I recently stumbled upon a women and workplace survey from MORE magazine which raises the question of the ambition of women, and lays out data from the survey related to what we really want from our careers. A few stats especially caught my eye, including “When asked point-blank, 43 percent of women described themselves as less ambitious now than they were 10 years ago; only 15 percent reported feeling more ambitious.”
I discussed this with a fellow (woman) colleague and we both reached the conclusion that from our experience woman are not less ambitious, just giving voice to our conflicted emotions while we seek the ideal work-life balance for our stage in life.
I had the pleasure, last week, of going to Boston and hearing my daughter-in-law Jessica Yecies defend her PhD thesis at the Harvard School of Public health. Her thesis was on the role of lipid metabolism in cell signaling via the mTor pathway. MTor activity, gone awry, is believed to be one of the main factors in the development of cancer. Her research, therefore, could prove to be seminal towards potential treatments that attack the core activities of cancer cells. If you are interested in more detail you can read the presentation or see the video.
What is particularly impressive is the body of research Jess was able to accomplish in only 3.5 years. While the typical PhD path at Harvard is 5-7 years she got her doctorate in a little more than 3.
Besides pride in her accomplishments, I wanted to write about Jess here because it is clear to me that women are alive and well and making MAJOR contributions in the STEM field. I find it interesting that more than ½ of the PhD biology candidates at Harvard are women. And beyond academia women are breaking through in biotech at a faster rate than software. The percentage of women venture capitalists in biotech is double that of software. Additionally, the number of women founders is higher among venture backed biotech startups. Why the difference between biology and computer science I don’t know. Perhaps the direct application to people and the potential to improve public health. Certainly there is a positive cycle in place already in medicine (1/2 of medical school students are women) and the broader biological sciences are benefiting. There may be something to learn from this field to assist us in getting more women involved in computer science.
Jess had many of the ingredients for success that I have written about – talent, tremendous work ethic, role models, mentors, and education. Jess’ mother is an accomplished scientist, doing her own important cancer research at Wyeth, now Pfizer. Jess had wonderful teachers at Princeton and Harvard. She had a supportive mentor in her “P.I.” (primary investigator) Brendan Manning and support from her husband Derek and her entire family. But while these factors are important and she graciously acknowledged them during her presentation, in the end it comes down to her initiative and work to get across the finish line. We are very proud of what she has accomplished in the field of cancer research that is so important to all of us.
Apologies to the reader if there is too much kvelling in this post J.
“The Rise of The Female CEO And The Folly of Men Who Just Don’t Get It” copyright Forbes 2011 as first appeared in “The Forbes Women Files”, November 15, 2011. Preview here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/7cpg4s4
By Laura Yecies
On Monday last week I woke up a bit before my 5:45 alarm (yes, quite amazing how one can actually adjust to a new schedule) so had a few minutes to scan email and the online news before my hike and came across the headline “Why Most Women Will Never Become CEO.” Gene Marks, the author, is a Forbes contributor. My first thought when I read that headline was how silly it was. After all, “Most anyone won’t be CEO.” You can put pretty name your group for the “anyone” place – most men won’t be CEO, most New Yorkers won’t be CEO, even most Harvard MBAs, though they hate to admit it, won’t be CEO.
Then I read on and was irked. And admittedly, while obviously very curious, I had to set the article aside for a few days to temper my reaction. The article starts with a description of some negative teenage behavior (both boys and girls actually) and then a projection (without any evidence) that the silly “high school girl drama” exhibited by the author’s teenage daughters is typical of professional women.
After reading this, I should have just abandoned the article – “Reason #1” was enough to make this article not credible. But my curiosity got the best of me.
The next point is that men are incapable of taking women seriously in the office and are only focused on women’s appearance. I find this to be an insult to the many serious, professional men I have worked with over the last 23 years. Not that I am naïve to human nature and a bit of normal banter (and by the way women occasionally notice men’s hot or not-so-hot appearance) but I do believe we’ve been mostly past this for years. And to the extent it is present, we should treat this behavior as an unacceptable aberration not to be accepted.
I happened to read a fascinating article in Harvard Business Review – it’s a couple of years old but it was part of an email to me by HBS and the title caught my eye – “How Star Women Build Portable Skills”. You can read the full text of the article here. The thesis is that, unlike men, when star women switch firms, they maintain their “star” performance. The author, Boris Groysberg, attributes this to two factors:
“Unlike men, high-performing women build their success on portable, external relationships – with clients and other outside contacts.
Women considering job changes weigh more factors then men do, especially cultural fit, values, and managerial style”
In reading this article I was excited to see it start on such a quantitatively solid footing. The “star” women were actually equity analysts so their performance and their company’s performance could be clearly measured. When you get to the factors part I couldn’t help but think – this is a no-brainer. Of course women build external networks – the “old boy” networks internally are typically unavailable to them and similarly knowing that they may have a strike or two against them in a future company culture they will really do their homework. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true for other minorities as well.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my grandfather Sam when I was in college. During a visit home my freshman year, he asked me what I was majoring in. When I told him political science he was not too pleased. He encouraged me to be sure to have a “skill” – something “portable” though that was not the word he chose. Doctor was best but accountant was fine, even carpenter would have better than “political scientist” in his view. The reason for his opinion was reasonable for someone who had to make a living as an immigrant. If you have to pick up quickly and move to another country due to persecution – you are better off as someone with a clearly sellable skill than as a liberal arts major. This instinct for self-preservation I think must be present in people who are successful despite a more challenging environment. It doesn’t just apply to choice of major – it applies to how you conduct your career.
I was excited to see the news today of the selection of Virginia Rometty to CEO of IBM. The breaking of IBM’s glass ceiling is notable, particularly coming on the heels of Meg Whitman’s appointment. While the number of women CEO’s in the fortune 500 is still ridiculously low (16) it’s interesting that 3 are in the tech field – including Ursula Burns of Xerox. These are visible, powerful, and important positions
I believe tech is a great field for women. While there may be fewer women employees (due to the low number of female engineers) I think the rapid pace of change gives women a chance to shine.
The more examples of women leaders in tech the more our unrecognized biases can start to change.
He brings up some interesting points on his women role models and positive experience with women entrepreneurs – so far so good. The problem was that I clicked on this link to an interview that Pemo Theodore did with him on the subject of women entrepreneurs. Talk about feeling punched in the stomach. I suggest readers take a look at the clip for themselves but the main thesis is that women have certain (positive) qualities that make them well suited to be entrepreneurs and managers. For instance he says that women are better bridge builders, are more organized and more efficient in their work.
What is the issue – after all these are good qualities? The issue is that these are stereotypes, albeit positive ones. Stereotypes are dangerous and inhibit progress. They allow people to hide behind generalizations to justify their decisions. As soon as one says “women typically are good at xyz” and xyz are the stereotypical positive female traits, there is the likelihood of the stereotypical negative traits being assumed by the listener. For instance those same efficient women bridge builders are not aggressive enough, unlikely to be able to raise capital, bad at numbers, etc. In fact these negative stereotypes later come out in the interview, for instance Suster said that women “need to learn to be more assertive in business development” and often stay home with their children during the prime entrepreneurial time in their life.
We will truly have equal opportunity for women entrepreneurs and, I’m convinced, many many more of them, when they are evaluated individually purely on their skills and ideas. What would a world without prejudice look like? Where we don’t apply group generalizations to someone just because they demographically happen to be a member of that group. Not all women are either good bridge-builders or bad negotiators. Not all men are good negotiators or bad people managers. Frankly, success is where all of this isn’t a big topic – where investors have invested in enough women-led companies where there are the normalized number of successes and failures so that the focus is on the opportunity. Where investors have worked with so many women who have successfully navigated their career through the child-bearing years that they have confidence it can be done. Where they can hire a woman executive without wondering “can I fire her”…that there are not so few that the firing would be questioned as chauvinism. Where it is not “safer” to hire a man.
Since we’re obviously not there yet – what (or who) will be the catalyst? Should there be a “Rooney Rule” (see below) to try to get more consideration of women entrepreneurs? I don’t favor this just as I don’t favor any sort of quota but continuing the football analogy I hope there are some renegades out there that will be among the early ones, like Al Davis to make bold counterculture moves and be rewarded. The Raiders were the first franchise in the modern era to have a Latino head coach (Tom Flores), a black head coach (Art Shell) and a female chief executive (Amy Trask). Sigma and DFJ gave me the opportunity. The ball is in our hands and we plan to….what else…Just Win Baby.
The Rooney Rule, established in 2003, requires NFL teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation opportunities. The rule is named for Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the chairman of the league’s diversity committee, due to the Steelers’ long history of giving African Americans opportunities to serve in team leadership roles.
Yesterday afternoon started as follows: “On behalf of JPMorgan Chase CIO, Guy Chiarello, and our Technology, Media and Telecom Investment Banking team, I would like to invite you to the 3rd annual J.P. Morgan Technology Innovation Symposium on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at the Rosewood Sand Hill in Menlo Park, CA. This event provides a forum for leaders in the VC community, CEOs of emerging companies and JPMC technology and banking leaders to network and exchange ideas on technology innovation and trends”
How nice, to be included in this esteemed company. Here’s what the company looked like:
Sigh – besides the lovely ladies who handed me my badge when I arrived, other women were quite scarce – the typical VC Partner/High Tech CEO crowd. At least there was no line for the restroom.
PS – future posts to come on why and how we can change this – we clearly can’t just “wait on the world to change”
I had the privilege of participating in the WSJ conference on Women in the Economy http://online.wsj.com/public/page/women-04112011.html last April. There was a very interesting observation in the McKinsey report presented there. “Women are promoted based on performance, men based on potential”. This speaks to the insidious barriers women face imbedded in institutional and individual mindsets.
I was reminded of this mindset just last week reading the news of my friend Meg Whitman’s appointment as CEO of Hewlett Packard. Several articles commented that perhaps she didn’t have the appropriate experience for the job. After all, she left Ebay when it had a mere 15,000 employees, 1/20th the size of HP. The fact that she grew it to 15,000 from 30 didn’t seem to be as important. I can’t think of a better example of this potential v. performance conundrum. How much more potential needs to be demonstrated to get over these barriers? Not to mention the fact that there doesn’t seem to be an oversupply of executives who have run 320,000 person businesses that sell software and hardware to both consumers and businesses – there is nobody to hire based on performance.
This is a hard job and it needs to be filled by someone with potential based on leadership, team-building, analytical skills and decision-making capabilities. I can’t think of a better choice then Meg and wish her every success on the road ahead.
Last week New York Magazine published an article http://nymag.com/news/features/silicon-valley-2011-9/ the subhead is “Out in Silicon Valley, the last bastion of full employment, the Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerbergs of the future are staying up all night writing code in dorms”. The premise of the article is that entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley is the Mark Zuckerberg demographic and story. Be conceived with the Y chromosome in your DNA, go to a prestigious university, major in computer science, write a really cool viral application, have VC’s fight to invest in your new app/company, grow very quickly and become a billionaire. I don’t mean to imply that there isn’t tremendous blood sweat and tears by the entrepreneur and his team on the road to success. Nothing is really as easy as the movie or article makes it seem.
The point I want to make is that there are alternative stories here in Silicon Valley.
I’m incredibly impressed by those who know enough about business and technology at age 20 to start and build a successful company. I certainly didn’t. I also didn’t major in computer science. I did take a programming class but I found it less interesting than the Economics, French and Political Science classes I chose to focus on.
I worked for 20 years before becoming an entrepreneur. I spent most of that time in marketing but also worked as a quota-carrying sales rep. I opened offices overseas and grew businesses in the US. I ran a large engineering organization at Netscape/AOL and then returned to my focus on marketing, online sales and partnerships. I’ve worked for and learned from several C.E.O’s. In all of those experiences there were successes and failures. I think back to these experiences often when facing challenges here at SugarSync.
It was also during these experiences when I developed my passion around the type of service that SugarSync would become. I proposed an internet-based (before they were called cloud) service called “AOL Collections.” While working on ZoneAlarm I became convinced that what was important to customers was securing and maintaining access to their data, more so than their computers. I also developed my ideas about the type of company I liked to work in and therefore wanted to build. A company that builds excellent product, respects and takes care of its customers and employees and, hopefully, improves their lives through those experiences. The time and place was right at the end of 2008 and I joined SugarSync.
Well it turns out that I’m not the only first-time CEO in her 40s who wanted a few years of experience first. Some of my role models were late bloomers by Bubble Boy standards – Meg Whitman, Diane Greene. Even Donna Dubinsky had over 10 years of work experience prior to co-founding Palm. I love that Sandra Kurtzig is starting a new company. Men too can be successful CEO’s late in life 🙂 Jim Barksdale was nearly 50 when he took the helm of McCaw Cellular. I had the privilege of working for Jim while at Netscape and I know I am not alone in seeing him as a truly exceptional leader. Interestingly these executives were also not technical founders nor even (except for Diane) of technical backgrounds.
BTW I’ve also worked for and admire CEO’s who were more akin to the Bubble Boys – Gil Shwed, Roger Sippl, Jerry Yang. Clearly this model can be successful but my point is that others of us are alive, kicking, hiring and growing companies here in the valley – even though we might be female, sales and marketing types and older than 27.
A funnier side to the first year story popped into my head when I was thinking back on that year.
Derek and Todd were in school – Kindergarten and second grade – so for a big chunk of the day our nanny Susan was home alone with Margot. We lived quite close to the office. Susan would bring Margot to the office every day during my lunch time so that I could nurse her. At the time we had a 1978 green Sedan Deville as our nanny car, a hand-me-down gift from Steve’s grandmother. It fit the bill perfectly – big, comfy and, hopefully, safe but it truly looked like a ghetto car – something like this
She would park in the far corner of the parking lot and I would feed the baby in the car. Then I would go back to my desk and go back to work.
After several months of this one of the sales managers who had a window-office overlooking the above-mentioned parking lot called me into his office. He sat me down and began to tell me that he “knew about my problem” had “faced a similar problem himself” and wouldn’t tell my manager if I “got help.” Of course I had no idea what he was talking about. After a few moments of my blank stare he said “you know, your drug problem.” He told me that he had observed my daily visit to the dealer’s car. Of course I promptly burst out laughing and when I calmed down told him that, in fact, I did not have a drug habit, just a habit of being with my baby during lunch. I explained why and he still wanted to know why a bottle at home wouldn’t suffice. When I started to describe some of the realities of breastfeeding he became red-faced with embarrassment and shooed me out of his office. I still chuckle when I picture his face.
She would park in the far corner of the parking lot and I would feed the baby in the car. Then I would go back to my desk and go back to work.
Laura Yecies | The Kitchen Sync 