The tech industry is asking how to get more women included in their ranks. But if women can’t visualize a world that includes more than just white and male employees,
There are only about 19% of women in entry or mid-level positions in the tech industry, with as few as 10% of women holding executive positions, according to tech company Entelo. The National Center for Women & Information Technology found that while women make up 25% of the tech workforce, Asian women account for 5% of that 25%, Black women account for 3% and Hispanic women account for 1%.
Nancy Wang, general manager at Amazon Web Services and founder and CEO of Advancing Women in Tech, a global non-profit dedicated to helping underrepresented groups accelerate their tech careers, believes it will take a village to change these numbers.
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“In part, women have these roadblocks because of how society pictures women, which is why it’s so important for the tech leadership community to continue to change the face of representation,” says Wang, “It shouldn’t matter if someone is female, male or non-binary, but we have quite a ways to before we get to that reality.”
And that’s where mentorship and sponsorship can potentially make a difference to today’s tech industry — if done correctly, explains Wang. Employee Benefit News spoke with Wang further to gain insight into the challenges faced by women in tech, and how genuine connections can help promote equity in an infamously inequitable field.
Why do women in tech struggle to advance in their careers, especially to executive roles?
If you look at the requirements of some of these senior roles, be it chief product officer, chief operating officer or chief executive officer, it requires certain kinds of experience. You need prior knowledge of owning a budget, an understanding of how to gain revenue, and how to look at net profit margins. Many of these roles also require the individual to have had a very large scope of leadership, managing at least 100 people or more.
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That's the gate that one needs to jump through in order to even be considered for those roles, and that is where the notion of the glass ceiling comes from — many women can't get these opportunities or prerequisites, so they are not considered.
Why is it so difficult to obtain these prerequisites?
One big factor that is top of mind in most of my mentorship conversations with folks is the ‘biological argument.’ Women take time off in their 30s and 40s to have families, which is typically when careers really take off. Career acceleration dips because women may take on less demanding roles, or worse, exit the workforce altogether, and they can never recoup those years.
So, you create this divergence in your career arc. However, when men have families, they get to create a new arc altogether, and it will not intersect with their careers. A lot of people I mentor these days ask me when it is the right time to take a step back and have a family. But in an ideal world, you should be able to make personal life decisions as a woman without concern that it might impact your professional life.
How does mentorship and sponsorship play a role in helping women’s careers?
Mentorship, hand-in-hand with upskilling, can be fruitful if the mentees and mentors know it is a two-way street. There has to be active engagement on each side: the mentor should answer questions and facilitate opportunities, while the mentee needs to ask the right questions and engage in projects that prove what they're capable of to their mentor. And although many feel mentorship is this silver bullet that is going to solve all their advancement problems, it’s not.
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Now sponsorship is a little different. This is when a person who is further along in their career than the person they are sponsoring — in my experience, it is often someone directly in an individual’s leadership chain or their direct boss — is actively putting their reputation on the line and their standing in the community to advance someone else. Basically, how the ‘sponsored’ performs has a direct impact on the sponsor. That’s a few steps above mentorship and a much closer relationship.
How has mentorship impacted your career?
[My mentor] gives me advice, listens to different career decisions I’m about to make or not make and gives me her two cents. She also advises me on different career opportunities, one such opportunity being the role with Amazon Web Services. She even connected me with the vice president who was hiring for the position I’m currently in. So, in a sense, she is the reason I am at AWS. And that’s just one of the ways I have seen this community of engaged women leaders help other women.
