If we’re assigning themes to years, 2018 could be called the “year of the woman.” People across industries and regions are feeling the effects of the phenomenon, NYC tech included.
Over the past year, Built In NYC has spoken with a number of influential women leading the local tech scene. Here’s some of their best advice for navigating the male-dominated field and taking ownership of your career.
While it’s up to the individual herself to drive her career forward, it’s also necessary for a company to provide opportunities for women to advance. Movable Ink’s Head of Design and UX Andrea Mignolo said it was the startup’s welcoming environment — and her own individuality — that helped her excel in a leadership role.
“I think the biggest challenge for me has been being someone who is outside the typical tech leadership archetype. I remember stepping into my first leadership role and getting passive-aggressive questions about whether I really wanted to do this, the implication being that I probably shouldn't. When I tried to emulate what I saw around me, the results were less than stellar. But when I started to approach leadership from a place that was authentically me, everything clicked.”
Early on in your career — and possibly still to this day — you were told climbing the ladder was the only way to the top. Jessica Cunningham, Unacast’s senior director of sales begs to disagree. As a VP at her previous job, she learned very quickly that a title isn’t everything — and that a career can lead you in all different directions.
“Your career doesn’t need to be linear. Taking a step back can actually move you forward. I’d reached a point in my career where I’d finally climbed the ladder to running a national team with that sought-after VP title that I thought would give me the stamp that I was a woman who’d succeeded — but I wasn’t happy.
I ultimately took a step back in the title I’d worked so hard for to make a change, and it was the best career decision I’ve made. I wish someone had told me sooner.”
When it comes to diversity, gender is just one part of the equation. Catchpoint’s Global People Operations VP Eva Bose-Chatterton explained that the best work happens when people of all backgrounds are brought to the table.
“Diversity isn’t just inclusive of gender, race or religion — it includes people with a vast array of experiences. These different schools of thought and experiences help drive the creation of new ideas, processes, products and services. When you bring different people together, you have the benefit of unlocking ideas that stem from years of experience, working in a variety of industries, being educated in different countries and working with different leadership. It brings different perspectives together to solve a common problem.”
Janet Lieberman went from a mechanical engineer to CTO and co-founder of sex tech startup Dame Products — when a career change is this drastic, you know there’s an interesting story to go along with it. She explained to Built In NYC that, while her day-to-day has changed significantly, she often calls on a lot of her previous experience at different startups to lead her own.
“Having a lot of different jobs forces you to learn how to learn and become comfortable taking on new responsibilities. Plus, working on small teams gives you a lot more interaction with different departments, which ultimately makes it easier to learn how other parts of a company work.
After a few years of bouncing around, I hit a point where I realized that if I wanted stability in my career, I would have to build it myself. I also realized that I'd learned a fair amount about how companies operated and were built over the years, and that I’d even played an active role in those processes. Those key experiences made starting my own company a little less scary.”
If anyone’s ever asked you what you intend to do with your art degree, you can tell them “become CEO.” That’s exactly what Katelyn Gleason, CEO of healthtech startup, Eligible, did with her theater degree from Stony Brook University. Her secret to reaching C-level status? You have to want it.
“I think that a lot of people in my position are wary of [speaking out] because then it’s easy to become a target. Like, ‘This girl has no experience, what’s she doing running this API company?’ But if you want to devote your life to this, you can do it. I love people who realize and recognize that you can create your own reality.”
