level. For Erokwu, those “communities of allies” included Digital Undivided and Lesbians In Tech.

Opening up the World

As an advisor for the group, she says it has been life-changing to share their mission and has also created opportunities for professional development, such as speaking on panels.
Although her work focuses on New York, the nature of it takes her to places worldwide, fulfilling her desire to travel.

“My love for photography has turned into a love of programming,” she says, adding that she taught herself how to code.

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Tech’s Gender Gap Should Surprise No One

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bottom lineRecently, tech-news website The Verge published a report on diversity at at the U.S.’s biggest technology companies. In data scraped from Equal Employment Opportunity reports filed with the government, the article revealed official stats on workforce diversity at Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, and Twitter.

The numbers weren’t assuring. While women made up 47% of the U.S. workforce in 2014, the seven big, publicly traded tech companies that The Verge tracked only averaged 29% female. Amazon had the highest share of women workers at 37%, while Microsoft came in with the lowest share of women workers at 24%.

The share of women in leadership roles was even more stark. On average, at the seven companies studied, only 18% of executives and senior managers were women. The company with the highest percentage of female leaders was Facebook, at 23%, while Microsoft had the lowest percentage at 13%.

These are embarrassing numbers (and just as embarrassing were the statistics on racial and ethnic diversity – on average, only 21% of leaders at these companies weren’t white). But they shouldn’t come as a surprise. Researchers have long identified the problems behind the lack of diversity in the technology industry.

What is surprising, though, is how clearly defined the solutions to these problems are. Women keep leaving the industry; we know why; we know how to fix it. Yet the gap persists. A recent report by Catalyst identified several concrete reasons high potential women in tech leave for greener pastures and what these companies can do about it.

The technology industry purports to create innovative solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Perhaps it’s time for industry leaders to shift their gaze toward their own ranks, and implement the solutions experts have crafted to solve one of tech’s toughest problems: the workforce gender gap.

Leaky Pipeline

Tech companies like to tout their work to develop the “pipeline” of women into the industry, sponsoring programs designed to get girls and young women interested in STEM fields. This work is important and laudable. But an early lack of interest in science and technology isn’t the only reason for the low rate of women leaders working now in the industry.

The diversity benchmarking and solutions organization Catalyst says high potential women actively seek to leave the industry. According to Catalyst, women who took business jobs in the tech industry after earning an MBA were more likely than men to leave for another industry (women, 53%; men, 31%). And women who started in business roles in other industries were less likely than men to migrate to the tech industry (women, 9%; men, 13%).

Male MBAs who left the tech industry were more likely than women to say they changed jobs for greater opportunities (men, 67%; women, 52%), while women MBAs were more likely to say the left for personal reasons (women, 21%; men, 12%).

“Organizations invest tremendous resources to attract high potentials, and if that talent walks out the door—for any reason—it is incredibly costly for the company. Not only has that talent taken their skills and training elsewhere, but new employees have to be recruited and trained,” writes report author Anna Beninger, director of research at Catalyst.

The attrition problems are well documented, and so are the reasons behind them. Catalyst says women regularly start in lower level positions in the tech industry than men after earning MBAs. That means they also start at lower salaries from day one, a pay gap that persists over time.

In the study, high potential women MBAs in tech said they faced unclear requirements for evaluation and advancement, while men said their goals were clear. High potential women MBAs in tech said they had fewer role models than men, and vastly fewer said they felt similar to their coworkers than men did.

“Feeling like an outsider relative to their coworkers affects their access to development opportunities, sponsorship, and ultimately their aspirations to the top,” Beninger writes.

“Given the dearth of women in tech-intensive industries, including those in business roles, it is crucial for senior-level men in tech-intensive industries to champion women, and in time, create more women role models.”

Clarifying evaluation and promotion requirements, paying employees fairly, ensuring workers are able to meet family responsibilities and still get their jobs done, building cultures that value people outside the majority, and having corporate leadership set the tone from the top on diversity — these are all things that can help stop the female and minority attrition from the tech industry.

In practice, these solutions will take hard work to achieve. Implementing new policies is easy — it’s changing people’s mindsets that is difficult. But it is possible and necessary. The tech industry needs the best minds out there to solve problems in an increasingly complex business environment. It won’t be able to attract and retain the top people until business leaders approach this problem earnestly. Their work is cut out for them.

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

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DESTINATION C-SUITE: Silicon Valley Tech Leadership While Female

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women working mentoringDonna Wells, CEO of Palo Alto-based Mindflash, has managed teams as large as 150 and budgets of $250 million at companies such as American Express and Expedia. She’s also held senior roles with organizations including Intuit and Charles Schwab. She has served as CXO for three Silicon Valley start-ups, including Mint.com, where she came in as employee #9 as its CMO and built a national brand with a bare-bones budget.

A couple of times a year, a former female colleague from my Fortune 500 days calls for advice on how to break into a Silicon Valley leadership role.The fact that I don’t get those calls more often is telling…and disappointing.I’ve had to good fortune to work with some of corporate America’s best and brightest women.And after nearly 20 years in the Valley, I am also a passionate advocate for making a career in high tech and grabbing the chance to make a real “dent in the universe.”So, why don’t more outstanding female corporate leaders make the move to leadership roles in high tech here?My take is that the environment is unquestionably challenging, but that corporate women are also often focused on the wrong risks.And I believe there are shifts in our approach that can increase the flow of corporate women into the Valley significantly.

Challenging the Environment

Even a cursory scan of recent Valley press indicates that the big companies in the Valley are flunking diversity. A recent report from Fenwick & West LLPreveals that women hold just 11 percent of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies, compared to 16 percent in the S&P 100. The implication is that women from outside of the Valley looking to move in at a senior leadership level are shooting the gap for a very limited number of places.I’m optimistic that, with increasing public and investor pressure on these companies to diversify their leadership, we’ll see progress over the next 5-10 years.But if you’re a woman looking to move now, my advice is to target companies that you are passionate about and that are showing relatively better leadership and Board diversity (such as Pandora) and/or making public commitments to improvement (like Intel).

The challenge is obviously greater for women without a technical or product background. While it’s true that Sheryl Sandberg joined Google in 2001 as its Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations and Angela Ahrendts joined Apple in 2014 as Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Sales without an engineering degree or tech experience, both brought unique, complementary skills to the company’s leadership. Those opportunities are few and far between, but with careful research into the challenges facing the Valley’s biggest firms, you just might find a key pain point that your legal, financial, regulatory, governmental, marketing, retail or operating experience can solve for one of the Valley 150. Ironically, one of the better Valley opportunities right now is for senior women that have led high-profile, successful diversity initiatives at F500 firms.

The other option to break into the Valley is to start your own business.In my experience, that’s even less often considered, but possibly more often successful. If you have identified a problem that you believe technology can elegantly solve, at scale, and at a profit, this might be the route for you.As CEO of your own startup, you can be successful without a computer science degree (though it certainly would help) if you bring strong strategic thinking, recruiting and leadership experience. Financial analytics and salesmanship also required. Only two women in my network have ever approached me with this as their initial idea, and both have become success stories.

Focusing on the Wrong Risks

A Fortune 500 leader’s experience often trains them to focus on the wrong risks and prevents them from making the move to the tech industry (in the Valley or elsewhere). A former classmate of mine told me recently that all four of the Fortune 500 companies he’d joined since business school were now out of business. I think his experience illustrates well the risk profile most common among my Fortune 500 friends: over-estimating the risks of changing industries and/or moving to a smaller organization and underestimating the risks of staying with an organization that is not continuously innovating. While it may feel comforting to draw a large six-figure paycheck in the years between the start and obvious end of your global brand’s dominant leadership position, it’s more rewarding and often more lucrative to be on the executive staff of the startup that’s pulling the rug out from under those same companies.

Preparing yourself to take the plunge

There’s a great deal that anyone in a Fortune 500 role looking to get into a Silicon Valley leadership position can do to increase their odds for success in making such a change, but by far the most important is building a network here.A woman I know who went from leading a nonprofit in Washington D.C. to running her own tech startup in San Francisco first leveraged her board members from the tech sector; then joined a think tank comprised of politicians, academics and tech executives; and then asked for introductions from that core of technology connections to their networks.She soon had a significant, senior network in the Valley that was instrumental in her securing funding and kick-starting her hiring.It’s an approach many women can and should take.

Conclusion

I don’t minimize the continuing, systemic challenges that female leaders face in Silicon Valley.Over the last year, I’ve been the only female Limited Partner in a room of 40 and the only female speaker during a two-day tech conference. Some days, it’s a tough gig. But I agree with Newsweek in labeling the power of digital, mobile, social and cloud technologies as “our era’s Industrial Revolution.” And during this Revolution some will have the chance to create new products, industries and even economies.I believe most of those people will be doing so from an Ikea table somewhere south of Marin and north of Gilroy.And I fully expect that, someday soon, half of the chairs at that table will be occupied by women.

Guest contributed by Donna Wells

(Guest advice and opinions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com)

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Is all publicity, good publicity?

Women SpeakingPersonal Branding is quite the buzzword, but does it really mean when it comes to your success at work?

Some people are more keen than others to update the rest of the world on their professional activities and that is partly to do with personality and partly to do with how you prioritize your online time. Next time you are posting something to Facebook, think about whether you could also share that update on other social spaces such as LinkedIn? The question to ask yourself is, “ does this help me show what I have expertise in?” Do you show up in a consistent manner and what then, is your message?

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Voice of Experience: Alaina Percival, CEO, Women Who Code

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Alaina Percival“When you see someone doing a great job, applaud her,” advises Alaina Percival, the CEO of Women Who Code. “It’s more difficult for women to talk about their career successes, but if you don’t, no one will know to recruit you, ask you to speak at their conference or invite you to be on their board. Being able to publicly discuss your career success is crucial to advancement.”

Percival knows from experience the importance of shining a light on your strengths. She began her career in the footwear industry with a job at Puma running their niche products division, which included collaborating with designers and overseeing any major projects that weren’t shoe related.

While there, she learned an important skill – having to secure deliverables from people who were far senior to her in the organization. That dynamic meant that she couldn’t tell them what to do, so she had to figure out how to make them want to do it. “It was a skill that has translated well to my current role, since Women who Code is a volunteer-driven organization,” Percival says. “We can’t tell people what they have to do, we have to inspire them to want to work toward its missions.”

After Puma, she decided to return to school to earn her MBA and then went to a small women’s performance shoe company as corporate brand manager for women-specific volleyball and basketball shoes. Her major challenge there was helping the niche company compete with brands like Nike, only without their resources.

From Footwear to Tech

Eventually, she decided to move on from footwear, and begin to consider cities where she’d like to live. She chose San Francisco because of its many opportunities in the tech industry. “It was a struggle because I’d always worked with footwear, but I felt like I needed to switch gears and start over and find my path.”

She started consulting with tech companies and then became engulfed with Women Who Code, just as it was getting started. After teaching herself how to code, she began organizing events and finding sponsors; she found that her background in community development lent itself well to scaling and it became a passion project for her. At the time, she was working for a startup, and then when it got acquired by Yahoo, it provide the opportunity to bring Women Who Code into her next day job, where she was running the charitable arm of Riviera Partners.

“I was working with a lot of engineering executives, but fewer than 5 percent of them were women. I saw the experiences and opportunities they had and started bringing those into Women Who Code’s programs. That is where Women Who Code’s mission of inspiring women excel in their careers was formed and how I knew we could make a difference.”

Within a few months, she had filed for non-profit status and a trademark and built out a budget, and then realized that in nights and weekends, she was essentially running a huge organization that deserved the opportunity to shine. She decided to leave her day job and focus exclusively on Women Who Code.

Making a Difference Through Women Who Code

And that is the achievement she is most proud of so far: the impact Women Who Code is having on the careers of its leaders in the tech industry – their careers are ascending with awards, board appointments, press mentions and invitations to speak at conferences.

“The most exciting part is that the Women Who Code leaders whom we are helping empower are women who are dedicated to seeing other women excel. Their influence will impact the industry exponentially,” Percival says.

Looking at the industry as a whole, she sees that Women Who Code holds an important role in the landscape: already, they are seeing the benefits of reaching out to women and girls to showcase technology careers. Although they have made huge strides in attracting talented women to the field, they are still leaving at too high of a rate. “The conversation now needs to be about creating a better place for women in the industry and helping them navigate their career path. When women do enter the industry, there are not enough role models and they don’t see women well represented at the individual contributor level.”

The group has a weekly publication called Code Review that highlights everyday career successes of women – whether they have won an award, landed a new job or promotion or launched a new product. “We want to champion these women and create the feeling that it’s normal to share your successes, since it can be harder for women.”

Advice for Young Women: Code

According to Percival, all industries are becoming “technology industries,” whether it’s finance or footwear, so increasingly future executives will be those who have a background and understanding of technology. She herself wishes she had learned to code earlier and she urges women to learn the basics, by even taking one coding class. “In areas where women are underrepresented, the issue will only be exacerbated as we see top jobs going to those with a background in tech. It is essential they learn skills like coding as early as possible.”

In addition, she advises women to always set goals, whether they are clear on what they want to do or not. “Lay out that goal and work toward it; you can always change your mind later,” she says. And she underscores the importance of building a network authentically. “Approaching networking as relationship building is key, because then those people become more than just contacts: they become friends and your allies whether you need help in two weeks or two years.”

How Companies Can Win In the Talent Quest

She also believes that companies have a responsibility in the drive to bring more women into the field, and she advises them to really spend time thinking through how they can attract and retain women.

One key area is to make sure they are paying women fairly. She recommends companies analyze salaries and make changes if there are discrepancies that are gender-related. “If there’s an across-the-board percentage of people getting paid less, it’s expensive not to balance that out,” she says. Otherwise, companies will lose out on the women in the last 15 years of their career when they can provide the most value to the company and act as role models and mentors.

“You can’t afford to lose them when they’re the most experienced.”

By Cathie Ericson

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