Here at Girl Geeks HQ, we’d been eagerly awaiting the arrival of 27th October for what felt like months. This was the day we would make our way down to London to attend the largest conference in the UK dedicated to gender diversity in tech; the Women of Silicon Roundabout event. We were ready to be inspired, so really didn’t mind rising early to catch our train! Upon arrival we were greeted with the sight of delegates milling around chatting to Google, Amazon, ITV and ASOS in the gallery space. We were delighted to spot our branding sitting alongside such well-known brands, as a media partner of Maddox Events.
There is a unique ‘buzz’ which can’t be described when it comes to female led events and networking. As we tucked into our breakfast pastries we were acutely aware of a glorious energy in the room, despite the early start for many of us. When large numbers of women get together something magical happens, we just want to connect and share ideas with each other.
Here are some of the highlights from just some of the exceptional talks we attended in the first part of the day:
Naomi Gwendolyn Smit, Associate partner at Digital Mckinsey:
“Women matter: How to benefit from diversity”
Naomi provided a fascinating insight into some of the data surrounding women in tech. Many of you will be aware of this, but for those who aren’t, there are more CEO’s in EU tech companies called David and Peter (4.2%) than there are women CEO’s (3.3%). This was from a total sample of 2,624 companies. If we continue in this fashion, it will take us over 100 years to reach CEO equality. A sobering thought to start the day with - there were some audible groans.
Naomi went on to say that there isn’t shortage of female role models in tech, showing us a slide with all the incredible historical and current role models in computing (pictured - we salute you!) Yet it seems we just don’t shout about these women enough - an issue that we’re aiming to address here at Liverpool Girl Geeks HQ.
If we were to close the gender gap it is estimated that it would be worth $28 trillion globally and to put that in a more local context, £600 billion to the UK. So the gender imbalance in the sector is COSTING US MONEY.
Why does a lack of diversity in teams affect performance?
There are many reasons why, but in a nutshell it is because:
- Our decision-making is not fully representative of our customer bases.
- We can’t design innovative solutions which are fit for our diverse audiences without employing a diverse team.
- We can’t hope to understand our diverse audiences without hiring some folks who think like they do.
So by employing a diverse workforce and encouraging diversity at a senior level, companies can improve the innovation and quality of their decision-making, increase customer insights, motivate employees and improve their image and relevance. A no-brainer surely?
Evidently some companies are responding to these alarming statistics, but aren’t going far enough to correct the imbalance. Factors such as unconscious bias in recruitment practices, lack of a clear business plan that ties aspirations to actions, ‘murky’ data on diversity and employee satisfaction, limiting mindsets, and lack of a dialogue between business functions and HR, were cited as the main reasons why companies couldn’t overcome this growing diversity issue.
So how do we make our diversity programs work?
Currently only 17% of companies are using people analytics to understand their staff and their progression routes. Added to that, some companies thought that offering flexible working policies is enough - it’s not.
To make it work, a company will need:
- Innovative operating practices.
- A supportive infrastructure.
- Radical mindset shifts (i.e. a change in culture).
- Good learning and development programs.
- Sponsorship and mentorship available.
- Decent people analytics.
In short, they have to commit to this and take it seriously.
As individuals, Naomi encouraged us all to identify our strengths and work with them, find mentors, be aware of unconscious biases and network. Brilliant advice.
2. Faz Aftab, Director of Business Development and Partnerships, ITV:
“The truth about women at work”
Faz was a personal highlight for me, she was honest and forthright, talking about her experiences as a mum returning to work with genuine feeling. She started with the question; what are the barriers to women progressing? Central to this debate is the gender wage gap which currently stands at 18.3% in the industry, widening as women get older. This is coupled with the lack of female representation on boards, which is currently at just 17%.
At ITV, Faz explains, 39% of the workforce is female but there is only 1 woman on the board. ITV have recognised that they need to make strides in this area and have dedicated much resource to exploring why this might be. Their recent internal research uncovered that their women wanted to be mentored to progress within the company, to grow their confidence and have a healthy work / life balance after returning to work from maternity. Interestingly, they also wanted to know how to measure their value or worth.
On the point of how to measure your value, Faz talked openly about her experiences of returning to work after a period of maternity leave and how she worried that her contribution wasn’t enough, that having to leave early to pick up her children was impacting upon her performance. What she came to realise was that working mums are simply amazing; they will pull out all the stops to achieve so much in their time in work, they are super efficient and sometimes much more effective because they know that they have time constraints.
Faz learned the hard way that her contribution was extremely valuable and encouraged us all to think in the same way and to connect with others who may have similar experiences, saying that we should never view flexible working as ‘disruptive’, and never apologise for our personal situation.
ITV have recently implemented confidence workshops, mentoring programs, an internal networking site and a working families policy. We applaud them for taking the issue seriously and making progress.
3. Holly Mesrobian, Director of Engineering, Amazon:
“Rules for living, how to succeed in tech”
Holly was an inspiring speaker, giving out ‘top tips for women in the industry’. There were so many brilliant nuggets of wisdom, but those that stood out included:
- “Figure out where you want to end up” and don’t limit yourself, the sky’s the limit.
- “Take responsibility for your career” because nobody else is going to take charge of your life plan.
- “Don’t be afraid to take new opportunities if they arise” - just say yes and go for it.
- “Have mentors / advisors and people who you trust to help you” Holly advised to pick someone who is where you want to be.
- “Learn to prioritise and be efficient” - don’t waste time on non-important tasks.
- “Make sure you are always learning new skills” the industry changes so rapidly, that if you don’t keep learning, you’ll get left behind.
- Lastly, “pay it forward by helping others to develop their careers” - this is a statement close to our hearts!
4. Melissa Di Donato, AVP of Wave analytics, EMEA at salesforce:
“Inspiring the next generation of women in Tech”
We were looking forward to hearing the Stemettes “Godmother” speak and we weren’t disappointed! Melissa’s talk was all about role models and mentoring, and how to inspire the next generation of girls. She opened with “you can’t be what you can’t see”, which undoubtedly resonated with all of us in the room.
Melissa laboured the point that mentoring is singularly THE most important part of the solution to the gender problem, both in being mentored and offering it to others. A recent poll of 1,000 women aged 18-60 in the UK revealed that 75% had few or no female role models in their organisation and 8% said that a lack of role models had a detrimental effect on their career to date. Also, 2 out of 3 women surveyed said that they had faced barriers or were anticipating facing barriers that a mentor could potentially help with.
Melissa’s top tips for mentoring included meeting with your mentor once per quarter and always face to face, if possible. The age of your mentor is not important, neither is their gender. Just pick the right person to inspire you, as female leadership comes in many forms.
5. Angela Maurer, Head of Tesco labs:
“The future of women in Tech”
Angela advocated the use of data and intelligence to inform products and services, including internal policies for employees. One of the key takeaways from her talk was the statement “your culture is reflected in your products”. For instance, early voice recognition software did not recognise female voices, as there were no women on the design team and no female testers.
Evidently the UK has the lowest number of engineers in Europe and for certain STEM disciplines demand for graduates exceeds supply, which means that not only are we struggling with diversity, we’re struggling to fill these roles at all. Here at Liverpool Girl Geeks we’ve recognised that career choices start early, with teenagers making decisions about their paths which will determine whether they go into STEM careers or not, which is why we’ve launched our teen Bootcamps and Academies this year.
6. Dom Price, Head of Research and Development at Atlassian:
“Building a culture of innovation and inclusion”
Our first male speaker of the day was met with a warm reception and he seemed at ease speaking to a room full of women! Dom started by saying that you can only control the values within an organisation, not the culture. An interesting opening gambit, as organisational culture is such a difficult concept to pin down and articulate.
Dom’s top tips were to create a culture (through shared values we assume), where it’s okay to try things and sometimes fail. In his view, that is the only way that innovation can flourish, as those who are afraid of failing do not take risks. We’re in an industry that doesn’t stay static, therefore fostering innovation is key to success and celebrating successes is equally important.
He shared a wonderful video featuring Atlassian women:
Dom ended by telling us that Atlassian have successfully tested out giving employees 24 hours to work on anything they want to, in a hackathon style fashion. By not putting any rules on it, you can let people be creative “as true innovation occurs from freedom”. It also gives you a good idea of what challenges matter, which you may not have considered.
What struck me during the Q&A which followed, was that Atlassian are a shining example of true flexible working; they have no core hours, they simply have a workplace which is open around the clock. Developers tend to prefer to work at night, and Mums and Dads can choose to fit in work around their schedule. It’s built on trust. And it works.
With that, the morning session was over. Our heads were full of positivity but our bellies were hungry! During our lunch hour we met some of our personal role models, including Dr. Sue Black. In part two we will cover some more of the afternoon’s inspiring panel sessions, including Sue’s talk. Stay tuned…
Written by Jo Morfee