International Women’s Day 2023: Artificial Intelligence, Technology and the Internet

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IWD 2023It feels that Artificial intelligence (AI) has really gone from feeling opaque and slightly in the realms of science fiction to current reality with Chat GPT now partly academically approved and AI of all types – from Bing’s chat GPT ‘wanting to be alive’ Jungesque aspirations this week to Elon Musk’s perhaps legitimate fear of AI to the ‘metaverse’ – being discussed at family gatherings. Surprisingly, or perhaps right on time, the UN Women 67th Annual Commission on the Status of Women International Women’s Day 2023 has a theme of “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” With the hashtag #Poweron, the focus is on the opportunities that technology has to create access to work opportunities and services for more parity for women across the world, while reducing the internet’s facilitation and spread of sexual violence.

AI Issues From a Career Perspective for Women

Algorithms and AI can add another layer to bias and stereotyping beyond the human aspects that we all work so hard to defuse. Just under 80% of people who work in AI are men and the systems are entrenched in language – benign at best, purposely coded at worst with “lesser than” logic patterns. AI has been found to have biases against women and from a career perspective this has been understood most in hiring processes with Amazon scrapping their AI for recruiting for some of these reasons. Machine learning has shown to replicate male and white visibility with higher values given to data and images of white men. In The MIT Sloan Review, invisibility and erasure was discussed when it comes to ethnic diversity in facial recognition, with the topic causing a furor last June when President Obama’s face was machine refined as a high pixel image of a white man.

There are huge opportunities in AI though from a career breadth and depth perspective. AI is and will be in our lives more and more with wearables being the predicted game changer for healthcare. Other industries like financial services and even your digital shopping cart are heavily investing in AI and machine learning. It could it be applied to big issues like carbon farming practices and climate disaster and climate migrant preparation related challenges. And job roles and skillsets that represent a cross-section of disciplines are increasingly relevant and necessary, so coming from a STEM background is not a prerequisite for getting involved.

What are the Social Issues?

The issue behind technology is always based in human behaviors from who creates what, how and why, to who uses the product or service and for what end. How much humanity is in avatars and online commenters and how people behave online versus in real life has been a decade plus study. Do people act differently when they have anonymity or are without nonverbal cues? How does life online inform real life and vice versa? Apparently, moral outrage gets reposted 20% more than regular statements. The Pew Center has a body of research stating online harassment to be around 45% for men especially around topics of politics while fewer women report this. But, female politicians face verbal abuse with 39% of tweets about females in politics containing problematic threats, as do female journalists. Women are more likely to be sexually harassed or threatened with sexual violence online with image sharing, revenge porn and sextortion being part of this century so far.

Legislation is slowly catching up in Europe and the US with The White House launching the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse in 2022 to tackle online issues including sexual violence, abuse and sharing of files against women, and also child sexual abuse material (CSAM) sharing. Files containing CSAM have increased exponentially with 89.1 million files being reported in 2021 alone and the Legal 500 recently published a study entitled “Is it time to age gate the internet?” citing demand by internet to view child abuse to be increasing significantly. Harrowing as this is to report the hundreds of percent increase for demand of this terrible societal scourge, it is entirely important to understand how technology can help solve for issues as well as replicate problems. It does require people to think about hard things, have difficult conversations and take actions – such as code and AI for good not evil. For example, Thorn.org works to help via code to tag material to stop the spread of files, and in the UK and EU, there are similar technologies that all companies can access. We all need to work to solve real issues that degrade people as well as for democracy and opportunity for all humans.

Women’s lives is an increasing issue with discussions at major platforms and within governments ongoing on how to truly parse and filter empowering content regarding fitness, breastfeeding and women’s health from adult consensual content from non-consensual violence and assault; first to third world. Society at large from a behavioral perspective is again acceptably and overtly anti- women when it comes to dignity and personal sovereignty it seems. From dating apps and their unsolicited genital pictures and deepfakes to permanent perennial abuse images that never let the victim truly recover and all that is in between, it is hard to avoid pondering the nuances of the internet being a mirror or a vehicle to human darkness?

What Can You Do To Be Part of the Solution?

#1 Support with time and money STEM and coding programs for girls and women such as Girls Who Code or Black Girls Code or anitab.org or NCWIT or TCGi Foundation from Avis Yates Rivers. Encourage any girl or young woman you know to get into STEM. There are many pathways.

#2 Hire women into tech jobs, mentor women where you can, be the sponsor where you can!

#3 Have difficult and unsavory conversations with your kids about what is ok and what is not, and what to do if they see something awful on the internet.

#4 Continue the obviously much needed socio-cultural and psychological work for all humans to instill ethical boundaries in our boys and men (and girls and women) to help stop casual sexual and physical violence in real life as well as virtual world, the mantra ‘boys will be boys’ has to stop now so that girls can be girls, safely.

#5 Fund the solutions. Consider donating to Thorn or a similar organization that provides technical solutions, advocacy, support or education on the topic of CSAM or gender/sexual violence and sex trafficking such as RAINN or New Life, New Friends.

Either way, having awareness that there is a virtual world that replicates some of the real world’s most difficult challenges regarding gender is the conversational entry point into an inevitable new world. With more women being involved in building technology, and more women worldwide having equal access to technology, we hold out hope that we engineer AI for the good of women’s lives and towards the collective good.

By Nicki Gilmour

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Women in Tech: Five Interventions to Develop and Keep Your Talent

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While attracting women (back) to tech has been an ongoing theme across the industry, promoting and retaining the valuable women that get through the door is also critical.

Here are five key interventions that leaders in tech and organizations can do to develop and hold onto valuable female talent.

1) Tap a Broader Talent Pool and Recruit Returners

On the hiring front, Deloitte recommends that companies extend to a broader talent pool with “work from anywhere” models as well as recruit from overlooked sub-segments such as women who are returning to work or transitioning from other industries and upskilling career-switchers and those with resume gaps. BCG also recommends that tech organizations carve various pathways to leadership such as returnships that gradually reintegrate returning women into the workplace, to leverage this experienced talent for mid-level and senior-level positions.

2) Link Tech Opportunities to Purpose and Influence

Research has shown that women stay around for enjoyable work that they can fit in with other areas of their lives and that gives them opportunities to make a difference. Tying tech roles more closely to the impact they make in our world will drive appeal and job satisfaction.

As tech trailblazer Joyce Shen recently told The Glass Hammer, women who may not think of tech as a career option or career twist might want to reconsider: “There tends to be two main paths in technology careers in conventional thinking. One path is a purely technical path, often as an individual contributor as well as a super-doer. But there is another path where people get into more of the operational and business side, around product management and distribution as well as considering emerging topics such as ethics, fairness, governance in technology and especially in AI and machine learning. There is also a lot of opportunity to get into highly critical technology areas such as cybersecurity. In my experience, a lot of the influence and ability to make changes come from working at the intersection of different disciplines and taking that experience to management and leadership.”

3) Address Early Promotions (first five years) in Tech

McKinsey argues that companies need to address equitable advancement in early promotions. Whereas generally, 86 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted, in tech it plummets to 52 women promoted to manager for every 100 men. Women hold only 34% of entry-level engineering and product roles in tech (versus 48% generally) and just 26% of first-level manager positions in tech (versus 41% generally).

Early promotions are the most critical to future success. McKinsey found that companies which have a more systemic approach to promoting women in tech roles are creating more diverse, inclusive and better performing workplaces by:

  • Providing more equitable access to training, projects and resources to accelerate skill building for women in technical roles. This means more structured guidance on career development and a formalized professional-development process including mentorship and formal sponsorship, and more opportunities to build a broad range of skills and work on higher visibility projects.
  • Implementing a highly structured approach to early promotions. Per Ipsos research, only 1/3 of women in tech felt support was in place for promotion and only 1/5 felt processes for promotion were in place. A structured approach includes clear and transparent systems, well-defined criteria for each role and level, accountability and clear bars for when promotion should be anticipated. It also includes employee-manager check-ins as to whether the right access to projects and skills are being provided to advance, and senior leader check-ins when individuals aren’t advancing at expected timelines.
  • Connecting early-tenure women with competent managers, mentors, and sponsors. Connecting senior colleagues with hires early in their careers can help catalyze their development. It also means investing early in the training and development of tech junior managers since they are in the coaching seat for entry-level talent.
4)  Address and Mitigate Bias In All Aspects of Talent Development

Men in tech (67%) feel more comfortable than women (52%) to ask for a promotion – with 39% of women saying gender bias is the reason for not receiving one. Korn Ferry offers up that women don’t lack belief in their abilities but how they will fair in the assessment process. Removing unconscious bias at the level of hiring and throughout promotion processes, with clear and visible data to illustrate target areas and impact, is critical in tech.

One of the top three motivators for women in tech is development, but they report lacking the same opportunities as their male peers – and 2/3 don’t see a clear path forward in their company. In additional to clear and structured career paths, tech companies need formal mentorship and sponsorship programs to even the playing field so women can advance. According to Ipsos, 57% of UK tech women said mentorship and sponsorship would attract them to a company, but only one in five women felt they had access to sponsorship. Importantly, 55% of those who did felt it has greatly benefited their career.

BCG recommends, as the remote workplace has eased some of the obstacles to influence for midlevel women, tech firms could take heed and structure meetings to give all voices equal opportunity to contribute. Also making sure the frequency and value of manager-employee interactions are not being driven by affinity bias, and that mentorship and sponsorship are operational (and equitable) in the hybrid world.

5) Promote Well-Being Among Tech Women

A March 2022 study among IT professionals in 33 countries showed women (69%) were likelier to report feeling “run drown and drained of physical and emotional energy” than men (56%), and were more at high burnout risk (46% versus 38%).

Korn Ferry points out that burnout is driving the great resignation, especially for women. Tech companies need to be aware that hybrid working is part of both the problem and the solution. Promoting work-life separation and balance in tangible ways is important. Allowing for sabbaticals and extra paid leave can help returners to come back refreshed and more impactful. Embody a culture of inclusion for women.

Women who enter into tech roles of any kind have already crossed a hurdle by claiming their own belonging despite cultural messaging. Savvy organizations will make sure to reflect that belonging back to them in tangible and visible ways.

By Aimee Hansen

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Women Leaders in Tech: Insightful Tips Across Twelve Career Themes

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career tips from women in techWe’ve mined some key insights across twelve topics from inspiring senior women leaders in tech-related roles and companies that we have interviewed over the last five years.

On being broadly curious:

“Curiosity is a hallmark of who I am and has been a huge enabler to my success. I personally like to know enough about everything ‘to be dangerous’ and went out of my way to equip myself with that knowledge,” said Aine Leddy. “That curiosity has served me, particularly with my entreé into the tech COO world. I could show up at the table and enter right into a discussion about the business strategy and where technology fits in, and that was apparent to the people who have given me the opportunities.”

Words from: Aine Leddy: Information Technology Business Partner, AIG Investments

On recruiting for tech (and all) roles:

“As a product team leader, when recruiting, I seek out qualities like resourcefulness, creativity, and other traits that don’t necessarily jump off the page when reading a resume or browsing a LinkedIn profile,” said Loredana Crisan. “I’d encourage all product leaders to be more open-minded throughout the recruitment process. Just because a candidate’s background differs from the conventional, doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified.”

Words from: Loredana Crisan: VP, Messaging Experience — Messenger & Instagram (update: Crisan is now VP at Messenger)

On leveraging the advantage of your difference:

“My professor told me that when he goes into a classroom, he doesn’t know who the best students are. But when he sees a female student or person of color, they get his attention right away,” recalled Rose-Gaëlle Belinga from university. “That’s how my professor challenged me, not to look at being underrepresented as holding me back but as an advantage… Because I really have people’s attention, I make sure that my work speaks for itself, that people take me seriously.”

Words from: Rose-Gaëlle Belinga: Technology Associate, Morgan Stanley (update: Belinga is now a VP at Morgan Stanley)

On the freedom that comes with risk-taking:

“You can have loads of failure but if you have tenacity, the chances are you’re going to figure it out as you try and fail, as you go along,” said Niamh Bushnell. “There’s a lot of freedom when you’re comfortable with risk, and with freedom comes creativity. Don’t worry if every single step isn’t going to come out as you want it to. Often times you don’t even know what the ideal outcome is, until you start.”

Words from: Niamh Bushnell: Chief Communications Officer (CCO), Soapbox Labs (Update: Bushnell is now Chief Marketing Officer at Soapbox Labs)

On the self-validating reflection of mentors and sponsors:

“Sometimes you don’t even see your own potential,” said Sabina Munnelly. “But when someone makes it clear that they see something in you, their belief in you can help grow a belief in yourself that you might have not even had.”

Words from: Sabina Munnelly: Partner, Baringa

On inviting support and asking uncomfortable questions:

“Reaching out for help or advice does not subvert you from your task of getting to what you want to do, and it could have gotten me there faster. Be open to others’ opinions. Don’t be afraid to ask uncomfortable questions, but also be prepared for the tough answers,” said Trisha Sircar. “It’s really important to get different perspectives from different people, from different backgrounds and different facets of the profession.”

Words from: Trisha Sircar; Partner, Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity, Katten

On why different perspectives are essential:

“It’s essential to create the space for people to be heard, especially when some aren’t as comfortable voicing their opinions,” said Stephanie Schultz. “I don’t want to be in a meeting and have everybody agree with a particular direction or discussion. I want to hear the people who are dissenting, or might have a different perspective, because it’s a pressure test – it’s helping to make sure that we’re getting to the most thoughtful outcome.”

Words from: Stephanie Schultz: VP & Head of Partnerships, Amex Digital Labs

On listening deeper as a leader:

“In an emotionally charged situation, I will encourage the team to tease out the facts, take the personalities out of it and then listen for what is not being talked about,” said Danielle Arnone. “The leaders that I admire most have the ability to listen deeply and surface the question behind the question, without putting people on the defensive, and in a way that takes the conversation to the next stage.”

Words from: Danielle Arnone: Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Combe

On embracing failure as part of growth mindset:

“I want to see what happens, and if I am going to fail, I want to fail fast, learn from my mistakes and get up and run again,” said Anna Thomas. “Everyone is going to fail at some point. Everyone is going to have their bad projects. Try to just do it in small cycles, learn fast, and then apply your learning and keep moving.”

Words from: Anna Thomas: Vice President, Private Banking Technology at Brown Brothers Harriman (update: Thomas is now Director, Operations & Technology Transformation at Citi)

On getting real with yourself about work-life effectiveness:

“If one part of the pie gets more dominating than you want it to be, you have to consider how to make that part smaller so you can ‘right-size’ your family life or your spiritual life, for example. That has really helped me to compartmentalize what I’m doing and how it impacts the other parts of my life,” said Kate Kenner Archibald. “If your work is really impacting your home life, take that step back to figure out what and how you can fix it. Push for flexibility, which is becoming more common, or figure out what the issue is. But if you’re not satisfied with how much time you have with your family, you’re never going to be happy at work, no matter how much money you’re making.”

Words from: Kate Kenner Archibald: Chief Marketing Officer, Dash Hudson

On keeping knocking at the door, regardless:

“I think women do ourselves a disservice, because we take things personally and get annoyed with our manager if we don’t get the raise or promotion,” said Aine Leddy. “Whereas men seem to think, ‘If it doesn’t happen, I’ll get back in the ring and I’ll fight the good fight again next year.’ Ultimately, promotion is a numbers game. It can’t happen for everybody all of the time, so rather than take it so personally, elevate your case and prepare to ask again.”

Words from: Aine Leddy: Information Technology Business Partner, AIG Investments

On the potential to impact meaningful change in tech:

“Is your AI developed in a way that is equitable – that doesn’t have inherent gender bias or racial bias? If voice tech doesn’t recognize a kid’s dialect and gives them a lower score on a reading assessment because they don’t pronounce words in the way the AI has been built to understand them, they’re going to lose out at school,” said Niamh Bushnell. “The way technology is built these days hugely impacts people’s quality of life – including their physical and mental health – and it can impact them socioeconomically too. Equity is a big piece.”

Words from: Niamh Bushnell: Chief Communications Officer (CCO), Soapbox Labs (Update: Bushnell is now Chief Marketing Office at Soapbox Labs)

On defining your own career ladder:

“The entire career landscape is shifting and new opportunities are emerging rapidly. Developing a portfolio of skills you can apply in many ways, no matter what path you take, makes your career more dynamic and resilient,” said Joyce Shen. “Conventional wisdom would say the path you follow is a ladder and you progress according to that ladder, but in business and technology there isn’t a ladder that is given to you even though it can seem that way. You can create that ladder yourself, and it doesn’t really matter what shape it takes, as long as there is a strong purpose to the work and that you are enjoying the journey and making an impact. It doesn’t have to be the same ladder that everybody is climbing.”

Words from: Joyce Shen: AI investor, board director, author, and data science at UC Berkeley

Interviewed by Aimee Hansen

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Women in Tech: Why the “Big Quit” is a Big Deal

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women in techEvery year, tech becomes more in need of talent, especially underrepresented women. Over 3/4 of tech decision makers say they are facing critical skills gaps, a 145% increase since 2016. Over half say they have a position unfilled and 38% are struggling to find the right candidates for three+ job posts.

Women’s technical propensities are being undertapped and the belonging divide continues to inhibit participation at different hurdles. Far fewer women who majored in computer science (38%) are working in the field compared to men (53%). Women hold a low share of tech roles – 16% in engineering and 27% in computing. They hold 28% of leadership roles, per BCG, and in the biggest 1,000 tech companies, only 18% of CFOs or CIOs are women. Between 2019 to 2021, the number of U.S. tech managers increased by 9%, but the share of women went down by 2% points.

But on a global level, Deloitte estimates that the overall tech workforce has increased 6.9% from 2019 to 2022, while share of tech roles is up by 11.7%. They project a gain of nearly 20% for women in leadership, stating 1 in 4 leadership roles at global tech firms would be held by women in 2022, a 4% increase.

In no where more than tech right now is diversity needed to help debias the technologies that are ever more pervasive in our daily lives. Not only that, but women in tech matters to the bottom line relative to competitors. The most gender-diverse companies are 48% more likely to financially outperform the least gender diverse. Companies with good representation of women at the top earn up to 50% higher profits and share performance.

Job Satisfaction, Work-Life and Retention

According to Deloitte’s Women @ Work global survey, among women, satisfaction with work-life balance has dropped to 32% from 70% before the pandemic, and in every category – productivity, mental well-being – satisfaction has dropped by double digits. Half of women in tech drop out by mid-career and women comprise less than 1/4 of senior roles. Women leave their tech jobs at a rate 45% higher than men.

In line with the continued resignations, 57% of women in tech said they expect to leave their employer for a new role within 2 years—with work-life balance as the biggest reason and Deloitte says 22% are considering leaving the workforce altogether. In a BCG survey, 73% of digital workers said that they expected to leave their job in the next two to three years, and 40% were job-searching.

Retention is also an issue in the tech C-suite. While men across Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft average eight years in executive roles, women stay for only 6.4 years. And while White execs last eight years on average, that’s five for Asian leaders, six for Black leaders, and four for Hispanic leaders.

Different Experiences of Hybrid/Remote Workplace in Tech

According to BCG research, the impact of the pandemic had different impacts for different women in tech. Midlevel women particularly found that work-from-home arrangements made their managerial work easier – such as chairing meetings, influencing decisions and delegating work, and they were even promoted at rates above midlevel men. Midlevel men found those same tasks had become more difficult, suggesting that some of the gender bias is neutralized in the remote workplace.

Women of color (47%) were more likely to report that it was more difficult to connect with mentors and sponsors in the remote setting than white women (35%). Both men and women of color reported less frequent and valuable interactions than their white peers, and women of color (41%) were more likely to report a negative impact on work-life balance than white women (28%) – suspected in part to be impacted by caring for family members other than children.

Senior women (36%) were more likely than senior men to switch jobs (31%), but they were less likely to get a pay increase (39% versus 50%) after doing so. After the pandemic, having a good work-life balance jumped ahead of financial compensation as the top priority for senior women.

Reset Tech Culture Towards Inclusion

Tech firms are still judged as “bro cultures” by many women, and it’s been substantiated that a widespread cultural reset is what is needed to get women back into tech and feeling they fully belong, again. Ipsos research in the UK indicated that 58% of women said that visible role models are one of the things that attract them to organizations, but many noted the lack. 83% of tech women in the UK rate an inclusive manager and 76% rated an inclusive culture as important for joining a tech firm.

But a culture of inclusiveness is not created only by an atmosphere of belonging and being valued, if it doesn’t show up tangibly in action throughout the career journey. It as good as an organization’s ability to remove bias from access to development opportunities, promotions, pay and leadership so that women can participate and advance to their full potential. Next week, we will focus in more on actions that organizations can take.

By Aimee Hansen

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OP-Ed: From Gaming to Gowns: Bringing More Women to Artificial Intelligence

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women in artificial intelligence Bringing more women into artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just about gender equality. The science of AI offers the opportunity to make data more human, positively impacting nearly every aspect of our lives. Since artificial intelligence uses technology to mimic human decision-making, it is a field that requires a diversity in perspectives from the people who develop it, and yet the gender gap in AI companies limits the innovation and integrity of the products they create. If the data fed into AI algorithms contain bias, their outcomes will as well.

Research from Gartner predicts that in 2022, 85% of AI projects will deliver “erroneous outcomes owing to bias in data, algorithms or the teams responsible for managing them.” To prevent AI from furthering discrimination, we need to start by looking at the man – and the woman – in the mirror, and ensure that those creating and developing AI technology represent a spectrum of society at large.

Supporting Female Talent to Grow and Thrive

This doesn’t mean that creating a representative workplace is easy. Getting more women and diverse populations into STEM is a slow process, starting with primary education and eventually moving into universities and technical schools, encouraging and cultivating talent at every step in the process. Yet research shows that gender diversity can truly make a profound impact, even to a company’s bottom line. As the co-founder of a female-led AI company, we focus on what we can do as employers to embrace and develop female talent in the workplace. I recognize that this is only one piece of the puzzle, but through the inspiring stories I hear of female coders, engineers, and technologists, I am encouraged that even small steps can make a difference.

For those of us in the retail technology sector of AI, building a workplace in which female talent thrives is especially important, as our customers are primarily women. Yet my personal work history is rooted in a much more male-dominated side of the AI industry – gaming. I started my career at a gaming startup in San Francisco where I was the first female engineer. I noticed a palpable difference when other female engineers slowly joined the team. The team dynamic changed immensely, including the team communication and strength of interpersonal connections.

At Lily AI, our initial focus on fashion and apparel within the retail space naturally attracted women to the team more easily than gaming. As we grew the company and hired more people, it became evident that having personal experiences with online shopping – whether as a male or female – brought an additional depth of understanding to the product, and the challenges of search and personalization on e-commerce sites. Still, while our styling team is most predominantly made up of women, our engineering team has taken the most concerted effort to find a gender balance. We try to be intentional about creating diversity through hiring, through our workplace culture, and in mentoring female engineers – and are currently at over 52% women on our full-time staff, a rarity within Silicon Valley.

From our experience in growing Lily AI, we’ve found there are three main elements to focus on to help promote gender diversity:

Inspire women studying engineering


In order to have enough female talent to create gender diversity in engineering companies across the country, encouraging girls and women while they are still in school is key. Social influences still steer some girls out of STEM, and that cultural discouragement can be counteracted by showcasing female trailblazers, especially in fields like AI. We try to get out into the community, speaking to young girls and college students, offering internships and making ourselves visible as women in AI.

Encourage career growth through mentorship


Through both formal and informal mentorship programs, it is essential to be intentional about nurturing female engineers’ career paths. It is pivotal to not only hire women into AI teams, but to ensure they have the resources they need to reach leadership positions.

Create a culture that provides equal opportunities


In addition to paying women equal wages for equal work, prioritizing workplace benefits like flexible hours, remote work, and showcasing a track record of successful maternity leave is essential. My co-founder is currently on her own maternity leave, intentionally setting an example for the women and men at our company that this time away is not just offered, but encouraged, and that having a family does not stunt your career path at Lily.

There is still much work to be done in creating not only gender diversity in AI, but also a broader range of racial and social diversity within the tech industry at large. I am encouraged by progress we’ve made, such as currently having such brilliant women leaders on our board like ​​Maha Ibrahim, Vanessa Larco and Marigay McKee. These women in leadership are an inspiration to me, and will hopefully be beacons to other female talent across industries.

Sowmiya Narayanan is the co-founder and CTO of Lily AI. She previously worked in technology leadership and software engineering roles at Box, Pocket Gems, Yahoo! and Texas Instruments, and has a Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin.

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Women in Tech: Is a “Widespread Cultural Reset” on the Horizon?

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women in techAmidst a global acceleration of the tech transformation, the shortage of tech talent is becoming increasingly pressing. Accenture is advocating that a “widespread cultural reset” is needed to address the gaps in women’s representation in tech.

COVID-19 Disproportionately Affected Women In Tech, Too

A recent tech report by Kapersky showed that over half of surveyed IT professionals felt that women in senior tech roles had increased and gender equality had improved.

But nearly half the women in tech felt COVID-19 effects had delayed, not accelerated, their own career progression, largely due to the challenges of balancing home/work life while taking on a disproportional amount of cleaning, childcare, and homeschooling responsibilities. Four out of every ten women felt these pressures had kept them from pursuing career changes, and the same amount felt men had faster career progression. Not to mention that male-majority teams dominate female-majority teams at nearly a 5 to 1 ratio.

Another 2021 “Women in Tech Report” by TrustRadius shared that women were equally as likely to claim the pandemic had a negative impact on their careers as a positive one. But men (54%) were more likely than women (42%) to perceive the remote work office in the past year had been positive for women.

57% of women in tech felt burnt out, relative to only 36% of men. Women in tech were more likely to have worked overtime, taken on more responsibility at work, and have much greater childcare responsibility than male counterparts. They were also twice as likely to have lost their jobs or been furloughed since the pandemic began.


The report found that “bro culture” remained pervasive in tech firms, but interestingly only 63% of women in IT/engineering roles reported this, relative to 80%+ in sales and marketing roles in tech firms.

Intervention: Unbiasing Systems and Caregiving Support

In identifying the best tech companies for women, Anita B concluded from their 2021 Top Companies for Women Technologists report that those organizations which focused on unbiasing systems such as recruitment and performance management, rather than just training on raising awareness of bias, had much stronger representation of black women and Latinx women. The report found that companies with mandatory training on unbiasing the hiring process have 20% more tech women and tech women hires.

When it comes to women of color, companies that provide caregiving support as a benefit had higher levels of black and Latinx women, especially at the senior and executive levels. Companies that conducted intersectional pay audits had 30% more women hires, 90% more black women hires, and 80% more Latinx women hires.

Wake-up Call: “Widespread Cultural Reset”

Accenture’s Resetting Tech Culture 2020 report found that an inclusive culture that enables everyone’s voice to be heard at both the academic and professional levels is the “master key that unlocks opportunities for women who are studying and working in technology.” The pillars of “more-inclusive culture”, underpinned by 40 specific factors, are “bold leadership, comprehensive action and empowering environment”.

For example, only 1 in 20 tech women feel like an “outsider” in more-inclusive colleges, whereas 1 in 4 women feel this way in less-inclusive colleges. Among more-inclusive cultures, all women are much more likely to see a clear pathway from studying STEM to a related career and are much more likely to enjoy their jobs. And while literally half of women in tech roles among less-inclusive cultures feel they are made to feel their job is “not for people like them”, this drops to 16% in more-inclusive cultures. Also, in more- inclusive workplace cultures, the likelihood of women advancing to manager and beyond by age 30 increases by 61%; for women of color it increases by a staggering 77%.”

But Accenture found that HR professionals tend to significantly undervalue the importance of building a more-inclusive culture and support in retaining and advancing women in tech roles, only 38% seeing it as effective, when it’s the number one reason why women leave tech jobs, and alongside with more role models, the top factor listed for attraction.

Accenture is advocating for a “widespread cultural reset” to drive the much-needed change in tech, projecting in just one example, that if every company had a culture like the top 20% more-inclusive ones, annual attrition of women in tech could drop by 70% and 1.4 million more women would be retained by 2030.

Overall, Fortune points out that women need the same conditions to thrive in tech as anyone needs to thrive: “encouragement; hands-on tech discovery in school; the presence of role models in leadership positions; mentorship; executive sponsorship; fair pay; workplace inclusion; and the flexibility to parent while employed.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Loredana Crisan: VP, Messaging Experience — Messenger & Instagram

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Loredana CrisanIn her role at Meta, Loredana Crisan leads the product and engineering teams crafting messaging experiences for the billion-strong community on Messenger and Instagram. From formally studying musical composition in her birth country of Romania to influencing how we connect daily at one of tech’s giants, Crisan shares with theglasshammer on why she focuses on creating over achieving, how her background in music infuses her creative approach to designing experiences and how building teams of complementary experts is like creating a symphony orchestra.

Q. You’ve gone from studying musical composition in Romania, to product and graphic design in tech, to heading up the entire product experience on Messenger. What thread have you followed to be where you are?

My formal education is in classical music, and I didn’t study STEM or design in school. It would have been easy for people to brush me off and assume I wasn’t qualified for a career in tech. However, my educational background in music composition and the years spent practicing an instrument has helped shape my focus on long term outcomes and helped me develop my own leadership and problem-solving skills.

My success was not a straight path, especially not being an American and not trained as a designer. But, I never thought of these as hurdles, instead I remained open to opportunities.

I did not make an explicit decision to work in tech — I joined a start-up as a sound engineer. We were working on a product, and I really wanted to make that product better. To do that, I had to switch mediums from sound to visuals. Using my creativity from music, I went from different mediums, sound to UI. Moving to Product, I went from creating the experience to executing the experience, and leaning into the vision for how people use the experience.

Q. How do you see the tech industry as enhanced by non-traditional candidates like yourself?

As a product team leader, when recruiting, I seek out qualities like resourcefulness, creativity, and other traits that don’t necessarily jump off the page when reading a resume or browsing a LinkedIn profile.

I’d encourage all product leaders to be more open-minded throughout the recruitment process. Just because a candidate’s background differs from the conventional, doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified.

Q. We understand you are passionate about “relinquishing gender stereotypes” in the tech industry. Tell us more about your experience as a woman in tech.

I honestly wish the world was a lot less gendered. Biases exist of course, but looking at my tween kids, they’re starting to reject these constructs and it’s so much freer for them.

I’ve worked in male-dominated industries quite a bit. I have a deep belief that regardless of gender, if you overcome imposter feelings, you learn, develop and grow. I don’t stop to think about what would have happened if I wasn’t a woman.

I’ve learned to embrace my inner self and inner weirdness and break away from stereotypes – even gender. You can see this expressed in artwork we design on Messenger. We’re hoping to help people express how they really feel whether that’s through an AR effect, camera sticker, or 360-degree immersive background.

Q. You emphasize “creating vs. achieving” as a secret to your success. Can you expand on what this means to you?

In a music setting, you don’t just pick what you want to play and skip ahead to the performance. It’s all about what goes into the preparation and development of that performance.

This is true for product teams too. Focusing on the outcome exclusively robs your team of the joy of paying attention to the details. To set your team up for success, allow them to focus on the flow of making something exciting every step of the way.

For example, earlier this year when we unveiled Soundmojis, our team was focused on creating fun, delightful sounds that could be used across a broad range of contexts. In one instance, our sound engineers even travelled to an organic California farm to record actual goats! By allowing my team to be creative and enjoy the process of developing the Soundmojis, we were ultimately able to create experiences that are also fun for our users.

Q. You have paralleled building a team of experts to auditioning a band and compared working with teams to creating a symphony. Can you tell us more?

The beauty of an orchestra performance lies in hearing very different instruments come together to create one harmonious and complex piece of music. Whether you’re performing in front of an audience, developing hardware, or creating a new user interface (UI), putting together an effective team means thinking in a holistic manner.

If you were to hire only cellists for an orchestra, the resulting music would be limited to their specialist capabilities. It would miss the rhythmic beat of the percussion section, the timbre of the brass section, and so much more. Similarly, if you have a team made up of designers, your product may have a beautiful UI but clunky functionality supporting it. It’s only when you have the right mix of skills, along with an open work environment, that all the necessary elements can come together.

Also keep in mind that generalists can give your team more flexibility whereas specialists bring a high level of expertise in their field. When working on a project, having those generalists involved can help ensure every part of a product is getting the attention it needs throughout development. Any good team needs a mix of specialists and generalists to bring a variety of skills and perspectives to building products.

When we’re working, I like to tell my team to “mind the gap” – meaning the gap between what they do, whether that’s engineering, design, or business strategy, and what their teammates do. This is where the real opportunity lies for teams to be creative, push boundaries and deliver innovations to users.

Q. What particularly fascinates you and propels you each day?

Life happens on Messenger. Anything that can happen with friends and family can happen together on the app. It’s interesting to work on a product that has so much humanity baked in. When I decided not to be a musician anymore, I wanted to go back to school to learn psychology. Of course, much of psychology has to do with relationships. I was interested in how people relate to one another. Messenger is a place where people grow old and form new relationships.

Q. What does it mean to “push the boundaries” in your work? What are some of the key trends that grasp your attention, and where do you think we are going next?

To push the boundaries in modern communication means to continue to innovate how we can bring people together and build close connections via Messenger. Some key messaging trends that grasp my attention would be the evolution of multimedia, audio, and video.

Over 1.4 billion images are sent every day on Messenger–meaning nearly every 1 in 20 messages sent on Messenger is a photo. For the true math whizzes, that’s about 12,000 photos per second! While photos will always play an important role in visual communication and building close connections, I suspect that audio will begin to override image messaging as the trend continues to rise. Messenger hit an all-time high with people sending more than 400 million voice notes daily.

Additionally, video has become an extension of messaging, especially as keeping in touch took on a new level of importance as a global pandemic sent us all indoors. We had to adapt to a new way of communicating and with the pandemic in full swing, we saw the number of people in group video and audio calls nearly double earlier this year compared to last year, with time in calls growing 150%. To create a space where you could hang out and connect with your closest friends, Messenger also introduced Rooms and offered a virtual living room space to enjoy new memories when they couldn’t be in-person with Watch Together. It’s exciting to see all of the ways people are using the platform together.

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Women In Tech: Why Tech Is Increasingly Desperate For Women

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women in techThe lack of sufficient representation of women in tech at all levels is hailed as a “crisis” for the global economy. Yet the accelerating tech industry, while in massive need of highly skilled talent, is still fumbling to both bring women back to and keep them in an industry that they, for the large part, pioneered.

Global Acceleration of Tech Transformation

In 2019 and 2020, technology compromised 10% and 10.5% of US GDP, nothing compared to where it will go. The 2020 McKinsey Global Survey of executives reports how much COVID-19 has accelerated the global tech revolution: speeding up digital customer interactions by three years and digital products/services by seven years.

Whereas executives had envisioned shifts such as remote working capabilities and increased used of advanced technologies in business strategy to take 454 and 635 days respectively, these shifts happened in real time in just 10.5 and 25 day in 2020.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that tech and computer related occupations will grow by 13% from 2020 to 2030. Tech occupations have a median annual wage that are 117% more than median annual wage for all occupations.

The Dice Tech Job Report shows that after a dip in 2020, tech job postings were up by 30% in Q2 of 2021 versus a year ago, creating “one of the hottest market since the dot-com era.”

Shortage of Tech Talent Is Most Acute in U.S. Financial Services

Meanwhile, a shortage of tech talent is considered the top restraining factor for adopting 64% of new technologies, and Korn Ferry is forecasting that by 2030, 85 million jobs could go unfulfilled globally, resulting in a $8.5 trillion talent shorted.

The U.S. financial services sector is anticipated to be most affected by the talent shortage, resulting in a $435.69 billion shortfall forecast, a third of the global sector total, and is anticipated to be in acute deficit within the financial services sector. India is the only country projected to have a surplus of highly skilled finance and business services tech talent by 2030, with current surplus countries such as China, Russia and UK losing that footing.

“Global financial services players are already experiencing skilled-talent shortages and are set to face the greatest talent gap of any industry sector in the next decade,” states Michael Franzino, President of Global Financial Services at Korn Ferry. “Financial services leaders need to act now or they will forfeit substantial growth opportunity.”

Women’s Representation in Tech Industry

According to the Anita B report, 2021 Top Companies for Women Technologists, women’s participation in tech (among their wide sample of firms with 100+ tech employees) slid by 2.1% from March 2020 to January 2021, to just 26.7%, a backslide after five years of progress. (Tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Google did not participate, where women make up about 25% of tech positions.) 18% fewer women were brought into tech positions due to hiring freezes in 2020 with a rebound in January 2021, women representing 31% of new hires that month. The share of women being promoted remained steady.

Among the participating companies, women as tech CEOs jumped from 3.9% in 2020 to 10.0% in 2021. While white women were represented from entry level (13.1%) to executive leadership (15.3%) at similar levels, representation for women of color declines as the ladder goes up. And while Asian women begin almost in parity to white women at 12.6%, they only comprise 3.7% of executive seats.

In the UK, The Guardian notes that despite the decade long agenda of boosting female representation in technology, “the percentage of women employed in tech in the UK has barely moved from 15.7% in 2009 to 17% today. And women hold just 10% of leadership roles in the industry.”

Pioneered by Women, Now Unable to Attract and Retain Them

The underrepresentation of women in STEM is a persistent theme, with hurdles across seven different levels including the drastic erosion of women’s sense of belonging in the STEM field.

“Ironically, America’s tech industry started as a majority-female industry. As Mary Ann Sieghart notes in Wired, during the 1950s and ’60s, roughly 90 percent of programmers and systems analysts were women,” writes Victoria Mosby in BizTech. “By the 1990s, however, men held most of those positions.”

As recently as 1984, women comprised nearly 40% of computer science majors at U.S. universities, and women comprised 35% of tech workers. Today, fewer than 1 of 5 Chief Information Officers at the 1,000 biggest companies are women.

Accenture’s Resetting Tech Culture 2020 report shares that women leave tech roles at a 45% higher attrition rate than men, and 50% of women who take a tech role drop it by the age of 35, 2.5x more than attrition in other positions. Meanwhile, there’s a huge disconnection between HR leaders perception and the women working in tech: HR is twice as likely to perceive it’s easy for women to thrive in tech.

What needs to shift? Next week, theglasshammer focuses on how COVID-19 has impacted women in tech and why tech is crying out for what Accenture calls a “widespread cultural reset”.

By: Aimee Hansen

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Square Zero: Hidden Habits Females Need For A Successful Career in Tech

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Working In Tech - Space Station

 Guest contributed by Andrea Goulet

Quick question. Let’s say your friend gave you a list of fruit: apples, oranges, bananas, and strawberries. She asks you to bring her the item that’s labeled as number three on the list, which one would you pick?

Bananas? That’s the logical one, right? When we count items in most spoken languages, we list things out starting at one: first, apples. Second, oranges. Third, bananas. Ah! Grab a bunch and off you go. To your surprise though, when you bring her your bright yellow fruit, she looks disappointed. You clearly didn’t bring her what she was expecting. So, where did you go wrong?

Here’s what we didn’t tell you. Like many programming languages, your friend uses what’s called zero-based indexing. That means she starts her counting at zero, not one. So she was expecting you to bring her strawberries. In her world, apples = 0, oranges = 1, bananas = 2, and strawberries = 3. She was operating under a different framework from what you’d learned your entire life. Knowing this unwritten rule would have been incredibly useful, right?

Building a career in technology is much the same way. While there is a tried and true path to success, it’s often quite different than what many of us learned in school.

There are invisible forces at play that are obvious once uncovered. However, if you navigate your career without understanding this hidden framework, you’ll usually come up with the wrong answer, just like in the above situation.

Let’s take a peek at some of these hidden habits that are likely holding you back. It took me YEARS to uncover some of these. Hopefully, by seeing them now, you’ll save yourself a lot of aggravation and frustration.

Stop Calling Yourself “Non-Technical”

“Are you technical or non-technical?” Me? I’m both. And I went on a long journey of soul searching to figure that out. Saying you’re “non-technical” means you have absolutely no clue on how to interact with technology. That’s not really the case, right? Chances are, your technical skills are relative, not binary.

You can also get incredibly technical about a wide range of topics. On a recent podcast, the host was surprised at how much technical knowledge I had about cognitive empathy. What’s a topic where you have a deep understanding? This single language hack was the most profound for me on my journey to developing a career in tech.

Get Comfortable with Discomfort

Speaking of getting stumped, get used to it. It’s impossible to understand everything. The industry is so big and moves so fast that it’s tough to keep up, but that’s the fun part. Learn to enjoy the process and see challenges as a way to stretch the brain and grow. Dr. Carol Dweck, a researcher on the topic, suggests the following:

“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

The fixed mindset says, “I’m not technical. I’ll never learn this.” Then they shut off their computers and stop trying. A growth mindset says, “Wow! This is such an interesting challenge. How can I find resources to help me?”

Mind the Confidence Gap

A few years ago I was at a luncheon for women in business and learned about a study that found women wouldn’t apply for a job unless they met 100% of the criteria on the description. Yep. That felt about right, I thought. Then I learned that the average man would have applied if they met 60% of the criteria.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman have tackled this topic at length. “Success, it turns out, correlates just as closely with confidence as it does with competence: underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in. Overqualified and over prepared, too many women still hold back. Women feel confident only when they are perfect. Or practically perfect.”

Knowing that men are taking risks without having all the information has made a huge difference in how I approach my work. I may not know everything about a specific technology right now, but I trust my skills, attitude, and abilities. I know that I can learn whatever I set my mind to. That trust in myself has boosted my confidence and led to some amazing opportunities.

Acknowledge Your Biases

At one of my very first software conferences, I was one of two women in the room out of nearly three hundred attendees. It’s really tough to stand confidently when you feel like you so clearly don’t belong. Luckily, I knew from my marketing days that the brain relies on hacks and shortcuts to make decisions. Learning about these biases has helped me not take things so personally.

That person who assumed I was a recruiter when they first met me? That didn’t have as much to do with me as it did with confirmation bias. That person held the belief that women aren’t technical, so when they were met with a new input, they sought to confirm their existing world-view.

Familiarity with the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people believe “the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge,” is also helpful. In software, when people would scoff or use lots of jargon to make themselves look smarter, I initially wondered if it was me who wasn’t smart enough and didn’t belong. I stopped asking questions and noticed that I felt intimidated by how “technical” other people were. I stopped trying. Turns out, that ended up being another bias that crept in — imposter syndrome. Being aware of these unintentional posturing techniques makes a huge difference when it comes to committing to the long and difficult path of learning to code.

Andrea Goulet is the CEO & Co-Founder of Corgibytes in Richmond, Virginia. She was named a LinkedIn Top 10 Professional Under 35 in Software.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Women in Tech- Just Do It

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational PyschologistNicki Gilmour

We know that there are barriers for women in technology, from hiring and promotional bias to pretty awful cultural issues, making the day to day environment hard going. I could go on and on about the ugly underbelly and about the fact the system is stacked but I am not going to do that because it isn’t going to help you at your desk today.  Firms must fix the systemic elements but in the meantime, and whether you like it or not women have to pioneer and keep going.
But, we can reward the good firms by going to work for them. Give your business and your talent to people who deserve it.
Get out if your firm’s culture is totally toxic. If that seems like not the right choice for you, realise nothing is perfect and that you can find ways to be the change leader or work with the change agents if you can identify them. Easier said than done and this is dependent on three things that you need to look at.
Firstly, your desire to be the person who created the change (history tells us it is rarely at no personal or emotional cost). Dig deep and see if it’s in your personality to do this work. It will involve all sorts of things including smart power, conflict and conflict resolution. I was often the hammer in the the glass hammer and I have learned that there are other ways of tackling problems and the hammer is held for special occasions only as I am all too ready to pick it up and whack a mole (what rhymes with mole?). Look at what is natural for you and then do a 180 and look at what is not naturally within your skill set and understand you will need both for change leadership.
Secondly, on the context of the situation, how change ready is the environment? There are ways to test this and a simple question to a leader will tell you as much as you need to know. A question such as, “How would you explain how we do what we do here to a new person?”  Listen to their response carefully, as it is in their digestion of the ‘how’ and  ‘by whom’ work gets done and what gets rewarded behaviorally that you will know where they are at in their own diversity journey. Ask them, what do they think their vision is for the team?
Thirdly, what systems or policies and procedures are in place to make the culture a good place to work for all humans regardless of your biological status?
There are some amazing women in technology out there – some in big firms and some in firms that they have started. Women who code just announced their winners this past week.
We have held many career events for women in technology  round navigating the terrain. Like any career planning advice,  or in fact coaching advice i can give you, you need to know what you want, understand what is consciously and unconsciously stopping you, then go for it. Be the change you want to see in the world!
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