The tech industry has some incredible female tech talent – individuals who we should be shouting about from the rooftops about!
As Chief Operating Officer at Customer Data Platform, BlueConic and during her time as a former Forrester analyst, Cory Munchbach has met many talent women working in tech. Here, she challenges the existence of the gender gap in tech and talks about how to close the gap for good.
Cory also explores why pay transparency is a catalyst for equality in the workplace and what she learnt during her early tech career as the only woman on the leadership team.
hello everyone thank you for joining us again today I am Katie batesman the content director at chican code and
today I have the former Forester analyst Corey munchbach who is the Chief Operating Officer at custom data
platform blue conic now we know the tech industry has some incredible female Tech Talent So today
we’re going to be discussing the tech gender gap and how to close it for good welcome Corey thanks so much for having
me I’m excited to be here good thank you so much for joining us and we would love to kick off with a little bit about
yourself your background and how you got into the tech sector yeah you bet um for starters
it was totally by accident uh which is I think a little bit the story of my whole professional life to date has been a
series of um informed but not necessarily planned decisions and Tech is very much one of
those so um I studied political science at University and had Grand intentions of
eventually going back and getting my PhD in public policy I wanted to teach potentially
um and that was like the North Star for me for a long time and I when I
graduated it was in the Heyday of the 2008 2009 you know hiring and recession
and all of that and so um I went to work at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in their research organization
and then Forester research which is a technology and marketing Consulting
research strategy firm um I had an opportunity to go work there in the sort of what they at the time
called the CMO and marketing leadership Practice still felt like that was good research skills and things that would
get me back into PhD land at some point and then honestly kind of one thing led to another I had spent time in that
practice and very much focused on this intersection of marketing and technology in particular and ended up pursuing that
more and more in my research career within Forester I became an analyst covering that space and then when I got
the opportunity to go work for my now current company which has been almost eight years ago
um which is all about marketing technology in this intersection that’s how I made the jump from research to
software and now have been doing software for the last eight years in a
number of different roles so a lot of this it sort of makes sense when land laid out in retrospect but if you’d
asked me when I got started if this is where I expected to be the answer would have been an emphatic no
I know it’s always interesting as well to hear um when ladies say you know I
fell into the tech sector I hear that so often and I’m myself exactly the same I
I always know I wanted to be a journalist but the first publication that took me on happened to be a technology publication and I stayed in
Tech because once I I got into the sector I realized actually you know all of the different industries that you
work with and and um just what you can you know the opportunities available in Tech but it’s always I hear that so
often you know I fell into Tech and I’d love to hear a lady say to me yes when I was younger I studied for technology
because I knew I wanted to be in Tech well I think there’s a real relationship honestly between the fact that Tech when
you sort of think about it especially initially was engineering right there’s a sort of synonymous with each other and
I actually now um work part I do a class at Boston College which is my alma mater but they
added this um group called the shares Center for entrepreneurship and my kind
of reason for going back and teaching some of these classes and working with their executive director is to stress
that tech jobs are so much more than engineering there is so much to be done and of course It’s All Digital and it’s
influenced and whatnot but leadership and marketing and sales and customer
success right there’s all of these other things that are part of a technology organization and so if you look really
far back right it was sort of engineering is so clearly male dominated and has that hasn’t changed but in fact
you know the fact of tent of tech being more than engineering means that there
are so many more roles that aren’t as male coded as engineering is which has meant that I think for a lot of us women
we sort of fell into it because we didn’t sort of realize how much wider that aperture could be professionally
and I do think that is very much changing looking at um women coming up also more women going
into engineering so both sides of that equation but it doesn’t surprise me I feel like I hear it as well all the time
yeah yeah and and you just saying there about um how the industries changed I wanted to ask you that on you know how
you think the industry has changed for women since you started because even what you just mentioned there I think seeing more women in the full range of
roles available in Tech you know that’s that’s absolutely opened up the tech industry for women
um to join which thankfully numbers are picking up but not quite that the speed that we had we had hoped so yeah
absolutely I may think you’ve hit on it and there’s a lot of great data the latest lean in McKinsey study about
women in Tech and women in the workplace more generally just came out recently um you know so you can absolutely see
how things are uh improving at least in terms of what we can quantify
um I think the flip side of that is just very recently the way that women in work
writ large have had to leave the workplace either because of caregiver responsibilities challenges at work so
it’s certainly not a Rosy picture right now I don’t think um and we need to be hyper aware of that
but it is certainly better now than it was 10 years ago and 10 years ago was
better than it was 10 years before that honestly I think outside of kind of the data that we’ve seen and
representation and women in these roles one of the things that I think anecdotally at least starts to feel like
it’s a real sea change is also that the women who are in Tech are much more
focused on making sure that the the latter didn’t come up after them and
making sure that by virtue of just their presence being in the room isn’t enough that actually it needs to be a lot more
women more underrepresented people in general and that to me feels like a really
important shift that the folks who have already made it into the room are are
not just thinking about themselves necessarily and and all kinds of reasons why they had to do that and all of that
but this sort of fallacy that there’s only room for one woman at the top I do think we’re seeing that start to erode
and a lot of really healthy change coming from that and to me that’s a really critical piece of opening this up
more generally more sustainably more successfully will come from that Focus
for the women who are already there making sure that they aren’t sort of the first and only or the first and lasts
and and that is starting to be impactful and really meaningful measurable ways yeah yeah you’re absolutely correct
because I think um years ago when you know the topic it was just starting to be spoken about I think I don’t think at
the time we didn’t really have the evidence to show as well the value the value of that and having diversity in a
business and what it can bring and having um you know a minimum of 180 in leadership and the value that that can
bring and so you know nowadays it’s we’re really starting to to have that evidence and that data and to to to be
able to prove that um are there any valuable lessons that that you have learned during your early
career that you would like to share yeah I tried when I was thinking about this and trying to make sure I had something
that was um maybe a little bit uh unexpected or sort of unconventional um I don’t know
that this is necessarily true but a couple of things one um is being useful and I think there’s a
little bit of a tendency with uh sort of the like the girl boss feminist version to assert yourself and
assert your worth and sort of take all the names right out of the gate and honestly I think there’s obviously
always value in that you need to Value yourself but being useful opened a lot of doors to me right like in my very
early days just being able to take good notes in meetings and then I got to be
in the meetings and I learned a lot from being in those meetings and I didn’t think it diminished my value at the time
I had nothing to say I didn’t know anything and so it was fine for me to be quietly in the room it was basically
like being in a college lecture and and so learning that way um I think that also sort of related to
figuring out how you can proactively help and find Opportunities to um have
an impact whether it’s for your boss or for other teams and really seeking out problems and and bringing Solutions
again I think early career where you’re not looked to to solve all the problems
or to sort of be the one driving you know where can you surface that and and bring your ideas and make that an easy
yes from your boss to take that sort of thing on um so those kind of being useful
generally that changes dramatically you shouldn’t still be the one taking notes you know 10 years into your career when
you are the expert by any stretch of the imagination but when you’re early and learning is the important thing an
observation being useful gets you into more places to have the opportunity to sort of burnish those skills so that’s
one um asking questions this does not change early career to late career it might the
nature of the questions might change um I find not only that nine times out
of ten somebody else had that question as well right that fear that we have of being the only one or who’s not keeping
up is just a fallacy I know it feels that way I still have that but more often than not by a wide margin somebody
else had that question and it’s clarifying for other people and even if they didn’t no one’s upset or judging
you because you asked it again right the consequences of not asking are so much bigger than the consequences of asking
and so really helping to do that I think also again as you get further in your career that’s a that’s a mantle you have
to take up I will ask questions sometimes that I do know the answer to but I can read the room that others
don’t and they don’t want to speak up so take that on yourself to ask the question I don’t right it doesn’t matter to me anymore but that is a huge
opportunity to sort of make sure everyone comes along and then the last thing I would say is early on is
expressing your ambition um you don’t necessarily need to know exactly where you need to end up you
don’t need to demand that you get there in six months or anything like that necessarily but it’s good for people
around you to know that you’re ambitious and that you have visions of what you’d like and that you want new opportunities
and just making that clear and don’t take for granted that it’s obvious to everyone that that you have certain
Ambitions so those are my three be useful asking questions and expressing your ambition I think are the like most
valuable things that have paid off for me in the biggest ways um from my early career to now
yeah yeah that’s that’s um actually great advice I think a lot of people can relate to that as well because
especially with the asking questions and I think we’ve all had that feeling where
most workplaces say don’t know you know no question is is a stupid question and
make sure that you ask but sometimes I think we’ve all had that experience where you ask a question and somebody
shoots you a bit of a look that looks like well that’s a stupid question and that stays with you and it kind of shuts
you down as you go into the next workplace you think oh yeah I really can’t I can’t ask that or I can’t just
clarify a point that I really need to know and I think it’s so important as you say just just to you know put that
aside and think about the consequences of me not asking that could you know stupid question I just need to get over
it and and continue being curious and just do it absolutely so you have met obviously lots of
talented women um in Tech do you have any role models yeah I do and it’s funny that the
questions one is a is a perfect segue into one of them um there’s a woman named Molly Graham who uh kind of came
to fame she wrote this amazing essay a number of years ago in the first round Review called giving away your Legos and
when I happened upon it a couple many years ago now I had one of those just like revelatory
moments when you read something and it just it’s so accurately described what
being at a growing scaling startup was like that I just I’ve never gotten over
it and she now writes a sub stack um newsletter where she puts these things out there and she just it’s both a
combination of how uh intuitive she is about the experience of working in tech
and and sort of having um different lenses on that and very
practical advice as well and then so effectively communicated
um and so I just very much look up to her we actually had the opportunity to have her come speak to the company a
couple of months ago it’s kind of a dream come true fangirl moment for me um with Molly
um as you mentioned right I’m the president and CEO of the company so um Allison Pickens who used to be the
CEO at game site which is a big customer Success software platform and then
Claire Hughes Johnson who used to be the CEO at stripe during some of their biggest scale up
phases are two women in the industry both CEOs at Big tech companies who just
have done some pretty remarkable work and again are so thoughtful about the
experience and what it means and practical about advice to give um so those are the three that I really
look up to um that are sort of I don’t know you call them like superstars of a fairly
small pool I guess in the sense that maybe a lot of not a lot of people know them but I really rely on what they’ve
written and where they’ve spoken to give me some good guidance um so those are the three that I would
probably pick as like my constant go-to’s when I need a gut check or see if they’ve said something that I’m going
through because they probably have and they’ve probably navigated it really well and I can learn from that yeah yeah
a wonderful and I’m mentioning there obviously they’re all you know great role models
um in the industry that that we can pick out and look to for our own personal reasons
but obviously that’s quite easy for us to be working Tech and we know that these ladies are available but why do
you think there are still so few women in the tech sector is it is it something about it that’s turning ladies off and
you know those of us that work in the industry we wish they just knew how great it could be and how many
opportunities are available for them yeah I mean I think this is like a really
um like structural question I guess I think I spent a lot of time sort of thinking about this and I I think part
of it is that in a lot of ways certainly up until the last few months where Tech is having
quite the Reckoning uh in terms of their um performance and all this but it’s
been kind of the industry most equated with power in in the 21st century right
and and power historically is a very clear function of wealth and gender in
ways that are very structural right going back way way far um and so but if you look at Tech The
Early Access that you know largely goes to a particular archetype money
obviously networks if you look at Venture Capital Investments right largely going coming from Hartford and
Stanford basically exclusively right you have sort of these very insular sources
of wealth and power tied to technology um that have then resulted as I
mentioned earlier right the coding of engineering being sort of a male field that’s a really strong combination and
any deviation from that sort of archetype of like a white straight cisgendered guy makes it harder to have
access to those benefits of wealth and access Etc and so I think it just takes a lot more and a lot longer for people
who are not that archetype to get into tech and and also notably to stay in
Tech because it’s not a space that was crafted from the beginning to be particularly inclusive of people of
different traits and different types Etc and so I think part of the reason there are still so few women is just where
where this all began and and how it’s grown up and that dismantling a lot of this stuff just takes time we’ve seen in
other Industries but Tech has been that Paragon of of wealth and power for the
last 20 plus 30 years and that just isn’t well suited to just opening up its
doors to a lot other people and that’s I think that’s where I think we still see just the disproportionate lack of
representation um and that that’s what it’s due to and sort of the ongoing forces there yeah
and I retaining um stuff as well always you know something extra isn’t it I think if we
actually get people into the tech industry how do we ensure that they have an experience where they feel like they
want to stay um instead of you know leaving for for something else so
yes obviously it’s a tall order but I really think that that fault lies um with the agenda Gap do we do we think
that’s a government issue an individual issue or is it something that you know each company should should be tackling
or is it a collective effort really that needs to move forward I mean I think I
think it’s the last one um I will say that one of the most important books I’ve ever read is a book by um a Cornell
philosopher named Kate man and it’s called down girl the logic of misogyny um and it is a very academic book it’s
very it is a hard book to read both in substance and in how uh I’m I am not a
Cornell a philosopher so it takes some work to get through but what was so powerful about it was that it gave me a
framework for kind of understanding these structural forces that dictate how women exist in the world generally right
not just work not just technology and that has been a really critical lens for me to help understand kind of what we’re
up against and how a particular system creates and maintains inequality and uh
in cases inequality is a gentle way to put it right there’s all kinds of actual abuse and harassment right and all of
these other much more damaging things but if we just sort of bucket it there um that is up to everyone right the
government cannot just dismantle misogyny um in the same way that one single company cannot do that nor can we
as individuals be expected to do any of this single-handedly so for me it is a
much more kind of collective issue that needs to be addressed over a time it has to get attention and intention right
this cannot just be passive um I think we’re seeing that particularly here in the U.S right of
what we’ve taken for granted as far as the women’s women’s accomplishments
women’s progress women’s success in basically the last couple of months never mind couple of years we’ve seen so
much of that roll back again women opting out of the workforce Reproductive Rights all these kind of things that
affect us as professionals and as human beings I will say though given that
disclaimer of it being a collective thing that we need to tackle companies play a very critical part in making
making this change happen whether that’s through policies that we Implement individually laws that we do or do not
support um so so companies are not closed ecosystems nor are they uh I I don’t
think morally um able to just sort of opt out of this discussion
um and so I I do take that part very seriously while also recognizing very much the limitations of it both as an
individual as an employee as an employer um and and we’re all part of this but no
one benefits from the way we’ve sort of set this up that is my ultimate conviction but I think therefore it’s a
it’s a much broader set of responsibilities that we need to work together toward and it’s going to take quite it’s already taken a long time and
it’s going to take a lot more time um to really get to a place of what I would say is much closer to an equitable
Fair kind of society around this writ large and then certainly within the tech industry um particularly yeah yeah and
so what type of things do you think can be done to you know try and try and close that Gap that um Tech gender gap
forever is that kind of you know goals targets initiatives I think we see it quite frankly you know
the places if we look at the governments for example right whether it is um laws mandating equal representation
in a parliament or some other you know ruling body whether it has been California making rules about women on
boards um Salesforce as a company specifically made a rule about having women in meetings because they were
realizing sort of that um that broken rung that’s spoken of right there might be a lot of equity or
um Equitable access at sort of a junior level but then you have this broken rung that that McKinsey and Lena just found
even continues to persist in their most recent data I’m getting into director and up from there
um and so you know there are this these things I think generally institutions
kind of revert to inaction when unless forced into the contrary right we we
sort of gravitate toward uh an inertia that works if it’s working or seems to
be kind of working and so being jolted into action through policies regulations
again whether they’re government or within the company um are absolutely critical we’ve seen it
with also um laws for example in the U.S where you can’t ask for someone’s what they’re
making today right what their salary is because that disproportionately affected women and people of color
um in their next job well you were only making x amount so we’re not going to pay you much more than that
um those things matter we see how materially those are um impacting people
and having a result so I think it’s great to say that well we don’t need rules you know we’ve got good people and
and all that and that’s rarely enough to get the job done unless there is some
sort of forcing mechanism uh again whether that’s demanding a certain amount of representation or proportionality and certain other kind
of rules and policies and and all of that together is what will move the needle and move things forward at a
broader scale again versus just the one-offs um that are great and easy to tout but don’t necessarily make for really
systemic change yeah yeah and you touched upon um paid transparency a little bit there um
because you obviously you mentioned to us that you believe that paid transparency is a catalyst for equality
in the workplace could you delve a little bit more into that yeah absolutely I mean I think we’re seeing
this pretty widely now is that you need a a level of accountability around pay
and um it’s if not forced to pay someone more most companies will not so you know
and I don’t think there’s not necessarily if you think about it from the perspective of like fiduciary responsibility you can kind of see why
that might be if you can get two great people and one is 50 000 cheaper than
the other and you feel like they’re equally good morally you should say well
we should pay them the same amount versus but again if you could save your company fifty thousand then that’s
that’s good too so it’s about the pay transparency creates for me kind of a floor and a ceiling you know I think the
large part of it is ranges that based on you know this particular role requiring
this amount of Competency or experience whatever the variables might be is what you can expect to be paid and I think
there’s still a very interesting discussion going on that will go on for a while longer now about geography now
that work from home and work remotely is bigger should you be paying people less because they don’t live in an urban
center I think this is a really interesting other discussion around pay and Equity that will that will continue
to play out but as far as whether it’s for women or again more inclusively other underrepresented folks in the in
the tech industry paid transparency goes a long way toward creating the the
parameters around hiring that ensure a level of parity between employers and I
think this is particularly true at larger companies where you start to have different managers and different biases
right you start to get a very disparate human element into it and so that
companies mandating those parameters from the top um prevents a lot of the leakage of
things that or overpaying or under are paying can often happen and so that that transparency is really critical
yeah and I think it’s so important in terms of retaining stuff and the feeling feelings well
you know I I’ve been at companies where they say it’s a fireable offense to discuss wages amongst each other and you
think because there’s a red flag there because obviously there is something going on and I think some companies I I
you obviously as you say you know that they don’t put um the salary on the job
spec and then you interview and you and you tell them what you expect and then I’ve got in jobs before and I thought
you know what I feel that I’m I must be completely underpaid compared to the
last person that was in this role and you start to sort of catch on that perhaps you know the last editor that
was there was paid a lot more than me but nobody has pointed that out and whereas actually when I got to she can
code I was blown away by the fact that when I’ve asked for my salary and I met
my boss and she said to me you know what you dithered on on your salary and I
said yes and she said we actually had a little bit more available for the role
and because that’s something that we promote you know we would like to give you that and I was gobsmacked because I
hadn’t actually had a company say to me before you know what and to just be so transparent and honest about it and that
if that budget was there then it’s available for you not thinking oh you know actually we saved x amount of money
because she didn’t ask for it and actually it it gets you when you start
at a company you think you know what I even though I’m young I’m going to retire at this company because it’s you
know I’ve started off on a good footing rather than other companies I felt a bit like well that left a bad taste in my
mouth and I’ve only just started here you know so in terms of retention especially in the tech sector and why
wouldn’t you be transparent about pay yeah and and I think the the big part of this at least the way that we’ve thought
about it is you know with with ranges so a role can be you know you could be on
the cusp of a promotion and I think I believe very much in this too is being really careful not to right or wrong
size a role relative to someone just based on pay okay so this also helps right if you are not a senior a senior
manager in terms of confidence but you’re coming in with with compensation demands that only match that pay band
that we have a really honest conversation right either your expectations are unreasonable at least for what we can pay for the role
um or we’d love to start you as a manager and you know kind of put you there and I think it doesn’t set anyone
up for success to have that off balance and if someone wants to be paid more and
we think there are they are in fact a senior they applied for a manager role but their compensation and they’ve blown
us away in the interviews we’re not just going to pay them more at that title we’re going to pay them more at the next
title but if we don’t think that they are actually at that title we’re also not going to hire them and have that
that wrong so it’s right sizing pay but it’s also right sizing leveling because
you don’t want to set someone up to fail by virtue of putting them in a role that’s too big or too small all right
both in both cases just based on the compensation so I think it just sets everyone up to be met where they are in
a more effective way and and manage those expectations again if you’re in a manager role just for the sake of argument but you know that’s your first
manager role so maybe you’re going to be in it for two years versus someone who you know it’s a career change but they
actually have some interesting experience maybe they’re going to get promoted in six months so having a range that gets them closer that’s okay too so
it’s good to have the flexibility to meet the business needs um but also to meet the candidate kind
of where they are and recognize that everyone’s going to be bringing something a little bit different to a role as long as it’s within the
important parameters of what the app job actually requires you to do and that we’re willing to pay for it leaves for a
much more healthy discussion and right sizing that I think benefits all parties yeah yeah and actually um it leads me on
to um my last question I wanted to ask you um about advice you’ve already shared a
lot of um great advice with us already but do you have any advice that our listeners um would love to hear
um if they’re about to enter the industry yeah you know the thing that I wish I had realized sooner in my career
is that it’s so much more satisfying and fulfilling rewarding fill in the blank
to earn the support and admiration of the people who either work for you or
your peers directly around you than it is to try and win that from people at
the top of the food chain um and I I love the expression a leader without followers is just out for a walk
um and I think but there’s also an element of um kind of celebrating alone when you’re
the only person at the top and you’ve sort of forgotten about that is is sort of missing the point of why we do this
and as a very motivated High achieving kind of type a type of person I think I
had just assumed all along that the the highest Mark of My Success was the
people above me telling me that I’m a success and that I did it and and I wish
I had realized sooner that it’s infinitely more gratifying to hear that and be around people and hear that from
your team and the people that you work directly with um then then from the people at the top
and that that was a harder learned lesson that took longer than I I would have liked but just remembering that
that it is not just about rushing to the top and then looking around and realizing you you made it but you’re
there alone um you’re much much better off slowing down bringing people along with you and
and celebrating together when you get there um and and that I means a lot to me to
have learned that and I just again wish I’d wish I’d learned it a little bit sooner yeah and I hear that a lot about as well
that rushing ahead because I think when people say you know they ask well where do you want to be in the next X amount
of years you know people always say I want to be the CEO or you know whatever it may be but actually they forget about
all of the positions in between that are going to get you there and they’re not always looking actually what is that
next step you know who is that role model in the next position that I need to be looking at not necessarily you
know the lady who is giving the keynote speak at the conference who is incredibly inspirational
um but actually what’s my next move absolutely wonderful okay thank you Corey I’m sorry
but we are out of time um I could talk about this all afternoon and so thank
you so much for for joining us today it’s been an absolute pleasure um to have you on so thank you very much
thank you thank you and um to everybody listening as usual thank you so much for
tuning in and we hope to see you again next time
