Tag Archive for: Technology

Voice of Experience: Jessica Tan, Marketing Director, Head of Global Field Marketing, FIS

Jessica TanBy Cathie Ericson

FIS’ Jessica Tan credits two factors for her ability to segue from an education in psychology and theater to her current position heading a global field marketing team in a fintech company.

Firstly, agreeing to try things outside her comfort zone, and secondly, realizing that her success depended on finding people who were willing to teach her. Tan comments, “The people you network with can help open up avenues that you aren’t able to open on your own,” she says.

A Career Path Winding Through Locations and Industries

Tan’s first job interning at a lifestyle magazine was the “most fun and carefree” job she ever held. She then joined the “real world;” after finishing her education in Singapore, she moved to Sweden for a position as a project manager and editor at a communications firm, working for Swedish multinational clients. Upon a return to Singapore, she dabbled in PR before ending up as a marketing manager for an Australian bank, which ultimately opened her eyes to the world of financial technology.

During the financial crisis in 2008 she began looking for new opportunities and joined SunGard Financial Systems (ultimately acquired by FIS) in 2009 as its Asia-Pacific PR and marketing manager, subsequently taking on additional roles in international marketing, where she worked with emerging markets such as China, the Middle East and Latin America. She has now been there for almost 10 years and currently heads a team of 14 marketers responsible for executing global marketing campaigns.

This international career has sparked several professional achievements she is proud of: One major one was beginning her career in Sweden, where English is not the first language; although her colleagues were effectively bilingual in Swedish and English, she was able to eventually converse and conduct business in Swedish. “I grew up speaking English and Mandarin, and learning another language really helped me broaden my ability to understand how different cultures create different business environments,” she says.

These early experiences provided her with the sensitivity to work with people from all types of cultures, which paved the way for her global role today where nearly 80 percent of her interactions are outside of the United States, including Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe.

She has worked on the firm’s evolution of its marketing model over the past five years – from one that depended on events and other traditional forms of marketing to capitalizing on the explosion of marketing automation, and using technology to track efforts and improve the effectiveness of outreach.

Learning to Find Balance

In her early years Tan notes that she threw herself into her work, believing that the more she got done, the more she would advance her career. Then while her mom battled cancer for three years, she realized that she needed to learn to carve out time for her family while continuing to maintain the same high quality of work, delivered as efficiently as possible.

“You want to be present when you’re with your family, so the solution to that is to become more efficient at work. Then you can go home and not bring your worries with you.” In fact, today she says her role models are those who have found ways to balance their responsibilities at home and work. “Often I see women who take on many burdens at home but are able to perform well in both settings – not taking their problems home or bringing their domestic issues to work,” she notes. “I admire those who can juggle and don’t let their worries invade either sphere. Both sides sculpt you as a person; you do what you need to do at work and home.”

She feels fortunate to work for a company that understands the numerous roles its employees play and recognizes that it’s important to offer day-to-day flexibility to manage work as well as home life.

“I can be where I need to be for my family and for my work, whichever I need to focus on at the time,” says Tan. As mom to a three-year-old son, she appreciates working for a company that believes people can project manage their own time and one that is proactive in ensuring that there are strong women across the C-suite.

Given her international experience, Tan notes that she still loves to travel, frequently visiting her in-laws in Europe and fitting in weekend holidays whenever she can.

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Why Women Are Crucial in Design and Tech

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Women-working-on-a-computerGuest contributed by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

I was chatting with a woman at a tech conference a while back about sexism in the industry. She rolled her eyes: “Oh, have I got a story for you.” A couple years ago, she was working at a large company’s Silicon Valley innovation center. She was excited. Her company was partnering with a fashion brand to produce a new “fashion-forward” women’s smartwatch, and she would be leading the design research. But when she walked into the kickoff meeting, her stomach sank: she was the only woman at the table.

While the men droned on about their wives, using them as proxies for the “female market,” she hatched a research plan to find out what women actually wanted from a smartwatch. More than a thousand respondents later, she brought her results back to the group. The top insight: women really wanted their smartwatch to help them discreetly keep an eye on things during meetings. But the men wouldn’t listen: women want apps for shopping, not work.

“I felt like I was in an episode of Mad Men,” she told me.

Eventually, the project stalled, and the brand brought in a celebrity to design the smartwatch. It flopped. “It wasn’t based on needs; it was based on stereotypes,” she said.

Her story is over the top, but it’s not rare. While writing my new book,Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech, I saw plenty of products that left women out (like Apple’s Heath app, which didn’t bother to include a period tracker for a full year after it launched). The companies behind those products? Mostly male.

Meanwhile, I also found loads of research confirming what I’d long felt: that diverse teams perform better because they spur new thinking rather than encourage people to rely on the same stale perspectives. As a result, they’re more likely to develop innovative product ideas, and less likely to rally around incorrect assumptions.

That’s why we need more women—and people of color, and LGTBQ people, and people with different abilities, and so much more—working on design and tech at every step of the process, from deciding what to make in the first place to testing products before they go to market.

But as the smartwatch researcher found out, it’s not easy being a woman in tech: we’re routinely passed over for funding, pushed out by harassment, and even subjected to demoralizing pseudoscience claiming we’re just not as good as men.

So how do you create a thriving career, do your part to change the system, and avoid burning out in the process? Here’s what I’ve learned during my career, and in my research talking with dozens of women across the industry.

Make “microchanges” that matter

Diógenes Brito didn’t mean for it to be a big deal when he used a brown hand for a new graphic at Slack, the group-chat platform. But it was—because people of color so rarely see their skin tones reflected in the world (just think about all the so-called “flesh-colored” Band-Aids on the market). “It may seem like a small thing,” tweeted Kaya Thomas, a college student studying computer science. “But when you see graphics over and over excluding your skin color, it matters.”

Seemingly minute design or tech choices—like including women in photos depicting technical teams or removing unnecessary binary gender questions from forms—can make a big difference to users, and can even make a company’s culture more aware and inclusive over time. And since they’re small—as small as depicting a brown hand in an illustration—they’re the kind of thing you can often slip in without getting pushback.

Oh, and Kaya Thomas? She graduated in May. Now she’s an engineer at—you guessed it—Slack, where I’m sure she’ll shake things up even further.

See what others have missed

You know how dating apps used to be cesspools of unsolicited porn? Yeah, okay, so that’s still largely true. But now there are tons of women-run apps offering an alternative. There’s Bumble, of course, founded by ex-Tinder exec Whitney Wolfe. Disillusioned by harassment (including from one of her fellow Tinder founders), Wolfe set out to solve some of heterosexual online dating’s endemic flaws by doing something no one had thought of before: only allowing women to make the first move.

Or, there’s Coffee Meets Bagel, designed as an alternative to “swiping your life away.” Frustrated by the constant ghosting of other apps, the founders—sisters Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang—designed their product to give users fewer, better matches each day, and to discourage flakiness by only showing women a short list of men who’d already liked them.

While none of the new women-run dating apps is perfect (for example, many still don’t serve the LGBTQ community very well), they’re all exploring new ground—ground traditional male-run apps never would have considered.

Serve the underserved

Tech has also enabled a bevvy of new fashion startups, and some of the most exciting examples are in a space that used to be a dead zone: plus sizes. Today, loads of women are helming companies that—finally—are focused on combining on-trend and luxury pieces with more inclusive sizing options.

One particularly innovative option? Universal Standard’s “Universal Fit Liberty” policy where customers can exchange a product within a year if their size goes up or down.

While getting funding for a fledgling business still isn’t easy, the world is starting to wake up to the fact that designing for women isn’t a niche case. It’s an underserved audience­­­—one that controls most of the purchasing decisions in the United States, and that’s increasingly fickle about where it spends its money. The more we push for inclusion—and stand up to all the sexists, bad bosses, and other toxic influences out there—the more opportunities we’ll have to make sure that the tech products of the future serve all of us.

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Op-Ed: What I’ve Learned as a Woman in Technology

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Women-on-computerBy Avis Yates Rivers

As a woman and leader in technology over the past 30+ years, I have seen a lot. I have witnessed and experienced the tremendous progress we have made. Yet we still have a long way to go to reach an equitable playing field in attracting and retaining more women in technology. Not to mention, leading!

It is undeniable that women leadership has had a successful impact in the world of business. Currently in the US there are just over 9.4 million women-owned businesses generating revenues of $1.5 trillion — up 79% in nearly a 20 year period. According to Dow Jones Venture Source, analysis of more than 20,000 venture-backed companies showed that successful startups have twice as many women in senior positions as unsuccessful companies. Tech companies led by women delivered higher revenues using 30-50% less capital. They were also more likely to survive the transition from startup to established business.

Yet, the overall percentage of women in technology is woefully low. In 2015, women made up 25 percent of computing-related occupations. The retention rate is even more troubling. In the high tech industry, the quit rate is more than twice as high for women (56 percent) than it is for men.

The sad and hard truth is that Women in STEM also were more likely to leave in the first few years of their career than women in non-STEM professions.

I was fortunate that early in my career I got involved with technology. I worked for Exxon Corporation in NYC in various staff positions and then made the jump to sales — selling Exxon’s line of office technology on Wall Street. I immersed myself in the technology, early as it was, and found that I had a natural affinity to it.

More than any other role, Sales prepared me for 31 years as an entrepreneur in so many ways —-it taught me to be courageos and fierce every single day!

These qualities serve me well in my current role as the Chief Executive Officer of TCGi. It is my responsibility to craft the vision and strategy for the firm. I also am chiefly responsible for cultivating and managing excellent client and partner relationships.

Life as a CEO keeps me on the go 24/7, but it is the giving back that completes the circle. Sharing the experience of my journey, lessons learned, successes and failures with women who are entering the field will help them tremendously.

Being a successful woman leader in technology inspires me to want to see more women of color participate and succeed in this field as well. My work with NCWIT (National Center for Women & IT) supports this desire. I am an active Board Member as well as the National Spokesperson for the ‘Sit With Me’ Campaign.

Early education is key to attracting more girls, women and people of color to Tech. Another is mentorship and advocacy. Senior Leaders must actively advocate for and sponsor diverse candidates for leadership positions within corporations. With too few women in tech positions and tech leadership roles, it is impossible for girls and women to aspire to positions or cultures where they see no one who looks like her.

Women have made great strides in the workplace today, and we shouldn’t downplay this progress (0 CEOs of Fortune 500 in 1996 and 20 years later there are 21). But we need to accelerate progress—and I believe progress in increasing women in leadership goes hand-in-hand with increasing women in technology.

Conclusion

Technology is still a very male-dominated industry. What that means is the technology being invented by largely homogeneous groups (White and Asian males) isn’t as deep and rich as it could be. Once women and people from all cultures, ethnicities and backgrounds begin to fully participate in the invention of technology, we will solve societal problems in a mighty way and ultimately change the world!

Avis Yates Rivers is the President and CEO of Technology Concepts Group International, LLC, (TCGi), an asset, expense and procurement management firm. Ms. Yates Rivers has worked tirelessly to increase the development and utilization of minority and women-owned businesses in both the public and private sectors. She has held leadership positions in various supplier diversity advocacy organizations. Ms. Yates Rivers is also a staunch advocate for increasing girls’ and women’s participation in Information Technology. She is on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Women and Information Technology and serves as the spokeswoman for the organization’s Sit With Me campaign.

You can learn more about the lack of women in technology and Avis Yates Rivers by purchasing her book ‘Necessary Inclusion: Embracing the Changing Faces of Technology’ which will be in bookstores and online in early December.

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Voice of Experience: Miruna Stratan, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

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miruna-stratanBy Cathie Ericson

As a technologist, there is no better time to enter the financial services sector, asserts Miruna Stratan, Goldman Sachs Managing Director in the Technology Division. “Technology is no longer a cost center, but is at the core of digital transformations across the industry, providing the opportunity to impact and shape new business models.”

Driving Technology Advances Throughout Goldman Sachs

Miruna joined Goldman Sachs after studying communication and electronics engineering at Bucharest Politechnica University and earning her graduate degree in telecommunications from Stevens Institute of Technology. Building technical teams and developing new innovative infrastructures have been the hallmark of her career throughout her time at the firm.

During her 17-year tenure at the firm, she has held multiple roles. Early on in her career she built technology solutions for the banking business. Subsequently, Miruna took a series of technology infrastructure engineering roles, focusing on data center engineering products across the computer storage and networking space and working closely to drive the firm’s global data center architecture and strategy.

Over the years, she had the opportunity to work directly on building innovative technology stacks that transformed Goldman’s operational model and enabled the firm to be increasingly agile. Miruna was also part of the team that engineered the virtual desktop platform for the firm, and more recently she drove a security engineering project that enabled Goldman Sachs to extend its cloud platform securely to public cloud providers. Currently, she manages the external cloud access platform, cloud desktop and remote access function for Goldman Sachs engineering. She was named Managing Director in 2015.

Being named “Technology Fellow” in 2014 was a notable achievement for Miruna. The role of Technology Fellow is a distinction reserved for the best engineering and architectural talent at Goldman Sachs, a select group of engineers whose authoritative knowledge is demonstrated through strong technical leadership, innovation and problem-solving expertise.

“At Goldman we manage complex technology stacks and control frameworks; we think of ourselves as a technology firm building the platforms that allow our colleagues to transform our businesses into a data-driven model through applied technology,” Miruna says. “It is exhilarating to be at the forefront of emerging technologies in the infrastructure organization when the rate of technology change has been so tremendous.”

Lessons Learned – and Now Shared

Over the years, Miruna’s career has progressed in large part because of the opportunities she took to move laterally throughout the firm. “I had to prove myself each time in these new roles, on different types of technologies, but these opportunities were the most amazing learning experiences I had,” she notes. “I am quite proud of the engineering teams I have built over the years as well as seeing many of my mentees grow and develop.”

One important lesson she has learned is the significance of communicating your contributions to others. Early in her career, she focused on building her technical skills while avoiding the spotlight. She recommends that women develop their technical skills and establish themselves as an expert in a specific technology or platform early on, but once they get there continue to accept lateral opportunities and embrace the challenge to work on something completely different. Miruna also realized it’s essential to listen to feedback and be thoughtful about how to align others to your vision.

“You have to modulate your message to the audience and understand how to be practical when delivering a product,” she said. “Communicating your strategy effectively to stakeholders ensures buy-in for a new project or platform.”

Ensure Women Have a Seat at the Table

Initially, Miruna felt intimidated as the only woman in most situations, but over time, she found diverse role models within the firm and across the tech industry. Connecting with these individuals helped her realize that being different allows others to naturally notice your contributions more.

“It’s so important to have strong female and diverse role models in executive and senior technical roles,” Miruna says. “We have to carefully mentor the technical talent not only as they enter the firm, but throughout their career.”

Due to her own experience in the sector, Miruna is passionate about building a thriving female tech community and has participated in industry conferences such as the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, ABI.NY events and Lesbians Who Tech.

She also focuses on giving back to the Women in Technology organization and devotes significant time to recruiting and retention programs, partnering with external organizations such as Girls Who Code and the Anita Borg Institute. Additionally, she has been involved in the Geek Speak program, which provides individual coaching and feedback to help women improve their presentation skills when discussing technical topics.

Throughout her career, Miruna has been involved with Goldman Sachs’ affinity networks, serving as the Managing Director sponsor for the technical pillar of Women in Technology. She has also participated in the Disability Interest Forum and is an ally to the firm’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community.

Supporting Children With Disabilities

Separately, she actively works at balancing her family and career while simultaneously addressing complex special needs situations. “I have learned how important it is to prioritize, delegate and recognize the activities that are the best use of my time,” she says.

Miruna is passionate about helping kids with disabilities by ensuring kids with dyslexia have access to specialized education accommodations and programs. As October 15 is both World Sight Day and World Dyslexia Day, in October she reflects on her future impact and contributions to this important issue and creates a specific action plan for the upcoming year.

“There is now so much technology available that can be leveraged to help kids with disabilities participate fully and successfully at their grade level in the learning process,” she says. “I regularly research innovation that creates accessible, technology-based solutions in the areas of communication and advocate for such solutions in the special needs community and within my school district.”

An avid reader of both science books and literature, Miruna enjoys traveling with her husband and their 12-year-old twins. Recent trips have included Spain and Romania, and this year they traveled to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and learned about the amazing geology of Yellowstone County.

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Women and STEM: Why We Need to Reclaim Our Belonging

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women in technologyBy Aimee Hansen

We are increasingly conveying a new message to our daughters and nieces when it comes to girls’ and women’s place in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics): You belong.

“Ada Twist, Scientist” by Andrea Beaty held the top spot on the NYT best sellers among children’s picture books for four weeks as of October 16th (still in the top 10), joining Beaty’s “Rosie Revere, Engineer,” on the list for 76 weeks now.

In August, “Ada’s Ideas: The Story of the Ada Lovelace, the World’s First Computer Programmer” by Fiona Robinson was released. More of the books we give to our children to read are saying, STEM “is for girls” – and not only that, but they are exploring themes like passion, perseverance, and the value of failure.

Ada matters, and so does recognizing all the forgotten or overshadowed women in STEM, because it’s not that women are just entering these fields now, thank you very much. It’s that girls and women are being desperately courted back into them.

A Broken STEM Narrative

In an episode entitled, “When Women Stopped Coding,” NPR noted that women were a pioneering, rising presence in computer science until a stark turning point in 1984: when computers came into homes and the cultural narrative began glorifying them as toys for the boys.

From that year, the rising cultural narrative pushed girls out at home while talented women dropped out of tech in schools. In 1984, women represented 37% of computer science majors and despite the rising demand, today it’s 18%.

This was not the first time capable women were written out of the STEM story, just a recent one. The tired narrative that women don’t belong in STEM replays through the industry stereotypes and cultural dynamics that keep women away, throw an extra hurdle in their path, or drive them out.

Every time a new study (2016) shows that “woman” is still perceived by both men (even more so) and women to be incompatible with “successful scientist” (or programmer, or engineer, or executive, or leader), it’s proof that a limited narrative is still being internalized by our culture.

This “STEM is for men” narrative is dangerous, because it’s also written women right out of a rising proportion of high-reward, high-in-demand jobs. Bad for women, yes. And crippling for the U.S. economy.

Talent Shortage and Competitive Lag

A new report from Accenture entitled “Cracking the Gender Code: Get 3x More Women In Computing” calls the current lack of women a “national crisis with severe implications for America’s place in the global economy and for the future of women.”

Consider that women take home half of computing degrees in Malaysia and nearly half of engineering degrees in Indonesia. In the USA, women receive just 18% of computer science undergraduate degrees and 19% of engineering degrees.

The Accenture report states that job growth within the computer industry is growing at three times the national average, creating unmet demand. In 2015, there were over half a million open computing jobs in the U.S., but only 40,000 computer science graduates.

By 2018, it’s estimated that 2.4 million STEM jobs will be unfilled. The report points out that the shortfall of analysts in the U.S. is greater than the surplus of analysts in India and China combined. Increasingly these jobs are newly emerging jobs that haven’t existed before, requiring new specialized skills.

The glaring reality is that STEM needs women if the U.S. economy hopes to retain any leadership in digital innovation.

Women Sidelined Within Economy

An AAUW report states that engineering and computing represent 80% of the jobs in STEM, offering the highest return on investment and best job prospects.
Studies have shown that STEM jobs pay women better relatively to other jobs.

But women are least represented in engineering (13% of jobs) and computer science (26%), and the Accenture analysis showed that the gender pay gap within U.S. computing roles widened by 48% between 2011 and 2015, as women are missing out on the high-value roles.

Bringing women back into computer science isn’t just about progress in STEM. It’s about “bringing women back to the center of our economy.”

Encouraging Girls and Young Women In Tech

The Accenture report recommends a three-stage strategy to “more than triple the number of women working in computing in the U.S. to 3.9 million by 2025”, or 39% of the workforce. This would generate nearly $300 billion in additional cumulative earnings for women.

“The keys to improvement include: sparking the interest of girls in junior high school, sustaining their commitment in high school where early gains are often lost,” states the report, “and inspiring college undergraduates by reframing computer curriculums.”

Equal exposure is not enough, but actually re-tailoring educational programs towards girls, young women, and women – at all levels. Interventions at the college level would only result in 1.9 million in computing in 2025 (1.2 million now).

The first-ever technology and engineering literacy test in 2014 found that eighth grade girls (45%) were more proficient at engineering and technology related tasks than boys (42%).

A few years later, those same young women are less likely to take the related AP exams (only 20% of computer science exam takers) and less likely in their first college year to intend to major in these fields.

Accenture states that 69% of the potential growth in the computer pipeline is down to attracting girls at junior high age, as 74% of women in computing now were exposed in junior high.

This demands exposing girls to coding in more attractive ways (eg gaming), changing stereotypes, and increasing awareness of all parties (teachers, parents) about how computing can help change the world for the better.

Multiple initiatives here and globally are dedicated to recruiting girls and women into STEM- such as Million Women Mentors, the WISE campaign which seeks to bring one million women into STEM in the UK, and Girls Who Code.

At the high school level is when interest in computer science drops. The report recommends redesigning high school courses, creating grassroots campaigns around the difference STEM can make, and attracting more women teachers.

Supporting Women In Tech

At the college level, we’ve witnessed that strong, focused efforts can result in dramatic changes.

In 2016, Dartmouth graduated more female (54%) than male engineers, a first for a national research university. The program features more collaboration, a supportive network with diverse role models, and a “hands-on, project-based” approach, which exposes students to engineering who may not have chosen it.

In 2016, Harvey Mudd graduated a majority of women in computer science (54%) and physics (52%) for the first time ever, having already graduated a majority in engineering two years ago. Importantly, 64% of the 2016 computer science graduates who had accepted a full-time job had a position in the tech industry, compared to 30% in 2011. Only ten years ago, women were only 10% of computer science majors.

Under President Maria Klawe since 2006, Harvey Mudd has famously made three key changes that removed obstacles for women, such as reworking introductory courses to attract women and integrating research opportunities, and it only took a few years to quadruple CS majors and less than a decade to arrive to the landmark classes of 2014 and 2016.

At Harvey Mudd in 2017, six of the school’s seven department chairs and 38% of its professors will be women.

Biasing Recruitment towards Women

It’s not surprising that a slew of diversity apps designed to help to mitigate bias in hiring and promotion have been rising out of Silicon Valley, in many cases led by women who have faced bias in action in the tech industry.

These ideas help reduce the biases that keep women and minorities out of tech roles. But after such acute exclusion with such growing demand, it will take more than eliminating bias against women to address the massive talent gaps. It will take educational strategies that lean in towards girls and women.

Representation, visibility, and mentorship of women in these fields remains paramount. It starts to rewrite the broken cultural narrative and reminds both girls and women that we do belong – from our children’s books to our leadership.

Being visible is arguably the most influential thing an engineer, scientist, programmer, mathematician, and executive in any of these fields can do to encourage change.

Because it’s not just that girls and women belong. It’s that they are needed.

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Life Hacks: Apps to Make your Life Easier for the busy professional woman

smartphonesToday there are applications (apps) for nearly everything imaginable: apps for work; apps to inspire, organize and motivate, and apps to simply waste time.

Today is also a time where the demands on our time are greater than ever. So how do we make the apps work for us as professional women, to give us that extra time we all seem to need at work and at home? Can apps be the key to the work-life balance issue? Are there career opportunities for women to develop more apps based on their own needs?

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Beating Bias: How Technology Is Changing the Recruiting Game

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women at computer
By Aimee Hansen
The hardest part of diversity can be the “how.” How do you stay awake to your own unconscious bias? Can you?

With no evidence that it’s possible to eliminate unconscious bias, a rising trend on the crossroads of diversity and tech is to mitigate bias with the help of technology tools.

New apps are helping to eliminate and filter the blindspots in the communications and decision-making that go into recruitment, hiring and promotion.

If You Can’t Stop it, Mitigate It

Diversity training helps individuals to become aware of their own bias, but unconscious bias, by definition, often evades our awareness to blindly drive our decisions. It can’t necessarily be trained away.

As Tony Greenwald, a University of Washington psychology professor who conducted seminal research on unconscious bias said, “Understanding implicit bias does not actually provide you the tools to do something about it.”

While increasing awareness of unconscious bias can enable individuals to be a bit more conscious of their own thought patterns and actions, it can also make bias socially normalized, which can backfire by condoning stereotyping.

We’re all doing it, right? If everybody is guilty, then is anyone?

One place where bias famously runs riot is in Silicon Valley. As Vivian Giang in Fast Company writes, “the percentage of underrepresented minorities is so low, (Silicon Valley) employers shouldn’t trust their own judgment anymore.”

But the dearth of diversity in tech town has recently catalyzed a booming counter-effect in app development.

As Ellen Huet writes in Forbes, unconscious bias has become the newest target in Silicon Valley and “demand for bias-busting solutions, in the form of consulting firms and anti-bias hiring software, has shot through the roof.”

Want Diversity? Watch Your Language

Something as seemingly innocuous as a job listing can bring bias into the hiring process through turning some candidates on and others away.

For example, research has shown that women are more drawn to/less threatened by companies that emphasize growth and development rather than boasting they hire the most awesome talent.

Two examples of companies who get the power and influence of words in the hiring process are Textio and Unitive, both of which have created software that tackle workplace bias in hiring and recruiting in “real time”.

Co-founder and CEO of Textio, Kieran Snyder, is a PhD in linguistics, who also researches gender bias in office dynamics. According to Textio, “the future of writing is knowing how well your words will work before anyone else reads them.”

Textio Talent, which has been used by companies like Twitter, Microsoft, Starbucks and Square, is “like a very smart word processor” that helps to predict how your documents, such as job listings and candidate e-mails, will perform.

As you write, the software highlights phrases, calls out their potential impact, and suggests alternative choices to appeal to a wider range of job seekers.

Textio has found that “proven track record” means more men will apply, “passion for learning” will attract more women, “mentoring” is generally more attractive than “coaching”, and “high performer” is more widely appealing than “rock star.”

There’s even an attraction difference between “manage a team” (more male) versus “develop a team” (more female). The tool also highlights when you’re just talking corporate jargon such as “synergy,” which makes listings less popular.

Snyder told Fast Company, “Everybody hates that language, but underrepresented people hate it more, probably because it’s a cultural signifier of some kind. It sort of communicates, this is an old-boy’s network kind of company.”

Take The Bias Out of Resumes & Interviews

Research that has shown that applicants with names that sound African-American have a 14% lower call-back rate. When it comes to tackling bias in hiring, developers are also focusing in on the resume and interview process.

Unitive has created an app that helps with creating word-optimized job postings, as well as resume reviewing and interview structuring, helping hiring managers monitor their decision-making and mitigate the effect of bias throughout.

The technology requires hiring managers to first “pre-commit” to what they most wish to see from an applicant, and presents resumes stripped of bias-triggering details like name and gender. Through the resume and interview process, the app reminds the manager of the key pre-committed criteria they choose.

In Fortune, Unitive Founder and CEO Laura Mather explains, ”We found a way to operationalize psychological findings so that hiring managers avoid bias as much as possible,” explains Mather.

It’s as much as about efficient hiring, and efficient hiring lends itself to more diversity. According to NPR, when cybersecurity firm RedSeal wanted to expand its employee base to increase women and minority representation, the CEO brought in Unitive to help filter out bias.

As a result, the firm received 30% more job applications, and the percentage of female engineers doubled. The candidate pool both increased and diversified. The technology helped to move away from “culture-fit”, breaking the mold on who fits into the company.

Unitive Founder and CEO Laura Mather told NPR that research shows “getting in different perspectives into your company makes your company more innovative, more profitable, more productive.” Mather said, ”All kinds of really great things happen when you stop making decisions based on how much you like the person’s personality.”

The Blind Audition

Another firm, GapJumpers helps remove bias from the hiring process for tech talent through blind auditions, just as blind auditions cracked the orchestra world open for female musicians. Candidates are given a challenge related to the job, rather than submitting a resume, which gives clues to gender and race. Not only is the process less biased, it allows those hiring to see how a candidate delivers.

Blendoor is just one other example of a new app which connects candidates and recruiters with faceless and nameless profiles, with a Tinder-like interface.

Nicki Gilmour, Founder of theglasshammer and organizational psychologist emphasizes that new technology is a valuable part of the equation in addressing unconscious bias. ”Like any behavioral change project, but especially anything to do with habits, assumptions and stereotypes, many parts of the system need to support the change structurally, to make individual change easier.”

”I also feel executive coaching is important as assumptions can be part of the cultural wallpaper and engrained,” Gilmour commented. “When they are interwoven with individual value sets that might be traditional to start with, making the unconscious conscious is only the beginning of this work.”

If You Talk the Talk, Try the Technology

More and more start-ups are entering the space of developing the technology that filters bias out of hiring efficiency and diversity, and current players have plans to expand beyond hiring to addressing promotions and reviews.

As the “how”’ of diversity becomes increasingly demystified and tangible, companies have a chance to do with unconscious bias what they would do with any inhibiting factor to their business: bring in the tools to address it.

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Voice Of Experience: Carol Johnson, Senior Vice President, Global Consumer Technology, Citi

Getting Comfortable With Discomfort
 
Carol Johnson, CitiWomen can have a tendency to stay in their comfort zone for too long, says Carol Johnson, Senior Vice President, Global Consumer Technology, at Citi. “Along the way I was fortunate to have people who encouraged me to explore new roles, which was pivotal to my success. It’s tempting to stay where you know your role well, but you can have more impact on a higher plain by leveraging what you know and bringing it to a new platform.” In fact, Johnson says that one of the keys to success is to take the next step in your career before you think you’re ready, which requires adapting to operating in an uncomfortable zone at any stage of your career.
 
And those moves outside her comfort zone are precisely what’s helped Johnson ascend the ladder.Her first position as a computer programmer piqued her interest in the field, spurring her to continue her academic pursuits at night in computer engineering. That led to an IT role at a regional bank, where she held various positions from developer to systems analyst, and eventually worked into a technical team manager role. When the bank was acquired and went through organizational changes, she chose to view it as an opportunity, rather than a setback. “That role had set me up for career success: I had learned new technology, increased my professional network and had advanced into a role as a manager,” she says.
 
Moving Up Through the Ranks
 
A management stint at another bank followed, and then she was contacted by an individual  from a leadership network she was part of, who had moved to Citi and offered her a new challenge there as a program manager to help replatform Citi’s credit processing on the consumer side. The challenge of reengineering the system rounded out many of Johnson’s skills, and led to another similar opportunity but on a much larger scale: replatforming the customer service desktop system for North America Cards.
 
This new role led to the professional achievement she is most proud of so far – playing a leadership role contributing to the system from code to deployment. “I am very proud that the system is still used all over the world and gave me the opportunity to shine in a stretch role.”
 
Her next move was back as an individual contributor as chief of staff, where she was able to expand her network with other leaders and into various other lines of business. This valuable experience led to another program management role, followed by a senior development leadership role. “Every day I’m challenged,” she says, working on transformative projects where no one has a concrete answer. “You partner with people inside and outside the organization to gain knowledge and best practices.”
 
At present, one area of particular interest for her is incorporating aspects of behavioral science into operating models, which before were rooted in process, software development and life cycles and now have evolved to include team dynamics as well as more robust information that helps to understand customers and their buying trends. “Today, product development is customer feedback-driven. You watch Twitter to see which features they like, and adapt to take that into account,” Johnson says. “It’s so different from the past, where we laid out defined requirements and drove development to get there.” She sees this model translate to team organization as well, where you can see the benefits of people working together rather than in siloes.
 
 
Network and Pivot to Move Up
 
Reflecting on her career, Johnson says she wishes she had worked earlier to expand her network to colleagues in more senior roles. “It wasn’t until late in my career that it was demystified – senior-level professionals seem to know everything, but when you get to know them, you recognize that they are puzzled by things as well. They just have developed techniques to help them with making decisions and involving subject matter experts where appropriate.”
 
She has seen that by extending your network outside your immediate management stream or area of expertise, you gain access to a wider range of people from whom you’ll receive mentoring and sponsorship, which helps you feel more at home when you take those risks.
 

One of these networking opportunities has come to Johnson through her membership in Citi’s Women’s Network. “This program has helped me expand my network of women leaders at all levels of the organization and learn that they too were challenged by what I’ve faced. Hearing their stories can be so helpful.”

 

In addition, she is active in the Women in Technology initiative that Citi launched in 2013 to encourage more girls in junior high and high schools to consider the many opportunities that exist in the tech field. “I have a passion for this as I wish there had been something similar when I was that age.”
 
Recharging Outside Work
 
Though Johnson says she didn’t consider herself an athlete in high school, she took up running five years ago and finished her first marathon three years ago. “It’s not only a wonderful release, but it has helped me see that although I’m not an expert, I can conquer it.”
 
With a diverse and rich friend and family network, she feels grounded and reinvigorated by spending time with them. “I encourage young women to not compartmentalize their lives but look at their family as partners in their career. They are invested in your success as well, and you can find a lot of support and insight you didn’t even know was there.”
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Changing Industry Stereotypes Can Increase Women in STEM

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People waiting for an interviewDo we really have to paint a picture to make the serious under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields any clearer? YES, decided the faculty at New Jersey Institute of Technology, who have released the infograph, “Are Stereotypes Keeping Women Away from Science?”

Paint a picture it does. A quick glance reveals that women are represented half as much in STEM professions (25%) as they are in the workforce, while rarer yet in engineering and computer and mathematical sciences. From associates to doctorate, women are much less likely to convert their (relatively fewer) STEM degrees into a career in the field, where they’ll net unequal pay and less recognition. In fact, women are twice as likely to end up working in the lower-paying fields of education or healthcare with their STEM degree. Underneath this are the unconscious bias against female applicants and early ingraining of gender stereotypes.

Despite the frustrating gender dynamics at play for women in the STEM field, the biggest reason for the gender gap is too few are. Two recent studies recommend to get more women into the STEM door, widen the entrance: address narrow stereotypes about the field.

Gender, Science, and the “Brilliance” Factor

Recent research published in Science by Leslie and Cimpian found that in academia women are underrepresented in fields across science and humanities that value innate brilliance and morerepresented in those that value hard work and dedication.

Why? Because our culture still implicitly links raw, innate talent/genius/inborn ability/brilliance with men and not women.

As the Washington Post put it, “The difference between Sherlock Holmes and Hermione Granger may help explain why women don’t thrive as much as men in some fields of academia. One is brilliant by nature and the other has to work her butt off, and they represent the pervasive gender stereotypes of our age.“

Across 1,800 academics from 30 different disciplines, academia participants rated the importance of having “an innate gift or talent” or “a special aptitude that just can’t be taught” to succeed in their field versus the value of “motivation and sustained effort.” The study found the implicit emphasis put on brilliance as a success criteria predicted under-representation of women far better than other tested hypotheses. The findings extended to African-American representation, too.

The researchers clarified there’s no convincing evidence that men and women differ in capacity for brilliance, and the study can’t validate it’s actual importance in the field. “The argument is about the culture of the field,” Cimpian said. “In our current cultural climate, where women are stereotypically seen as less likely to possess these special intellectual gifts, emphasizing that those gifts are required for success is going to have a differential effect on men and women.”

Researcher Leslie shared, “Consider for example how difficult it is to think of even a single pop-culture portrayal of a woman who like Sherlock Holmes (& others)…displays that special spark of innate, unschooled genius.”

Field-specific success beliefs conspire with long-held gender stereotypes. “Any group that’s stereotyped to lack a trait that a field values is going to be underrepresented in that field,” Cimpian said.

While the gender stereotype around brilliance may be infuriating, the researchers recommend it’s the stereotype around the discipline that can easily change: downplay the importance of innate brilliance and reflect all excellence requires hard work.

“These findings suggest that academics who wish to increase the diversity of their fields should pay particular attention to the messages they send about what’s required for success,” said Leslie.

Culture Stereotypes & Computer Science

Dove-tailing the recommendation, a new research paper from Cheryan, Master, and Meltzoff asserts that to open the gates to computer science and engineering wider for women, diversify the gatekeeper stereotypes about the culture of these fields.

The article reports, “Computer science and engineering are stereotyped in modern American culture as male-oriented fields that involve social isolation, an intense focus on machinery, and inborn brilliance. These stereotypes are compatible with qualities that are typically more valued in men than women in American culture. As a result, when computer science and engineering stereotypes are salient, girls report less interest in these fields than their male peers.”

The authors acknowledge that many social constraints keep women from engineering and computer science. But they found that diversifying the way these fields are represented – the kind of people, the nature of the work, and values of the field – changes young women’s sense of interest and belonging in the field.

With no direct experience of the field, stereotypes and media representations are often what students have to go on, and they are tight and narrow. Picture a white, geeky, tech-focused, socially awkward but intellectually brilliant, pale-skinned guy with glasses who sleeps and eats science and works on his own. The researchers say cultural stereotypes like this “are perceived as incompatible with qualities that are valued in women, such as being feminine, people-oriented, and modest about one’s abilities.” Women don’t feel they belong to the culture.

The researchers argue that diversifying and broadening the stereotypes (rather than getting rid of them as they also positively draw people) attracts more women to computer science and engineering by enabling them to identify more with the fields, without deflecting male interest.

One opportunity to widen image is in media, which strongly impacts upon stereotypes. In one study women who read articles that computer science was breaking away from stereotypes were more interested in the field than those who read an article confirming them, whereas men’s interest was not affected.

A second opportunity to widen image is in more diverse exposure to the people in the field. In a previous study, Cheryan found that women’s interest was positively influenced when they interviewed a computer scientist who had non-stereotypical appearance (plain t-shirt) and preferences (eg enjoys socializing), regardless of their gender. In fact, the experience increased women’s sense they could succeed in the field compared to women who interviewed with the stereotype. Men’s sense they could succeed was not affected.

The researchers noted, “When the people in computer science depict themselves in a manner consistent with the stereotypes, it can convey to other students that one must fit the stereotypes to be successful in these fields.”

A third opportunity to widen image is around workenvironments, which reflect dominant cultural values. The researchers previously found that young women who were exposed to a room with non-stereotypical objects (nature posters vs. Star Trek, water bottles vs. soda cans, neutral books vs. science fiction books) were far more likely to express interest in pursuing computer science than those that visited a stereotypical room. This represents a sense of “ambient” belonging.

The researchers point out that while these sciences remain male-dominated cultures in which women do face obstacles, “A broader image that shows many different types of people and working environments in computer science and engineering actually represents a more realistic portrayal.” Diversifying representation of computer science helped increased female enrolment in certain universities.

Going beyond narrow cultural stereotypes in STEM widens the door to girls and women. And as more women dare to enter it, the culture will likely, if slowly, evolve too.

By Aimee Hansen

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Embracing Our Differences to Unlock Possibility

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women in technologyWhen people discover that I have founded two game changing tech companies and thrived in the predominantly male dominated tech world, the first thing they ask is, “What did you do differently?”

There are a few forces shaping business today, making it ideal for women to create greater impact than ever before.

Today, Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Yahoo and Xerox have women at their helm. Women own almost a third (29%) of all businesses in the US, and women-owned businesses generate $1.3 Trillion Dollars in revenue annually. Since the beginning of time, we as women have been pregnant with ideas and creativity. As mothers, sisters, and daughters, our traditional roles at home have built-in business leadership functions.

But first, we have to accept that we are different from men; and that there are genetics at play that make us uniquely different from them. But this difference should not to be judged as better or worse – just different! These intrinsic differences are what we can leverage today into veritable business successes that impact our communities and the world at large.

It’s an exciting time to be a woman in tech and business in general. What once was a disadvantage has now become a strength. Smart businesses are recognizing that our perspectives are vital to their success. Our input and contributions are no longer considered niceties, but rather necessities.

Google Diversity Evangelist Jewel Burks recently shared that the measure of true diversity for companies such as Google is ensuring that they reflect on the inside what customers look like on the outside. This is highly insightful in understanding the diversity imperative. We cant serve our customer base well, if we can’t understand their needs. The currency for the long-term success of business is diversity.

Unfortunately, many women have yet to recognize and embrace this power. They believe that, in order to be successful in male dominated areas, they have to behave or act like men. This is counterproductive, because our unique perspective and difference from men is what is needed to create the complete picture. Our skills, thoughts, and dreams are significant because they are often new and different. When we think we need to act like men in order to be successful in business, we limit ourselves and throw the entire equation off balance. It’s like walking with two left feet.

Our significance lies in embracing our talents and raising them to a level of excellence. Small hinges swing big doors , and so it is with our contributions. They matter and can make a huge impact. I have always embraced my differences, as they are what have created so many opportunities.

In a left-brain or right-brain world, it has always been difficult for me to be “whole-brained.” This has been a struggle my entire life. People ask me, “What are you – a techie or a creative? Left brained or right brained? Artist or scientist?” The answer is both! I love technology as much as I love the creative. I am a writer at heart. Throughout my life, I’ve sought opportunities that would allow me to express both. But for a long time, a whole-brained approach was frowned upon, especially in places where people perceived it didn’t fit. Some of my engineering reports were deemed too flowery and verbose, perhaps more suited for a novel. I felt I needed to make a choice between the two, and people often demanded that I make a choice.

As technology grew and started taking over all our lives, a lot shifted. For example, marketing companies were required to become technology and media companies. They needed to understand online marketing, mobile platforms, analytics and know how to leverage new technology mediums. I found myself at the confluence of art and science. New innovations required the artist to think like the scientist, and the scientist to think like the artist. Suddenly, my kind wasn’t just wanted; we were in high demand. What had been a point of contention in the past became my calling card. I remember clearly when the shift started to occur.

At Boeing Digital Cinema, I had helped develop the technology to deliver movies digitally. One day, I was watching the movie Crush with other engineers – after we had encoded it but before the director previewed it. I took one look at the screen and noticed a very thin white film over it. When my colleagues said they couldn’t see the white film, I thought perhaps I needed to get my eyes checked and let it go. To my surprise, when the director walked in, he stopped in the middle of the theater and said, “The contrast ratio is off – the blacks are not as black as I need them to be.” referring to the pixels.

I have always enjoyed a good narrative, always paying attention to both the esoteric and the mundane. Working on digital Cinema was supremely rewarding for me because I realized then that I could see what the directors saw and understand what the engineers knew. I could work with engineers to create solutions without requiring directors to sit through hours of torture doing signal processing (a purely engineering function). I could also talk to directors in depth about the narrative to attain a beautiful balance between art and science. And I loved and enjoyed the process!

I had found my sweet spot. My whole brain was now in demand, to a point where I started my own business Next Galaxy – a technology and content solutions company have since done business with the likes of Microsoft XBOX, Coca Cola Company, Tribune News, Toyota and over 200 radio stations. I was even approached by producers of ABC’s highly popular show The Bachelor to help them in casting season seven, leveraging both Internet and traditional avenues. I thought of my whole-brain personality as not fitting in anywhere, yet it was that difference that allowed me to ultimately create the magic. Being uniquely me is what has proved to be invaluable in an unbelievable way.

It is only when we embrace our difference that we can unlock the door to the possibility of offering the world something new that doesn’t exist.

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