Cracking the Glass Ceiling: Being a Female Leader in Technology

Shot of beautiful smiling female leader standing in front of her team, female talent

ARTICLE SUMMARY

We all know that tech has a ‘women’ problem! Currently, women make up just 19% of the tech workforce in the UK. In the states, this figure stands marginally better at 26.7%.

We all know that tech has a ‘women’ problem! Currently, women make up just 19% of the tech workforce in the UK. In the states, this figure stands marginally better at 26.7%.

Statistics for women in leadership roles within the industry also make for a depressing read. In the US, women in tech hold less that 28% of the leadership positions. According to a report from PwC, women in the UK make up only 5% of leadership positions.

So how exactly do we get more women into the industry? How do we encourage those already here into leadership positions? And what is it like to be a female leader in tech? 

In this episode, we pose these questions to one such female leader in tech – Linda Dotts.

Linda is Chief Partner Strategy Officer at SS&C Blue Prism. Alongside her role of being one of the drivers behind Blue Prism’s Technology Alliance, Linda has also contributed to Blue Prism’s culture of inclusion and empowerment by helping to found Women in RPA.

SheCanCode is a collaborative community of women in tech working together to tackle the tech gender gap.

Join our community to find a supportive network, opportunities, guidance and jobs, so you can excel in your tech career.

hello everyone and thank you for tuning in I am Katie Bateman the content director at chican code and I have the
wonderful Linda dots Chief partner strategy officer at ssnc Blue prism with
me today Linda you have the honor of being our first guest on our new podcast and what better than to start the series
with a discussion about cracking the glass ceiling being a female leader in technology
hi Linda welcome thank you thanks so much for having me here and I am very excited to be your
first guest yes yes we’re excited to have you and what a topic as well because
it’s no secret that there is a lack of women in the tech sector currently women make up just 19 of the tech Workforce in
the UK in the States this figure is a little better at 26.7 in the US women in
Tech hold less than 28 of the leadership positions and according to a report from
PWC women in the UK make up only five percent of leadership positions so
before we cover those depressing numbers Linda we would love to hear a little bit about you
um and your journey so far so how tell us how did you get into the technology sector
well I’ve been in the tech sector for quite a long time so um in the early
days I actually um followed My Father’s Footsteps which I know probably in these days not too
many people do but um he worked for uh ATT which was a very
you know large employer in the U.S and um I started in ATT based on his bosses
who was our general manager at the time recommendation of becoming a systems
engineer and he recommended that to me because he said if you learn the details of how the
products work you know how customers Implement those products Etc um you’ll be the best salesperson ever
so I wanted to be in sales but he he suggested I start as a systems engineer
and really understand what it takes in those days to bring
telecommunications into a customer’s business so I took that advice and have
been very happy in the tech sector ever since okay there’s some place that you don’t
have any regrets having uh having joined um and as you mentioned um
you know you’ve been in it for a very long time and you must have seen quite a change
um for women in particular um but what do you think is the key to success in in the tech industry I mean I
suppose whether or you’re male or female no I think um whether it be in the tech
industry or other Industries there’s one real key to success and especially for
for women who are not necessarily surrounded by their peers um in the roles that they aspire to
and I believe the most important thing you can do especially in a tech Vector
is that first piece of advice I got which was make sure you are the subject
matter expert at what you do you know be the smartest person in the room at what you do
and then secondly be the person you aspire to
so look at the person within the organization male or female it really doesn’t matter and see what they do how
they act what they’ve done to be successful and be that person because as people see
you in that way then they will take you to that next level
and that’s really in the tech space especially um very important for women that want to
lead in the tech space so two pieces of advice be the best that you can be at
what you do be the subject matter expert and then secondly look at the person or
people that you aspire to in the roles that you want to get to and act in that
way yeah I see that reminds me of a piece of advice um I was given years ago about
um as you mentioned they’re looking to the person or the position where you would like to be and somebody said to me
about dressing for that position as well and even um you know back in the day when we were we were in the office
um but just remembering to to almost dress as if you’re in that position already
um because you know when you go to meetings um you’re kind of you’re all you’re already set for that that role um and I
remember somebody telling me that uh years ago so you’re absolutely right they’re having that um next position in
mind and where where you’re going to go um I had a mentor at one point
um when she was a female Mentor she was my boss at the time and she was a vice president and a pretty large company
and I had just had my two children and my children are only 15 months apart so
you can imagine that was quite a busy time and we were still relatively young we didn’t have a whole lot of money
especially with the babies coming along so quickly and she actually hired a professional
for me took me into New York City to Saks Fifth Avenue bought me a new wardrobe and I spent
about five thousand dollars in in those days that was a lot of money for me to spend on clothes yeah but to your point
um that’s exactly what she was doing she said this is a pivotal time in your career you’re either going to stay you know
kind of somewhere in that middle layer of management that you are or you’re going to achieve much greater
things because I know you can and so um having me get together with that personal shopper
and have her take me into the city and just you know pick out the Wardrobe that I needed to have to be to that person of
where I wanted to go as a personal memory I will never forget oh wow I bet that was a great day but yeah it would
have got you in the mindset of where you want to be and then when people see you dressed that way they they already see
you in that role so it’s kind of it’s as natural to to promote you into that role in the future
um but yeah I mean you mentioned um you know at the start that that
you’ve been in Texas some time the industry must have changed you know dramatically you must as in dramatic
changes um how do you think it’s changed for for women since you started in Tech
I think there’s a couple different ways um first and foremost there’s so many
programs you know within colleges within um just within the businesses themselves
that have now understood the value of having a very diverse Workforce
and you know a couple of examples in the U.S and this may be in some some ways
why we’ve progressed a bit uh faster than the UK given the stats you mentioned earlier
um Goldman Sachs as an example had put out a statement not too long ago maybe
five or so years ago that they would not invest in startups that didn’t have
women um at least a one woman on their board of directors
um that’s a very strong statement you know for for startup tech companies and and obviously Tech you know in the US
for many many years has equaled Silicon Valley so it’s it was a strong statement
um to the companies that either were trying to raise funds in the valley and
or were trying to grow right their their presence uh and the size of their
companies um that that this was an important thing to do to have diversity within your
board of directors the people that are actually guiding the company making the decisions for the company
um the other thing that we’ve seen now even more recently is women with substantial
investment funds that are making decisions to take that money and invest
it in either startup companies or growth companies that are women LED and that’s
been a very important aspect I think of the next phase of growth that these
companies get the investment that they need to deliver on both the portfolios and
products and services that they bring to their customer base but also have the wherewithal to make
sure that they have the right people in their business to make them successful so I think those are a couple things
that have really made a difference and you know one a little bit early around one much more recently
but then yeah and as you mentioned though there are
companies are making a difference there there are great initiatives um you know as you mentioned that there
have been some big changes um but why do you think there is still so few females in Technologies is there
something about the sector that is still not drawing women in is it is it putting them off or are they coming in and
leaving I think it’s it’s a mix um we’re seeing much more traction now
for I think a couple reasons first and foremost we have a lot more flexibility
in the way we work um like my story and I had two small
children very close together and quite honestly it would have been hard in
those early days if my husband had not decided to be the stay-at-home dad with
my my daughters um because in those days you had to show up every day for work you had to be
there on time right it was not the the virtual type Workforce that we have
today and um so I was very fortunate in that he made that decision
um but in the early days many women had to make a choice they had to make a choice either stay home with their
children um or you know find a caregiver but that wasn’t as popular in those early days
um now with the work virtual Workforce and especially you know what we’ve seen um started actually with 911 in the US
you know when companies had to say I have to have a way for my Workforce to
be remote and then post that you had some companies um
that decided that they were going to have a fully remote Workforce right so you had the the kind of extremes and now
more recently with covid it became very clear to us again that with all the
technology that enables the remote Workforce um and and with some of the policies
that companies have taken on it’s very possible for people to have much more
flexibility in the way they work yet still be able to perform the role as you
needed to be performed I mentioned to you a bit earlier that I I worked in
Japan for a number of years NTT Communications is or NTT in general is
one of the largest um uh Employers in Japan
and they always had a rule that you had to work within a certain radius of the
city of Tokyo um in their actual locations if you were going to work for them
because of covid that rule has now been taken away so you can imagine what that’s done for
the workforce it’s really enabled a much stronger population of people whether it
be male female to to be able to now work for a very prestigious company without having to
worry about the cost of living of the city you know which you know in Tokyo is is just as expensive as living in San
Francisco or LA and I think it kind of comes back to some of the reasons why
you didn’t see as many women in the workforce in the past as you do now if
you think about where was Tech centered Tech was centered often in in Silicon
Valley very very expensive place to work and it just wasn’t accessible by
families and therefore in the earlier days women to uh to raise a family there
and and and be able to in invest both in their personal career
as well as any other things that they needed to do so there’s been a lot of change but but I definitely was uh was
very lucky to have my husband be so willing right to to take that step of
staying home and taking care of my children in those early days now it’s probably much more common but
those are the kinds of you know it’s really cultural changes and cultural adoption that I think have
changed the nature of how women have been able not just to work in you know
in the tech space but to succeed in the tech space because to succeed you really
have to dedicate yourself and when you dedicate yourself to a Tech Career it
probably means you’re making you know you’re either giving something up or you’re prioritizing certain things over
others and um and now with the ability to to be you know work from anywhere
pretty much that’s a lot easier to do yes because actually um I spoke to a
lady recently who um she transitioned from a career as an academic into
technology and she retrained whilst on maternity leave because you know it dawned on her that if you if you’re a
teacher you you physically need to be present and she said you know at that point she’d had a lot of children by
that point and she started to rethink you know what do I want to do where where um where do I need to be in the
day and she said um technology just seemed you know like a no-brainer for
her um that you you don’t have to be present and She’s continually learning she said
that you know there’s the wages are good um so yes absolutely those cultural changes
I think she even um she was saying when she had her first child uh I think she
said 18 years ago she said I never would have imagined that I could have such a flexible
um role where I can work from home and and um and juggle everything that she needs
to do as a working mum we’ve mentioned a lot about ladies going into tech and and
obviously the benefits of that um what what more should be done to increase the number of women in
leadership roles I mean that’s one thing to get women into the tech sector but how do we ensure that they’re moved up
into those leadership positions where they can really bring about change I think there’s a couple things you know
the first one I will always talk about is mentoring programs um because I I do believe that Talent is
often hidden kind of in the in the ranks and if you have mentorship programs the
first thing you’ll do is is be able to find the people that truly do have the
talent to rise up um the other is and we have this in in
assistancy blue prism it’s called women in RPA and it’s an association that goes beyond
our walls where we actually encourage women that are in the industry in the
intelligent automation industry to join together and learn from each other as to
how they can become what I call the heroes in their business um automation is a field that often you
know is is best understood in some ways the process side of what then can be
automated it’s best understood by the people that really know those processes the best and what I found working in
this this specific field for the last five years is they are often women women are very good at process and they often
really are the ones that at the end of the day know most as I said earlier about how the processes in a company
work and what needs to be done to fix them that said they weren’t often the
people that were given the opportunity to do that when automation when RPA came
about what we found is those women also had less risk you know they said look
I’ve been working on this process whatever it is or I have a team of people that that do this I know where
the problems are I know it can be fixed they took the initiative to learn you
know this new technology that just didn’t exist before they built teams and they became heroes
in their business for doing that and um I have a story about a lady that I was
presenting with at an AI conference and she was from a bank up in Canada
and she when she showed me her slides every slide had two halves to the side
on the right hand side was a very you know fancy PowerPoint that’s you know
what you’d typically see on a conference stage and on the other side
it was stick figures and I asked her I said you know this is
quite different quite unique why did you create your slides this way she said well you know she said the person on the
right that you know created the right side of the side that was very you know uniquely power pointed
um you know that’s who I need to be as I stand up in in front of this audience
and who I’ve become the person on the other side the stick figure side is who I always saw myself
as so it just shows the power of what is possible when women really know what you
know know what they do best but are also willing to take a risk they’re willing to take a risk
and trying something new to Leading that effort in their company
um and and then being willing to stand up and Stage you know on stage in this case and and show what’s possible to
others and I can absolutely promise you that there were other women in that audience
um and just probably other people in general that could relate to that story that could see you know I see that
beautiful PowerPoint I don’t see myself in that way I see myself in the stick figure way but here’s somebody that
truly made it possible to to go from one to the other and it’s a really increase you know who
she was um as a career leader now uh not so much
a career worker so I think it’s it’s seeing yourself
um in other people it’s finding those Role Models but then it’s incumbent upon the company themselves to have these
formal programs that draw out these people that have the initiative have the capability
um and maybe aren’t as aggressive and showing that but once you draw it out
from them in some way like like they did with with this woman um they they become who they can be and
and so those are the kinds of things that I try now to emulate from people
I’ve worked for in the past and or people I’ve Just Seen become successful
what is it that that enabled them to achieve that success and how do I help
other younger women now in our business uh achieve that as well
yes yes absolutely and and that is as well actually leads nicely onto what I
wanted to ask you next about you know women aren’t the only um underrepresented group
um in Tech and you know I want to talk a little bit about what more can be done
to make you know Tech more diverse across race class and gender is that is
that a bias problem do we think I mean obviously you mentioned ladies there and ensuring
um that you know people do what they can to to draw out people’s skills
um to to make make sure that they’re the best that they can be but what happens you know if there’s a bias problem there
um and you know people don’t always get that chance there can be and you know I I know when
we say bias of course most of us say you know we don’t have that right it’s that
unconscious bias that um is is typically the the cause
um but what we’ve done in our company and I think it’s probably pretty
relevant in in others as well is you know you really have to first and
foremost get people to understand the unconscious bias you know what it’s not
what you say not what you do but it’s there um and and once they understand that
then they do tend to and even my personal self I think about it more you know in in this instance of whatever
decision I’m making whatever recommendation I’m making um you know am I looking broadly enough
and the reason that’s that’s so important and it does start with your hiring practices you know it absolutely
does start with hiring practices are you looking broadly enough
um within the ecosystem of people that you can hire from are you promoting
broadly enough within the ecosystem of people that you can promote from and I
so I think that’s the first step is really looking at the criteria of what
you’re trying to achieve and making sure you’re bringing the right set of people
to the table right to um to achieve that on your behalf the other thing though I’ll say is
um I think it’s become more and more important and and this is where the tech sector is continuing to evolve if you
think about decision making now for the customers that you serve for the
prospects that you want to to um appeal to you have to have people in
your company and in your leadership team that represent the sectors that you’re
selling to servicing I’m trying to recruit as customers because if you
don’t then you won’t appeal to the broad audience and or commercial Market that
you want to um that you want to appeal to and I I think that’s one of the
things that we should be talking more about how do you make sure that you have
people that your your customer base see as as themselves
and if we start speaking about it from that perspective then companies you know
people in decision making uh Power at companies they’ll make the right decisions right because that’s what
business is all about business is all about appealing to your audience and so as you look at a more diverse
audience um you know then you’re going to want to hire a more diverse set of people to
represent that audience and I’ll give you another example and this is again many years ago but uh I I spent a lot of
years in the contact center space and you know if you remember back years ago
or ATMs any sort of tech like that um you walked into an ATM and it was
English you called into a contact center it was English and I would say the first
major change that we saw in the US was when you dialed into a contact
center automated system and it said press one for Spanish
press 2 for English and I know it sounds like a very basic thing but that was the company
appealing to its audience yes the demographics in the U.S had shifted
especially down you know in the southwest area maybe in the Northeast area when the demographic shifted
companies had to start to both hire people that would appeal to that
demographic but also in in specifically in a technology they had to adapt their
technology to the audiences that were either the customers they had or the
prospects that they were trying to recruit and um and I think those are some major
things that you know you see these shifts and the companies that do them the fastest those that are first to the
table right to make those kinds of changes um are the ones that then are you know
perceived by the the customers or prospects they’re trying to gain um as the most like them right they’re
appealing to their to Their audience and the audience sees that so there’s where
I think you’re going to see um a lot of shifts as demographics change whether it be us UK it doesn’t
matter and companies are our first the table to start to make those changes and
you have you know fast followers after that we we see the same um
and you know Technologies like AI where you don’t you know automation is really
good because automation is fair right automation is done via a set of rules
right if you can put the rules down then you can automate it that’s what we always say and it doesn’t have bias
right it’s a set of rules and they don’t those rules and those we call them
digital workers robots whatever you want to call them they don’t know who’s on the other end right so there can be no
bias but when you get into AI and decision making right so now your
rules aren’t just black and white you know step one step two it’s actually using information and we call it
training but AI is trained by how people respond to it
and you can adjust those rules based on how you want the outcome to be
and there’s another reason why it’s so important to have a diverse Workforce because once again are you
training the AI based on your perceived values or you’re perceived what’s right
or wrong or what should or should not happen and or are you doing that on the basis of the customer base or you know I
call them the audience that you have um and if you have a diverse set of people that represent that that customer
base or Prospect base then you’ll be making the decisions and you’ll be
training the AI to work in such a way that it gets to the right answer for you
know the audience that you’re serving so there’s a couple different examples there some very basic you know press one
press two and then how is that technology evolved over time into more
decision making now Tech that really both kind of look look
at the audience that you’re trying to serve and then suggests that you have people within you your business that
represents that audience
like a lot of young people at the time you know I I really um struggle to to get on an editorial
team and I remember going for lots of interviews it takes a little while obviously
um to to have some interview practice but I remember when I did finally get my first job my boss later
um she said to me at a Christmas party I hired you because you reminded me of me when I was young and I’ve and at first
was alarming because she had had quite a few to drink at the Christmas party but also
I did think actually people they do hire what they know and um you know anybody
listening as well if you were to to look back on the on the hires that you’ve made in the past you know do a lot of
them remind you of of yourself which is um as you say doesn’t always reflect
your customer base and actually the people that you you need to hire to make a success
um of of that business um exactly yes and I think it’s once
people I think um you know they’ve had the mirror held up to them I think that you know they realize actually I didn’t quite realize
you know I was hiring people that remind me of myself and and with ladies in Tech if you’re always going to a male
interview panel and there’s nobody there that can relate to you and nobody that thinks you know I know what I’m gonna
get from this lady and because she reminds me of me then obviously it becomes quite a challenge to to secure a
role as a women in Tech even if you do get an interview um is there any advice that you would
pass on to other women um to help them progress in the industry any any advice that you’ve
um heard yourself that you would like to pass on well I’m going to start with some advice
for people that aren’t in the industry yet um and this is the same advice I gave my
two daughters um I strongly suggested because you can only strongly suggest to an 18 year old
daughters that they attend what what are called in the U.S Co-op schools
um and or colleges that have strong internship programs
and the reason for that is in a co-op school there’s only maybe eight of them here in the U.S
um you have three jobs sometimes paid for some time not paid for before you
graduate college so you go to school for about a year and a half and then you work for six months and then you go back
to school and then you work again and you go on and off until you finish the uh the program
and that it was so important because they learned how to act you know how to
be a part of a team how to contribute to the success of a business how to you
know see things that were not so easy to understand in business
um one of my daughters was at a company that had a big layup while she was there you can imagine the first time you see
that it’s shocking but if you’re seeing it when you’re in a six-month program versus you’re seeing it you know once
you’ve joined a company it’s a very different perspective um one of my daughters said to me
because they have to interview for these positions and so you have to learn how to interview you know for real because
you’re either going to get the position or not as a co-op student and she said Mom this is ridiculous she
said you know every interview I do is different how do I learn Ed and I said that’s the point
right and but in her mind right she would get better if they were
continuously the same so she could learn how to do it but it was just these stories that you know they really were
able to gain not the experience as much as the confidence
to be in the workforce yeah and so for very young people
um you know if you’re going to any sort of college University in the UK
um look for opportunities one is a very you know low risk time in your life to
be in a Workforce and to be able to experience working with people that are of all different ages
um all different backgrounds right and learn how to work with people because I think it’s now because working
from home you might not have that interaction with people in the workplace and how much harder that is for younger
people nowadays to to gain that experience it is and if you think about
in some ways technology hasn’t helped us at all in this area you know I can you
know as a younger person as an older person it doesn’t matter I can typically interact with any business I want
without ever having to talk to a person yes you know when when we were younger
or when I was younger I should say you had to interact with people because that’s the only way you got things done
you walked into a bank right you you interacted with people it didn’t matter what you were trying to do now I can do
everything online I never have to interact with a person how do I really learn that skill and you know I learn
how to interact with my peers through school and things like that programs I’m in but when you go to work you have to
interact with people at all different ages you have to have confidence in yourself and confidence in how you you
get things done using the talents of others so I think
that’s my advice for the younger generation for people that are in the workforce today
um it really does get back to continuously especially in Tech in Tech
continuously developing your skills your story about the woman that was an educator and then moved into the tech
industry you know she was so happy because she could keep learning new things it’s not about being happy doing
that it’s an absolute necessity that you know Tech changes so quickly
that if you’re not looking at the next Evolutions in whatever field you’re in
you will be behind there there’s no doubt and so I think that’s really
important is to always spend time investing in your career and when I say
that I mean investing in see the technology aspects of of the part of the
tech field that you’re in um second one is networking there’s so many programs now and I’m sure you have
the same and you pay in the US we have a women’s um networking program called chief you know
there’s programs you can join to really network with other women
um and then you know the same same here in you know a small town and they have a
rotary club it doesn’t matter what it is but yeah it’s getting into opportunities
where you’re meeting people that do things beyond what you do that working companies outside of the company you
work with because you never know like if you look at Tech right now there’s a couple companies in the US you know big
layoffs occurring for the people that have strong networks LinkedIn you know it sounds very simple but if you have a
good LinkedIn Network the opportunities to to move to a field that’s either adjacent to what you’re
doing today in Texas or to you know moving to maybe in the very same field
it might be one of your competitors right that now you’re going to go work for that the opportunity of getting
those jobs when you know people because you’ve maintained and grown your network is really critical so I think you know
we can get caught up in the day-to-day um aspects of our work and you get very
busy with that and obviously you have your personal life that you need to take care of as well
um but you need to take out some time uh every day every week to ensure that
you’re constantly building that Network and staying committed to the people that you knew before you know many of us came
from companies and I’ve probably worked for four or five now um that you know the the people that you
knew at that company very strong people have gone other places so making sure you’re keeping up with
those relationships um will pay off because the evolution of tech is fast
and you need to be always ready to take on the next position in your own company
you know as you possibly can but as importantly be ready to apply yourself
to opportunities at companies Beyond where you work today
yeah yeah that’s that’s um some great advice um there and also a great place to end
it because unfortunately and we are out of time um it’s gone incredibly fast
um so thank you Linda for for talking to us today and sharing your insights because that’s a really interesting
conversation I very nearly lost track of time
um and to everybody listening um thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again next time

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