Starting from building industry relevant skills, tackling unconscious bias, to building confidence and executive presence, women in technology report multiple challenges that hold them back from enjoying a rewarding career with a healthy work-life balance. How can they take charge, and with organizational support, work toward leveling the playing field, allowing them to blossom as a professional and a leader?

Contributor

• • Sue Robinson, Chief Information Officer, Head of IT Europe and Asia Pacific, Aspen Insurance Group

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Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:22]:

Hello, and welcome to CTN. To learn more about the show, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. The topic for today is taking charge as women in technology. So we know that whether it is about industry-relevant skill building or trying to handle and tackle unconscious bias or to even build confidence and executive presence, women in technology have had and reported multiple challenges, which they say have held them back from enjoying a rewarding career and even a healthy work-life balance. There has been a lot of discussion and many forums, but we see this problem truly not going away for decades now. So what new, more, or different things are we supposed to do, or are we doing at present to tackle this so that women in technology blossom to the fullest extent and deliver the most value for the business that they are with and also do justice to their own life and career. With that said, I have with me, to discuss this very important subject Sue Robinson. Sue is the Chief Information Officer, Head of IT Europe and Asia Pacific at Aspen Insurance Group. Hey, Sue. How are you?

Sue Robinson [00:01:41]:

Hi, Sanjog Aul. I’m fine. Thank you very much, and yourself?

Sanjog Aul [00:01:44]:

Very good. Thank you. Cannot be better. These are interesting times, but that calls for interesting measures. Right? That’s what we will do here. So we’ll have a very good discussion. Now that topic that we spoke about, taking charge as women in technology. So let’s set the stage. Let’s talk about what is the current state of women in technology as you see it, and then also perhaps shed some light on what do you see as the gaps between what’s expected and what is being provided.

Sue Robinson [00:02:16]:

Okay. Yep. Not a problem. So from my point of view, I’m still seeing, I’ve been in IT for over 25 years, and I am still seeing a significant gap. It has got better, but certainly I still work in a very male dominated environment. Certainly, through my career where I am now and the age that I am, that’s where I definitely see women in the technology stack disappearing. There is still a lot that we need to do. If you think about some of the statistics that are out there, women in technology, really, in the last decade, the numbers haven’t massively improved. Therefore, we really have to look at why they haven’t improved because organizations have, I think, taken the necessary steps to try and bridge the gap. There’s been a lot of focus on the STEM disciplines trying to bring the introduction of that into the younger women forefront, but I still think that from my point of view, I’m not seeing enough female IT technologists on the floor, and I’m certainly not seeing them in leadership roles.

Sanjog Aul [00:03:43]:

So if you were to look at the whole women in technology landscape, one is to say there is a gap, and that gap could be a woman who wants to join technology and has been in the professional field, whichever other field, and they want to move into technology, it looks like an uphill battle. Or if there are girls who are growing up, they are not showing interest in technology as much. So what it does is it creates a vacuum at the very upper level, if you will, right, where there is an entrance possible for women. Then there is a second set of challenges people at least have shared is that it becomes tougher for a woman who enters technology at whatever level to progress from there because of multiple reasons. We’ll dig deeper into the multiple reasons, but we do see that happening. How much of this observation that I or we have had as a media outlet syncs up with what you’ve seen?

Sue Robinson [00:04:45]:

I would say, 100%, most definitely. My own personal experience is I have a daughter who’s now 18. When she was at school, and I’m obviously talking about education from a UK standpoint, she was given the opportunity from a GCSE point of view to do this, ICT, so information technology or computer science. Now for me working in IT, I was hoping that she was going to choose the computer science route. She chose the ICT, the reasons that she did that was because she said it was easier, and she wasn’t really interested in programming. I tried to explain to her, well, look at your mother’s career. Look at where I’ve come from. I didn’t have a computer science degree. I didn’t originally, when I was your age, think I was going to go into technology, but look at what I’ve been able to achieve and the different facets of the technology landscape that I, again, in my career have been involved in. Is it not something that you can look at outside of the traditional, I’ve got to be a programmer if I go into technology and think about it in the other different facets? Unfortunately, I lost my battle with her. She continued to go down the ICT route, but she thoroughly enjoyed it. She gained a lot of experience from it, and she’s now at university and creating Excel spreadsheets with her daily meal planner. For the little amount that I was able to do, at least she’s come out with something, but I think that’s one of the challenges is really showing to these young females that there’s so many different facets of IT that you can go into, and that really you can achieve whatever you want to. From a career point of view, I didn’t think I was going to go into IT. I was very lucky in terms of how I moved from an admin position into a technology position, and then how I’ve managed to progress from a career point of view. That’s what I really think we have to try and do is show these women out there, these young girls, that there’s just so many opportunities within the technology landscape, and you can really make it your own place.

Sanjog Aul [00:07:24]:

Now one example, I was discussing it in a group of women and men. They say whenever we talk about a technology position or the role, we talk about phrases like ninja warrior in technology. That doesn’t sit very well with a woman or a girl. Or we talk about the pure technical aspects. Whereas, if you look at the way technology is morphing, you’ve got to be able to do more front-facing with the business leaders and other constituents to make things happen, which means relationship building, and that comes naturally to women. How come we are not portraying those, as you rightly said, different facets? One is to tell them there are so many facets. Another is is to essentially showcase and expose these facets which are a natural fit so it creates an inbound or a pull effect. What’s holding us back from being able to do that?

Sue Robinson [00:08:24]:

Well, again, it’s interesting that you raised that. I was at the Gartner IT Symposium last week and went through a couple of different sessions where we were talking about diversity, inclusion, unconscious bias. There are a lot of different areas that you have to really try and think about in terms of how you can change that. It’s not just about having a women-in-tech forum. It’s about making sure that everybody is included in the discussions and that you get sponsors throughout the organization, male and female, through the executive level all the way down. Through those elements, I think that’s where we can make those changes. Also, companies have a huge amount that they can influence, how we can change the landscape of the percentages of male and female, but it’s really about including everybody in the process of facilitating that diversity across that landscape and making sure that we try and shake off that unconscious bias. From a personal experience point of view, I grew up in one of my jobs that I had before I moved into IT. I had a male HR director whose view of me was that I wasn’t somebody that should be moving into IT. I should stay within my admin remit. Now I had a female IT technologist that came in to run a big project throughout the organization. I was working with her on a number of different things, and she saw the opportunity. She actually went to him and said, no. I want this individual to work with me on the project. When we completed the project afterwards, he said, well, you can go back to your old job. You’ve done what you needed to do, and that’s what we need to change. We need to change that view that somebody is not capable. It’s down to the individual, and you’ve got to really shake off this idea that nobody is capable of doing something. They should be given the opportunity. Everybody should be given the opportunity to excel, and we have to make sure that we’ve got leaders out there that embrace giving people the opportunity, embrace giving somebody a challenge, embrace helping them develop and grow. That’s the only way that we’re going to, hopefully, not just for women in technology, but across all of the different landscapes out there, provide that opportunity for everybody to succeed.

Sanjog Aul [00:11:26]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. When we come back, I’ll piggyback on the term that you used, unconscious bias. So what we have seen and this actually is a systemic issue, like you mentioned about your HR director saying that you’re not worthy of getting into IT. I’ve heard cases where a woman leader sitting alongside a male subordinate, if you will, and a vendor walks in, and he only directs his questions to the male thinking that the woman must be either a subordinate or maybe in an ancillary admin position. It is there in the ecosystem. It’s there in our society. What would you think would allow us to do a better job in tackling that in the workplace? Do you think you can boil the ocean and get the whole system or the mindset of everyone involved changed, or would you build a subculture or a subsystem within an organization where these things are neither tolerated nor encouraged? Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back and explore.

Speaker 0 [00:12:47]:

Today, enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN, CIO Talk Network, IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience. You are listening to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about our program, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:13:41]:

Unconscious bias. Sue, you and I both know that exists. That exists at the personal level, professional level, you name it, and we want to get over it or tackle it in such a way so it doesn’t adversely impact how a woman, when she enters technology, because that’s the scope we’re talking about, she’s not hindered by this stigma or this bias that exists. We can talk about the different aspects of why it exists, etcetera, but we should talk solutions. What do you think we should do in an organization where we can realistically make an impact and crack this problem? What should be those steps, or what would be that playbook to tackle unconscious bias at workplace so women in technology don’t have to deal with this?

Sue Robinson [00:14:38]:

So I think, obviously, every organization has a human resources, people and communications area that can help facilitate how employees and an organization, through its principles and values, raise awareness to its employees of what we really stand by. It’s got to be part of your culture. At Aspen, we do have our own set of values and principles. We’ve got a lot of focus and awareness around fairness and equality. We’ve got a specific cultural transformation work that’s taking place. There’s a whole facet of different areas that organizations really should have on their list of how they can extend out throughout the organization. What are the values? What does the organization feel about in terms of gender equality? What options have we got in terms of finding those rising stars, whether that’s female talent or anybody else? What’s the clear path for somebody to get the next step on the ladder? Policies are great to have in place, but it comes down to the actual doing, and how you live that policy and how you live that culture. It’s very much how an organization embraces it, how an organization communicates it out to its employees, how they involve people, and really trying to make sure that there’s not just a common every couple of months communication going out. It’s got to be a continual thing. Leaders throughout the organization also have to live and breathe the culture and make sure that they try and follow those values and principles in the most fair and proper way and continue to instill that through their teams. I’ve mentioned it before, looking for opportunities for people. We’ve lived in a culture where we have job titles that are senior or junior. I don’t necessarily agree with that. Yes, it displays that you’ve got a certain element of experience, but does it mean that you’re more capable than somebody else? You might have a very talented, younger person in the organization that has an appetite to dip their toe in something quite challenging. The millennials are much more advanced in being able to express themselves and challenge themselves, throw them into something. As managers, leaders, and team leads, we need to be reaching out and looking, making sure we’ve got a complete 360 of who is out there, who’s potentially capable, who we can stretch. I think those sorts of things will help drive out that unconscious bias. If you’ve got several people displaying that, then that’s where other people will start to follow.

Sanjog Aul [00:18:32]:

So I’ll share some anecdotes or rather examples or confusions that exist in this space. So I was at an event facilitating a session exactly on this subject, and a male raised his hand and he said, you know what, ladies who were all on the panel, he asked them a question. When do you think a male demonstrates this bias? Because I don’t ever remember deliberately thinking that I’m going to put someone down, but I don’t know what I’m doing, but nobody comes and tells me either. So how do I go about dealing with it? Then there was another woman who said that I see that happening blatantly in front of me, but then I think if I go fight this, is this going to go anywhere? Shall I continue to fight it or just ignore it? So if you look at the people on the ground having issues, yes, we can do the training, but this is entrenched somewhat deeper and most of these things happen in a closed meeting room. It doesn’t happen someone yelling or putting somebody down in public or in a group setting as much openly, and then you do not have, in many organizations, any policy against unconscious bias demonstrated; you have it for sexual harassment. So people don’t do what you expect. People do what you inspect. Why am I sharing all these points? It’s because these things are happening under our noses as we speak. Till we don’t explicitly take them out, address them one by one, we could train people blue in the face, but we would be sitting 10 years from now and still expect this discussion about unconscious bias not going away. What are your thoughts, Sue?

Sue Robinson [00:20:31]:

Yeah. I mean, to a certain degree, would we ever be able to eradicate it? No. I don’t think we will, but can we try and make a change to it? Yes. I do think so. It’s not specifically related to gender. There are so many different facets of that that you can really look at and think about. If we don’t do anything about it, then how can we sit here and say that we’re trying to help and we’ve got to change the balance? As a culture, as a race, there’s always going to be elements of that that people will still live and breathe to a certain degree, but I’d rather feel like I was doing something and trying to make a difference, just like thinking about recycling at the end of the day. As a family, we recycle constantly. You always hear, well, unless everyone does it, what’s the point? It’s not going to make a difference, but it does. It makes a small amount of difference. If somebody’s got the right voice and it’s being heard, then slowly it can trickle through. I still think it’s a worthwhile cause that organizations and individuals need to keep close to them, think about it, focus on it, and try not to fall into any traps at all.

Sanjog Aul [00:22:13]:

So how about we take one subject at a time based on the long-winded question that I asked you? A man says a young person or an elderly person, whosoever is working in an organization, says, I do not know when I am demonstrating this bias. What are some of the ways you think men demonstrate it without even realizing it? If they are told—everyone is nice, nobody wants to hurt others—then they will pay attention to this at least. They will catch themselves doing it and hold it back. So what would you say are some of the ways men do this?

Sue Robinson [00:23:00]:

I think that’s quite a tough one because I don’t necessarily feel that I experience that on a regular basis. If I was trying to put myself in a situation, I think potentially it could be sort of dismissing an answer to a question before the person’s actually been able to finish their viewpoint. Everybody falls foul of this as well, which is cutting in on somebody. When you ask a question or somebody’s trying to respond, a lot of people do it, and I don’t think men necessarily do it to women. People do it across the board. It’s cutting in on somebody before they’ve had a chance to finish their question. That always to me means that the individual isn’t necessarily taking on point the actual answer, and they’re already thinking about their next question. Those are specific areas that I think, potentially, if you were trying to focus on a man versus a female in the room, those are key points. Also, walking in there, we all need to be thinking about never judging a book by its cover. We’re all still guilty of that to a certain degree. You’ll walk into a room and if you’ve got 10 people there, you may have a perception of who’s who: who’s the salesperson versus who’s the technical person versus who’s the account manager. Those are the sorts of things that we have to try and forget about. You have to take somebody on the merits of their involvement in the discussion. If there’s multiple people around the table, just because you may not necessarily agree with one person’s viewpoint doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid viewpoint. I’m not necessarily conscious of specific things that I would say I see men specifically doing to me as a female executive when I am in a meeting room. Hopefully that’s just giving you a little bit of an overview of how we generally, male or female, can respond to each other in a working environment and in a specific meeting type environment as well.

Sanjog Aul [00:25:48]:

What if a woman is facing a barrage or more than occasional acts of bias from an individual or a group? Should they just ignore it, report to HR, or tackle it firsthand? In your view, what would serve her well?

Sue Robinson [00:26:11]:

Well, for me, I think this has a lot of different answers, hasn’t it? Because if you think about your culture within the organization and your principles and values, and thinking about a working environment, if somebody feels that that has specifically been attributed to them, then, yes, they should go through that HR process if they feel it’s continually happening because it’s going against the values and principles of an organization, but everybody will deal with the situation differently. Some people have the confidence to be able to tackle it straight on. Take the person to the side. Have an honest conversation with them. Ask them, is there something that they’re not happy with? Is there something that you as an individual have done? Why do they feel it’s appropriate for them to respond or behave in that way, especially in front of other people? It really depends on the individual and what level of confidence you have. Confidence is something that not only women, but anybody through their working life, has to gain and be able to build themselves up to deal with a number of different scenarios.

Sanjog Aul [00:27:55]:

It’s so uncanny that you gave a great segue on that next question I was about to ask. We’ll take a quick break. We’ll go right back listeners. We’ll talk about confidence and executive presence building. We have heard so many different flavors about where women say, you know what? Some say that I lack confidence. Others are very confident. Then there is an issue about executive presence. Is it more a genuine from-the-heart gravitas that you create, or is it a facade which will get you there? There are so many myths and mysteries and different flavors that exist how people get guided and coached, and that develops them into whatever they become a leader, a follower, or somewhere in between. What should that be? What should that recipe be for a woman to be able to build her confidence and executive presence? Please stay tuned, listeners. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 0 [00:29:01]:

Today, enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN, CIO Talk Network, IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience with listeners as they discuss with Sanjog Aul how they are trimming costs and partnering with business to innovate and help IT become more competitive, better care for customers, and improve the corporate bottom line. If you want to keep up with IT thought leadership, listen to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul at ciotalknetwork.com. You are listening to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about our program, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:29:55]:

Welcome back. So confidence and executive presence, we all want it. Women, of course, have always been looking for it and have been developing and showing confidence and executive presence. Where do you feel women specifically feel that they lack for them to strive to become more confident and build a better executive presence? Is this a self-inflicted worshiping-what-we-lack kind of an approach, or do you think there is truly a gap?

Sue Robinson [00:30:30]:

So, you know, this is quite personal to me because throughout my entire career, through those end-of-year appraisals for many, many years, one of the bits of feedback that I got was, “You lack confidence.” Repeatedly, “You lack confidence. You’re great at your job. You’re passionate at your job, but you lack confidence.” In every one of those roles where I had that feedback, did any company, did any HR department, give me any tools to help with my confidence? They didn’t. It’s not really until quite recently, in the number of roles that I’ve had at Aspen, that I was given some really key, genuine ability and toolkit to help with my confidence. I’m an introvert, so confidence doesn’t come easy to me in certain situations, but I live with a very extrovert husband. In other situations, I can be quite extrovert. I’ve learned to be extrovert. I spent so many years being told that I was really good, really passionate, really strong, but I lacked confidence. I wasn’t really given the opportunities to gain confidence or the opportunity of what I could do to develop my confidence. I knew, technically, I was very confident, but when it came to certain situations, things like doing this podcast I would have been a bag of nerves. Aspen has really helped me. The leadership team that I’ve had have really invested in me and given me a lot of different opportunities. Within my second role at Aspen, my manager at the time got me a personal coach just to help me go through a number of different things. It was more about coaching in terms of the leadership role that I had, developing my team. That gave me the confidence to be able to tackle lots of different situations. Through having that coach, she advised me to get a number of external mentors. I did. I naturally gravitated to female mentors because I was still lacking in a bit of confidence, and I felt that having a female mentor was somebody I’d probably be able to approach and speak to. Those two mentors, one was a couple of years younger than me, the other was a decade older than me. They were both in very high-profile positions, and they gave me a completely different perspective. It was great to be able to go to somebody and just talk to them about a lot of different things. Another thing for me was I got a non-executive director role 3.5 to 4 years ago. I was very lucky. I fell into it. I went to a conference, got chatting, talking about my new role that I’d moved into back in 2016. I was really passionate about my job and what I was able to do for Aspen as an organization, and they saw that in me. I’d moved into information security. The last couple of years, cybersecurity has been a buzzword. They asked me to become one of their NEDs. It was a small enough position, which meant it wasn’t taking up too much of my time, but it gave me that additional opportunity to get into the weeds of managing a small company, providing my insight, and somebody else leveraging my knowledge and my experience. That also threw me into, as part of my NED role, being expected to become a speaker at HP Discover. Presenting wasn’t my forte. I hadn’t had the opportunity to do a lot of presentations to board level or ExCo level. That gave me the opportunity to stand up in front of a lot of different people and talk about lots of different things. It’s built up my confidence. I still get scared if I have to do a presentation, but I think I’ve now got the insight and the tools on how I can get through that. Those are some key things that anyone should really have as their toolkit: a coach, an external mentor, try and get some outside non-executive role, throw yourself into conferences, put yourself forward to be a speaker. When you talk about executive presence, I’ve asked quite a few people how you get that. They’ve all just sort of said, just feel it. You’re in the position because you deserved it. You should feel it. You shouldn’t be scared of it. Somebody believes in you. Somebody knows that you are capable of doing that job. Not necessarily dress the part externally, but dress the part in your mind. Live it, breathe it, be proud of it. I think that will also help with your presence and speaking and really capturing an audience.

Sanjog Aul [00:37:18]:

Your response is absolutely in detail and can serve as a playbook for many women. The question I have is you were, I would not say pushed to the edge, but were given enough feedback that, personally, I believe that you took it as a challenge and you took charge. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but yeah. So that’s what got you going because mentors were always around, but you did not reach out and get them until the time you really felt it from within. So how about we try to tackle the problem at the very root, which means how do you get women to take charge of their career and their life and the integration between the two for them to start going out and doing things which took a lot of cajoling from others. How could they be proactive in doing so without having to go through that agony and the pain of somebody keep telling you you don’t have confidence?

Sue Robinson [00:38:25]:

Yeah. I think that’s a tough one because, to a certain degree, everybody requires a certain element of cajoling, do we not? If you think about yourself as a child and you’re asked to participate in the school play, some people will put their hands up and they’ve just got it. Some people really don’t worry and have that natural confidence. I don’t think there’s any hard and fast way to try and not put ourselves in a position where we need that prod. If we were all the same, it’d be very boring. We’re always going to have the people that like to put their hand up in the classroom and answer the questions and the people that are happy to put themselves on stage and talk about what they’re passionate about. There’s always going to be those that need a little nudge to jump off that cliff and do a bungee jump. I don’t think there’s an answer because people are unique and different. For me, it’s about if you see somebody struggling, what can you do to help them? Throughout my management career, I’ve always wanted to invest in the people that I work with. People have given me opportunities, but also because I haven’t sometimes had the opportunities that I thought I deserved, I’ve always wanted to make sure that I offer people that opportunity, look after them and care for them. Some people see that as a weakness, but I don’t. You have to invest in people to get the best out of people. Treat people how you want to be treated. I don’t think there’s a clear set of what we can do. We can go into schools and instill from early years about being confident, but some people will naturally always need that element of support. It’s about how you can draw upon your experience and challenges to provide people that support, how you can identify when somebody needs some support and offer it. One of the things Mary, who’s the Group CIO at Aspen, is working with her leadership team on is asking for help. It doesn’t matter where you are in your executive leadership or your journey. Sometimes we forget to go to our peers and say, do you know what? Actually, I’m struggling with this. I need a bit of help. It’s noticing when somebody may need some help and offering help out to people.

Sanjog Aul [00:42:08]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back. I wanted to touch, Sue, about diversity. We want to bring diversity in the organization, and yes, we want to support women. There was a very interesting comment made by people at one of the events that I was facilitating in such a discussion. They said sometimes if we go overboard with giving support and giving that extra concession, if you will, that could create resentment because what they said is, we don’t want anyone to feel that we are giving special treatment, that we are leaning towards including more women, and for that we are removing the value that we put on merit-based promotions or merit-based jobs or anything like that. So how do you handle and properly address gender diversity related calling that we all have without creating resentment against those few who are getting that extra support and help and opportunity so that it doesn’t turn out to be a stumbling block where other people start feeling, oh, these people got that special attention, so I don’t think they deserve it. I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about here. Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back, and let’s just explore how do you properly introduce gender diversity while allowing women to blossom in technology. Thank you. Look forward.

Speaker 0 [00:43:58]:

Today, enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN, CIO Talk Network, IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience with listeners as they discuss with Sanjog Aul how they are trimming costs and partnering with business to innovate and help IT become more competitive, better care for customers, and improve the corporate bottom line. If you want to keep up with IT thought leadership, listen to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul at ciotalknetwork.com. You are listening to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about our program, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:44:52]:

Welcome back. Diversity is an agenda, and it’s an important agenda for an organization, and we also want to make sure as we go about running our programs related to it, we keep it in a more calibrated or a balanced state so no one thinks that we are putting extra special attention to introducing women into the workforce and ignoring merit-based, performance-based growth for any professional, male or female. How is your organization doing it, and how do you recommend it be done so it is done the best way possible?

Sue Robinson [00:45:32]:

From an Aspen point of view, in terms of how we’re ensuring a clear, across-the-board diversity, we’ve got a gender network that we’re creating throughout the organization, identifying on-the-ground experience of women at Aspen, but also a number of sponsorship programs. Mary and I have created a women-in-technology forum, but it’s not just for women to attend. It’s for everybody to attend. The discussions aren’t necessarily focused just on females in technology. We’ve got a session that we’re running on December 15, and the topic is fear in your career. Our deputy CIO, who is a male, is going to talk to the forum about his career and overcoming fear in his career. It’s about making sure that there is an appropriate balance. Diversity spans across a multitude of facets, and it’s making sure organizationally, going back to our principles and values, and really focusing on what the organization has in terms of their project stream, showing that through the organization from the executive level. We’re lucky that we’ve got our CEO who’s deeply committed to diversity and inclusion throughout the organization. We’ve also got three ExCo sponsors who are working on our D&I project streams. As long as throughout the organization you have enough awareness, enough opportunity, and enough insight for your employees, then hopefully you don’t get into that struggle where one particular diverse group feels that another is getting more of the attention or more of the opportunities.

Sanjog Aul [00:48:19]:

So one is to basically invest in our skills, right? Soft skills for the most part or maybe technical skills, but then what else can a woman do in IT so that she could stay industry relevant? As they invest in themselves, it automatically helps them blossom, removes the glass ceiling, and they are well on their way to become a leader.

Sue Robinson [00:48:46]:

I think most people will know that as you move up the executive levels, the need for being that hands-on person becomes less and less, and that’s just the same from a technical point of view. For me, trying to stay current is not necessarily about the hands-on, but it’s about understanding what’s going on around you and outside you and all of the various environments that influence where organizations are going and what the trends are. It’s making sure that you’ve got the insight into what’s coming down the line and thinking about the future. A good CIO really has a view of what’s potentially coming around the corner. As you move through the executive level, one of the hardest things is letting go of your more hands-on technical presence that got you where you are today and really taking the next leap in being that strategist, understanding the business. You mentioned it right at the start of our conversation: business stakeholder engagement and how you can assist the organization in developing and delivering on its strategy from an IT point of view. We’re here to ensure that the organization delivers, grows, and generates revenue. As you move through the executive level, you have to change your understanding and knowledge to be more visionary and be able to articulate something and show other leaders how you can move them in the right direction without all of the technical jargon that IT people love to throw into conversations. Everybody can take the time to get their qualifications and feel that having those qualifications will stand them in good stead, depending on the type of role they’re doing within a technology landscape, but as you move further up the executive level, you’ve got to learn stakeholder management, be visionary, be a confidant, and take people into the right solid future that the organization needs to move into.

Sanjog Aul [00:52:09]:

Once again, thank you so much, Sue, for sharing your insights about how women can indeed take charge of their career, build their confidence, build their skills, and all other attributes which would allow them to blossom as a professional and as a leader. Thanks so much again.

Sue Robinson [00:52:27]:

Thank you too.

Sanjog Aul [00:52:28]:

And listeners, hope you enjoyed it. I got a few nuggets out of this. Please connect with us on various social media and subscribe to our podcast where you can find podcasts. We are available on all possible platforms, and once again, thank you so much again for listening to CTN. This is your host, Sanjog Aul. Till next week. Take care, and God bless.