BeCOME an Ally How to achieve gender equity

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[Applause]

so there i was

in this gray conference room that felt

too small for the number of people in it

i’m sitting across from four men

with two men to my left and one man to

my right

and the volume in the room was loud

as they were all brainstorming on the

topic

i have something to say but there’s no

lull in the conversation

it’s a little intimidating but i’m gonna

do it

i take a deep breath i raise my voice to

the volume of the room

and i share my idea

but something strange happens nothing

not even a nod of recognition

in that moment i felt invisible

almost like i had on an invisibility

cloak

that i could not shake off can you

imagine

gotta try again this time i’m gonna do

something different

this time i lower my

i slow down my speech

i don’t share my idea

i talk about my experience on this topic

and what brought me to this room

and then i share my idea

and this time i’m heard despite

30 years in the high-tech industry and

the fact that i’m a senior executive

i still have to prove my credibility on

a topic

before i can be heard and this is not an

isolated incident

and this is not some meeting that

happened a long time ago

this is a meeting that happened in

february just before everybody went home

for the pandemic

and it’s why i’m here today i am tired

of being the only woman

in the room with no allies i am here to

enlist

every single one of you to take a pledge

to drive for gender equity

how if you are a man

step into allyship if you are a woman

step into leadership each and every one

of you

can become an agent of change

by working with intention by working

with purpose

you can make a difference like my friend

jennifer didier

jennifer is the ceo of a technical

training company

and like me she was tired of being the

only woman in the room

of looking out in her classroom at a sea

of men

so jennifer set aside profit and she set

up a scholarship program

to bring free technical training and

technical certification to women

and through her single intentional act

she has

fundamentally changed the career

trajectory versus 70 women who have come

through that

and she’s just at the beginning that’s

what i’m talking about

that’s intentional leadership and i

personally

have sponsored the creation of two

organizations

the women in technology network and the

women in cloud

both dedicated to connecting women

and giving them access and through those

organizations

we’ve been able to touch twenty thousand

women

around the world twenty thousand

that sounds like a big number but in

fact

it’s just a drop in the bucket compared

to what we need

and it’s why i’m here we need to scale

i need each and every one of you to

become a force multiplier

to turn 20 000 into 8

million why 8 million

because that’s what it will take to get

to gender equity in high tech

8 million do you think i’m exaggerating

let me share some statistics with you

when i started in this industry in 1991

36 of the computing workforce was women

in 2019 that number had fallen

to 27 it’s going

in the wrong direction and it’s about to

get much worse

70 percent of all companies are going

through something called a digital

transformation

that means they’re becoming technology

led technology is becoming their

products

their services and their operations

you see that every day that takes high

tech

out of the tech industry and into every

industry

retail manufacturing financial services

even

farming you see that when you go for

shopping when you go to do your banking

when you reach for entertainment

you reach for technology first

and that in and of itself that’s not a

bad thing

what is a bad thing though is that the

jobs that are being displaced

disproportionately impact women and

people of color

and that is a trifecta of badness

because that means by percentage there

are fewer women in technology

there are more jobs in technology and

there are more women being displaced

by the technology that is a crisis

we must act that is not the

workforce that you want for your

daughters

your mothers your sisters your wives

trust me i know i’ve been here for the

last

30 years you know

i thought by the time my daughter was

ready to enter the workforce

things would be dramatically better

well my daughter is 21 years old now

and in fact things are worse

the time to act is now

i need each and every one of you to

become

an agent of change and i have four ways

that you can make a difference

connect outreach mentor

empower and i’m going to talk about each

one of those

connection that’s about taking making

intentional connections with women’s in

your network

reaching out and giving women access to

you and

everyone in your network you can do that

by joining the women in technology

network

joining the women in cloud or any one of

a dozen other networks

designed to give women in business

access

by doing so you become a force

multiplier

to turn twenty thousand into eight

million two outreach

this is about examining your recruiting

practices

your hiring practices your supplier

selection practices

when you post a job do you

screen out candidates or do you screen

in

for diversity i know within my own

organization

when i asked my leaders to stop hiring

for expediency

and stop hiring people they knew

and to make an intentional action to go

outside of our company to create a

diverse candidate pool

of high quality talent and then to have

a diverse

interview panel the gender diversity in

my organization

changed dramatically and now we’re

working on diversity across all

dimensions

three mentor

i would not be where i am today without

the many men and women who have mentored

me along the way

who have shared with me the value of

their successes and their failures

who have helped me avoid those invisible

trip wires and

unwritten rules of business and who have

lifted me up

when my confidence waned think about

your own

mentors i’ve had people tell me that

30 minutes i spent with them changed

their perspective dramatically

when you mentor you blaze a trail for

others to follow

and you give back four

empower the most impactful thing you can

do for another human being

is to empower them

is to help create an inclusive

environment

to sponsor women promote women

put women on your board of directors

and do i urge you to do that just

because i’m a woman

well i mean i am a little biased

but according to the boston consulting

group organizations with diverse

leadership teams have 19 percent higher

profitability

they have greater levels of employee

engagement they have higher levels of

customer satisfaction

and that kind of makes sense right

because a diverse leadership team

is creating products and services that

better reflects the diversity of their

customer base

and so it is not just good for society

it is good for your business

and it’s not as hard as you might think

creating an inclusive environment

is about giving voice to everyone

inviting

everyone into the conversation seeing

people

hearing people making the invisible

visible i want to share with you a story

probably of my worst moment of

invisibility

several years ago i went on a business

trip with a male colleague of mine

and we met with a dozen executives all

of them men

in every single one of those meetings

the male executive

spoke to my male colleague and not me

and even when i would answer a question

the male executive would turn to my male

colleague

for affirmation and validation of what i

had said

even though i was his senior

that entire trip i felt like i had on

an invisibility cloak that i could not

shake off

creating an inclusive environment is

about being an

ally if one of those men

had been an ally to me and just seen me

or in that meeting in february if one of

those men

had invited me into the conversation by

simply

asking me what i thought or heard me the

first time

that’s allyship like my friend mal mc

hutchinson

who’s the ceo of interactive i.t in

australia

he sponsors an organization called male

champions for change

dedicated to driving for gender

diversity in high tech

and within his own organization he has

made a commitment

to make his cyber security practice 50

percent women

that’s intentional leadership that’s

working with purpose that’s what i’m

talking about

you could start big like mal or jennifer

or you could start small

by creating an inclusive environment

whether you start big or you start small

you could start anywhere just start

because we need you

to be an ally to be a leader to be

an agent of change four ways that you

can make a difference

connect outreach mentor

empower for the sake of your daughters

your mothers your wives your sisters the

time to act

is now we need each and every one of you

to make a commitment to help a woman be

seen

to help a woman be heard to make the

invisible visible i want you to make a

commitment today

to become an agent of change and to help

a woman

to take off her invisibility cloak

thank you

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you