Chicago women
in tech make gains in overcoming 'bro fest,' and aim for leadership positions
Jamie Migdal, founder of FetchFind, speaks on
a panel called "Warrior Wisdom for Tech Entrepreneurs" at the Midwest
Women in Tech Conference 2018 held at UI Labs n Chicago on April 26, 2018.
(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
When
Betsy Ziegler was named the first female CEO of technology and entrepreneurship
center 1871 in February, it didn’t immediately sink in for her what that
designation would mean.
The more she spoke with female entrepreneurs,
however, the better she understood.
“All of them were like, ‘The fact that they
chose you … as a female to lead this organization is a massive sign of …
commitment,’ ” said Ziegler, who previously was chief innovation officer at
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “ ‘(1871 is) choosing
the right person, regardless of what their gender is, to lead the organization
forward.’ ”
Women such as Ziegler are moving into
leadership roles in the tech industry, and the state’s largest public
university is seeing more women majoring in computer science. But in Chicago
and nationally, technology jobs overwhelmingly are dominated by men. Women in
the industry say creating a path for more female leaders is an important step
toward addressing many of the problems they face, from the lack of funding for companies
they create to the lack of flexibility from employers when they pause their
careers to start families.
There have been efforts to empower women in
the tech world for years, and some expect the conversations about sexual
harassment and gender discrimination sparked by the #MeToo movement to
accelerate the cause. More companies have those issues on their radars.
Networks of women in tech are growing, and they are working to reduce barriers
for their peers.
Betsy Ziegler, CEO of Chicago 1871, was
formerly chief innovation officer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School
of Management. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)
In the Chicago office of Big Four auditor KPMG,
Alex Bell, managing director in the insurance technology group, is working to
find more female tech talent and propel the women already at the company into
positions of power.
She launched a Women in Tech group
at the firm 2½ years ago, and now it’s made up of more than 50 women in a range
of positions, from partners to new associates. Men joined too.
“When we started this Women in Tech group, a
lot of … male colleagues came to me and said, ‘What can I do?’ ” Bell said.
“That, to me, says a lot.”
The group has had sessions with the recruiting
team on how to find more women for tech roles. It has gone to a high school to
talk to students about careers in technical fields and works with KPMG clients
to launch similar initiatives in their own companies. Bell is creating a master
list of group members’ areas of expertise so women can quickly find resources
to help solve problems or build skills.
At Chicago-based Relativity, which makes
software that analyzes data gathered during litigation, Jennifer Westropp, the
company’s learning and development manager, started a leadership coaching
program for female employees in November. The company hired a consultant to
help them develop paths to executive roles.
The company was revamping its leadership
development program, and women were asking for more resources on how to advance
their careers, Westropp said. The pilot program includes eight women at the
829-person firm.
Software engineering manager Cindy Quendangen
said it made her feel proud when she was approached about joining the program.
But she hasn’t always felt comfortable being one of the few women in the room,
a situation she’s faced ever since her college computer science classes.
“One of the big things that drives a lot of
women out of tech is that they feel like they don’t belong,” Quendangen said.
In the past seven years, the share of
technology-related jobs held by women across all industries in the Chicago area
has barely budged, moving from 22 percent in 2010 to 22.4 percent last year,
according to data from Downers Grove-based trade association CompTIA.
Nationally last year, women held 22 percent of tech jobs, including roles like
systems analyst, software developer and web developer.
The percentage of all jobs in Illinois’ tech
industry filled by women, including nontechnical roles, barely improved in
recent years, rising to 34.1 percent last year from 33.8 percent in 2015, when
CompTIA began tracking that data.
Many corporate boards and senior executive
teams in the tech industry are mindful of diversity and have been for at least
the past four or five years, said Sally Beatty, a partner in the Chicago office
of recruiting and consulting firm Korn Ferry. In recent months, there has been
more interest in reducing the gender gap in executive roles.
“You can’t keep kicking
the can down the road and say, ‘It’s pipeline, it’s pipeline, it’s pipeline.'
Getting women into leadership roles can happen right now.”— Illinois Technology Association CEO Julia
Kanouse
But it’s still a challenge to find women to
fill those roles, said Beatty, who works with technology companies around the
world on CEO and C-suite searches.
“There are more men in senior tech roles,
which means there’s less of a pipeline of (women) to move up,” she said.
“Change is really slow.”
Women in the industry see a variety of
obstacles to achieving greater gender equality: Not enough funding goes to
startups founded by women; too few girls are being encouraged to pursue careers
in science, technology, engineering and math; and it’s hard for women to get
back into technical occupations after taking time off to start a family.
For all the factors contributing to the
problem, there are actions companies and leaders can take now to get more women
involved in technology, said Julia Kanouse, CEO of the Chicago-based Illinois
Technology Association. She is bullish on increasing the number of women in
technology leadership roles and in better-paying positions — such as software
engineering — at tech companies.
“You can’t keep kicking the can down the road
and say, ‘It’s pipeline, it’s pipeline, it’s pipeline,’” she said. “Getting
women into leadership roles can happen right now.”
At times, however, having strong and visible
women in charge of technology teams or heading events isn’t enough, said Rumi
Morales, a local entrepreneur and tech investor. She gave a talk earlier this
year on blockchain, the software platform that powers bitcoin, and the women in
attendance were vastly outnumbered by the men, Morales said. Some women still
don’t feel comfortable or confident attending industry events, she said.
Morales, former head of CME Ventures, said she
makes an effort to get more women to participate in financial technology events
so women can see that Chicago has strong female leaders in the sector. She is
on the advisory council for a group called Fintech Women, which works to
attract women to the field. The formation of those types of groups is
heartening, Morales said, but she’d like to see more women participating.
Ann
Yeung, the new head of technology for Morningstar’s global retirement and
workplace solutions group, started getting involved with women in tech
initiatives a few years ago when she worked for Capital One. It was an
awakening for her, and she realized she should not settle for being one of the
few women in the room.
“It was like, ‘OK, this is the norm, but it
really shouldn’t be the norm. Why are we in this situation?’” she said.
Yeung, the mother of a 10-year-old daughter,
said she tries to be a role model, since she’s seen many women leave midcareer
to start families.
There is a growing awareness among companies
of the need to accommodate new moms, which didn’t exist a decade ago when Yeung
was a software engineer — and a new mom — at another company. She
said she didn’t feel like she could discuss a more flexible schedule with her
bosses.
“The first step to being able to make
incremental change is to have this awareness and having people talking about
it,” she said.