In 2017, Harvard Business Review published a statistic that only 6.4% of all CEOs in Fortune 500 companies were females, with a grand total of 32, an improvement from 2016 with 21 female CEOs.
It’s changing, but slowly.
As we look forward to companies enacting more effective policies to provide equal opportunities for it’s employees, and hiring more female CEOs, some women are taking it upon themselves to create change.
These women are looking beyond the workplace, and building communities to connect with other female peers, and seeking possible opportunities to help grow their careers.
These opportunities may look different for each individual, it can range from connecting with other peers, learning something new in their field, or connecting with female leaders they look up too to learn how to triumph over workplace biases.
By showing up to these physical or online communities, women are building a network of peer to peer connection, and fostering a culture of collaboration in Tech.
To meet in person, women gather at networking events, meet-ups, and conferences. These global organizations also have an online presence as well, where women and girls can connect on Twitter with organizations like @WomeninTech, @GirlswhoCode, and @KodewithKlossy to name a few.
And Women are Showing Up.
This past October in Orlando, FL, around 18,000 attendees participated in Anita Borg’s Grace Hopper Celebration, one of the largest technical conferences for women in computing. The Anita Borg Institute is a nonprofit organization whose primary aim is to advance women in the field of technology.
This year’s celebration marks one of it’s highest attended events since it’s inception in 1994, and projected to grow in attendance in the coming years.
During this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration, industry leaders like Diane Greene, CEO of Google Cloud, noted to the audience to “Be mindful of the world as it is, while you’re changing it for the future. “
Rounding out the session of featured speakers, Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stated that “The next Bill Gates might not look anything like Bill Gates, and probably shouldn’t.”
While change may happen slowly in the workplace, women are showing up in community ready to collaborate, and supporting one another.