Flowers are nice, but what moms really need are better work-life policies!

“Instead of flowers and a nice brunch, what we actually need is systemic change for working parents” – this article resonated with girl geeks over Mother’s Day weekend as the United States has the least generous benefits, the lowest public commitment to caregiving, one of highest wage gaps between employed men and women, and one of the highest maternal and child poverty rates for any Western industrialized nation.

The American workplace is still organized as if it were an all-male workplace with a caregiver at home. Technology is iterating on self-driving cars and robots making pizza, yet workplaces have failed to evolve over the last century as women have entered the workplace to stay.

Olympian Alysia Montaño penned a popular New York Times Op-Ed “Nike Told Me To Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted A Baby” about the advertising industry’s penchant for uplifting women with empowerment to boost their bottom line, but not actually supporting female athletes with maternity leave.

It’s time to stop referring to maternity leave as “generous” – passing unearned credit to reluctant employers in a country that lags embarrassingly far behind in family support.

Bottom line: America’s parenting crisis is going to require a societal response, not an individual one, argues The Atlantic’s Caitlyn Collins.

We are thankful for the efforts of PL+US, a non-profit lobbying for paid leave for all. Especially if your employer does matching, please do give them a boost and donate to keep fighting for paid family leave for all working families!

Moms Returning To Work

In addition to corporate Path Forward returnships for moms– here are startups helping women reenter the workplace.

Don’t miss our weekly Girl Geek Dinners where you can connect with companies looking to hire women! Get the inside look at companies, and network with fellow girl geeks.

Tune in to Girl Geek X Podcasts during your drive / commute for insights from working women in tech – and subscribe to our YouTube channel for videos from our events!

As the first ever picture of a supermassive black hole circled the Internet on April 10, 2019 – Dr. Katie Bouman now has a Wikipedia page. She is notable because her computer science work helped contribute to the imaging of the black hole for the first time – a feat previously thought impossible.

She developed an algorithm known as Continuous High-resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors (or CHIRP) so Earth could see its first supermassive black hole.

Here’s the moment when the first black hole image was processed.

Katie’s algorithm was used to image the black hole inside the core of the galaxy Messier 87 from a ton of data from the Event Horizon Telescope:

At MIT as a postdoc fellow, she was responsible for an algorithm to create the first images of a black hole, published in April 2019, providing computational support to learn about general relativity in the strong-field regime. Her research focused on using emerging computational methods to push the boundaries of interdisciplinary imaging – to fantastic results:

Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun. This long-sought image provides the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and opens a new window onto the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Katie had theorized that black holes leave a background shadow of hot gas; the machine learning algorithm fills in gaps in data produced by telescopes from around the world. She led efforts in “the verification of images and selection of imaging parameters” for the Event Horizon Telescope.

Katie developed “a new algorithm to stitch together data collected across the EHT network. She went on to lead an elaborate series of tests aimed at ensuring that the EHT’s image was not the result of some form of technical glitch or fluke. At one stage, this involved the collaboration splitting into four separate teams which analysed the data independently until they were absolutely confident of their findings,” reported The Guardian.

In 2017, she gave a TED talk on “How to take a picture of a black hole”.

On the recent black hole image release, Katie is quoted: “We’re a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that’s what it took to achieve something once thought impossible.”

Dr. Katherine L. (“Katie”) Bouman is now a professor at Caltech.

Comparisons are already being made of Margaret Hamilton of NASA to Katie Bouman of Caltech.

We can’t wait until we can buy the Lego kit commemorating this computer scientist’s contribution to the imaging of the first black hole! Super inspiring work, Katie.

Society of Women Engineers (SWE) review research in 2018 for insight on the status and trends for women in engineering. Here are the highlights:

“Leaky pipeline” / interest in engineering:

“Women offered less-positive estimates of their own intellectual abilities than men, and were more likely to endorse the view that engineers and computer scientists possessed stereotypical (strong) intellectual abilities, which predicted lower female interest in these disciplines.” Bian et al. (2018) “found that messages indicating that a university major, internship, or position involved brilliance lowered women’s interest in those opportunities and were less likely to see themselves as similar to the typical person in those roles.”

Women in academic engineering:

“Griffith and Dasgupta (2018) report on a survey of 383 STEM faculty members at a public research university in the northeastern U.S. They found that female STEM faculty were less satisfied than their male colleagues where women were a minority, particularly in departments where women represented less than 25 percent of the department. In departments with more balance (close to 50 percent women), these differences in satisfaction disappeared.”

“One familiar theme in analysis of female academics in general, and STEM faculty specifically, is the greater burden of service work that falls on women.” Research by Pedersen and Minnotte (2018) contributes to this ongoing discussion: “They viewed service obligations as onerous, isolating, a hindrance to research, and detrimental to family responsibilities and their own health. Women who had already achieved tenure resented being asked to take on additional service responsibilities to shelter junior colleagues, since no such protection had been extended to them.

The male culture of engineering:

“Several of the studies reviewed here note that women who experience a hostile environment often either try to ignore it or rationalize their experience and are not inclined to report their negative experiences or to use existing legal tools to effect changes.”

Later leaks in the pipeline:

Cardador and Hill (2018) examined how career paths affect attrition: “Women were overrepresented in the managerial and hybrid paths, with the latter being the path most associated with intent to leave the profession. Those on the technical path reported lower levels of intent to leave…”

“Another study we reviewed this year points to an additional possible ‘leak’ in the pipeline — the interview process that mediates between school and work.” Wynn and Correll (2018) report on their analysis of observational data from recruiting sessions by technology companies at a prominent West Coast university (this study is particularly interesting because the companies involved were actively trying to recruit women engineers and computer scientists). Wynn and Correll found that interviewing practices put women off. Most of the presenters were men, with women in marginal roles. Question-and-answer sessions were dominated by men and tended to turn into opportunities for ‘display.’ Some of the interview presentations made use of sexualized images of women and there were a number of references to gendered pop culture images and a tendency to describe the workplace as having fraternity-like qualities. The sessions emphasized technicality above all else, which tended to put women off…”

Wages:

“New research on income inequality also came from Europe this year. Career-satisfaction data from Spain revealed that income plays a larger role in women engineers’ career satisfaction than in men’s (Martínez-León, Olmedo-Cifuentes, and Ramón-Llorens, 2018).”

“Women were as likely as men to negotiate their salaries, but men were more likely to receive a greater increase in salary from negotiating. Furthermore, men who negotiated with men were more likely to receive a greater percent increase in salary than women who negotiated with women.”

Intersectionality:

“The study compared and contrasted differences in instrumental versus advice-giving professional networks, and found that men have larger instrumental networks, whereas women have larger advice-giving networks. This is a concern because the study also found that instrumental networks increase scholarly productivity, while advice networks decrease it. In other words, women’s professional networks are less likely to contribute to their scholarly productivity. White men had the highest levels of productivity out of any group.”

Conclusion:

“It appeared that 2018 was going to be a breakthrough year for women in STEM when it was announced that Donna Strickland, Ph.D., had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. She was only the third woman ever to receive this distinction, and the announcement of her award brought a great deal of public attention to the issue of gender in science and engineering. The story took a different turn, however, as it developed. Many were astonished to learn that Dr. Strickland was still an associate professor, even though she was a Nobel Prize recipient well into her career at age 59. Despite her accomplishments, no Wikipedia page on her or her work existed. In fact, one article we reviewed this year noted the general absence of Wikipedia pages on female scientists (White, 2018). Dr. Strickland herself expressed surprise at the focus on her gender and said she preferred to think of herself as a scientist, not a woman scientist (McBride, 2018). When asked why she was still an associate professor, Dr. Strickland answered, ‘I never applied.’ (Crowe, 2018).

Dr. Strickland’s puzzlement and reluctance to engage actively with the politics of gender in science illustrates a dilemma confronting those who seek to increase the numbers of women in engineering and science and promote gender equity in STEM. As we have noted in previous reviews, many female engineers and scientists share Dr. Strickland’s avoidance of gender politics and tend to see the underrepresentation of women in STEM not as a structural problem but as a matter of individual choices and abilities.

This was made clear by an important article we reviewed this year titled ‘I Am Not a Feminist, but … .’ Seron et al. (2018) conducted research at four engineering programs in New England (MIT, Olin College of Engineering, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst). At each school, they tracked a cohort of female students over a four-year period (2003-7), asking them to complete diaries about their experiences. The results of the study showed that respondents generally were aware of their marginalization as women in a male-dominated field, but they rejected a feminist critique of the discipline, tending instead to embrace an individualist account of their own success. Respondents associated feminism with a demand for preferential treatment, something they rejected because they saw themselves as having succeeded on their own merits. The underrepresentation of women in engineering, to them, was unfortunate but natural — the only solution was better-prepared women.

Seron et al. say of their respondents: ‘While providing clear and strong criticisms of their experiences, they rarely recognize structural inequities, or translate these matters and their own marginality, either individually or collectively, into a commentary on the engineering profession itself.’ (p. 133) Seron et al.’s conclusion that many women engineers accept the meritocratic ethos of the profession with its emphasis on individual achievement makes it seem unlikely that organized pressure to change the gender balance in engineering will arise from within. But, in the absence of such a critique, where will the impetus to change come from? As the research we reviewed this year (and in past years) has shown, women have greatly increased their performance on objective tests of math and science ability, but this has not yet translated into significant increases in the numbers of women in engineering, computer science, and related fields. The literature we have reviewed points to the existence of powerful structural and cultural barriers that continue to push against gender equity in STEM. The question is, who will push back?”

About the SWE report authors:

Peter Meiksins, Ph.D., is vice provost for academic programs and professor of sociology at Cleveland State University. He is co-author (with Stephen Sweet) of Changing Contours of Work: Jobs and Opportunities in the New Economy, 3rd edition (Sage, 2017), and serves as an advisory editor of Engineering Studies.

Peggy Layne, P.E., F.SWE, is assistant provost for faculty development at Virginia Tech. She holds degrees in environmental and water resources engineering and science and technology studies. Layne is the editor of Women in Engineering: Pioneers and Trailblazers and Women in Engineering: Professional Life (ASCE Press, 2009). A Fellow of the Society of Women Engineers, Layne served as SWE FY97 president.

Kacey Beddoes, Ph.D., is founding director of the Research in Sociology of Engineering group. She holds a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Virginia Tech, along with graduate certificates in women’s and gender studies and engineering education. She serves as deputy editor of the journal Engineering Studies and as chair of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) Working Group on Gender and Diversity. In 2017, Dr. Beddoes received an NSF CAREER award for her work on gender in engineering. Further information about her research can be found at www. sociologyofengineering.org.

Marc Lewis is a Ph.D. candidate in the higher education program at Virginia Tech, while serving as a graduate assistant on the faculty affairs team in the office of the provost. His current research interests include access to higher education and equity in the college experience for low-income students.

Adam S. Masters is a graduate student at Virginia .Tech, currently pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering education and a master’s in mechanical engineering. Masters researches and advocates for access and equity in engineering; current research explores inclusive practices with partners from diverse, liberatory makerspaces. Masters has served as a SWE counselor twice and is a recipient of the SWE Ada I. Pressman Memorial Scholarship.

Jessica Deters is a Ph.D. student in the engineering education department at Virginia Tech. Her current research interests include access, engineering identity, interdisciplinarity, and experiential learning.

Read the full report at SWE.org

What’s different in 2019 is the stark change in tone: Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” mantra for personal accountability needs to be met with structural, societal change for all — this must change before women’s careers in the traditional workforce can be improved. Time’s up.

What we’ve been reading in the Girl Geek X channels this week:

• Fighting the scourge of the 30 under 30 list – “Most great things you achieve will be after age 30. There is a reason most Nobel Prizes in medicine are awarded to people in their 60s, because that’s usually how long it takes to change the world.”

  🤔 In one week, 38-year old New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has done what U.S. leaders have failed at for decades.

  🗞 Girl Geek X CEO Angie Chang is scaling a sisterhood of geeks, writes the Silicon Valley Business Journal. We love talking to the press and hearing from girl geeks about their lives.

  🔥 Kamilah Taylor, Swaay co-founder, is frustrated by how media coverage frames stories around girls and women in tech around “teaching computer science in schools. That’s just not the whole story,” she argues. In middle school, Kamilah’s teachers didn’t enroll her in an honors stream advanced math class because they thought she “wouldn’t be interested.” Today she has multiple engineering degrees.

 

Food for thought:

• Americans are the unhappiest they have ever been – Researchers blame declines in social support and increases in obesity and substance abuse. “The free-market theory taught in universities holds that consumers know what’s best for them, with businesses efficiently and appropriately catering to those desires,” writes a report co-author. “The prevalence of addiction suggests a very different picture: that individuals may be lured into self-destructive behaviors, notably by businesses keen on boosting sales of their goods and services.”

  ⚖️ Senator Elizabeth Warren pushes for consequences for corporate executives for overseeing massive scams.

  🏛️  Institutions are now refusing to accept donations from the Sackler family, who are responsible for the opiod addiction epidemic. 💊

  😷  Patagonia is beginning to cut ties with tech and finance companies. The popular outdoorwear maker drew attention for CEO Rose Marcario (pictured below) donating the company’s $10 million Trump tax cut to environmental groups.

Working smarter, not harder:

• Feeling the stress? WSJ claims that the economy’s last hope is middle managers – “The study showed that managers didn’t just influence the results their teams achieved, they explained a full 70% of the variance. No other single factor, from compensation levels to the perception of senior leadership, even came close.” Managers and ICs are both squeezed for productivity in the workplace – be sure to practice boundaries and self care – here are tips from 8 girl geeks!

  🏫  Harvard Business Review tips for managers to run meetings inclusive to introverts, women and remote workers is making the rounds this week. Don’t miss this guide to motivating yourself at work even when you don’t feel like it and 11 examples of how to turn negative phrases into positive, actionable ones. 🐹🧀

  🎧  Episode 6 of the Girl Geek X podcast discusses becoming a manager. If you’ve ever been promoted into a manager role you didn’t feel ready for, or wondered how to make the switch from IC – we discuss manager transitions, and hear from Stitch Fix CTO Cathy Polinsky.

  🤩 Intel VP Sandra Lopez gave a popular Elevate keynote on “Being Unapologetically You” and gives advice on networking for girl geeks: “Why should you be networking outside of your company? Men build a wide network and build value in their rolodex; females value deep relationships but this is about building your network to enrich your professional career and set yourself up for success. When you network and interact, you have the opportunity to inspire and raise each other up.” (Keynote video and transcript)

MarketWorld:

• Financialization of the market has enabled poor behavior in MarketWorld – hat tip Anand Giridharadas for “Winner Takes All – the Elite Charade of Changing the World”. We first caught wind of the book from Kara Swisher’s podcast interview with Anand – worth a listen.

  🎭 Elizabeth Holmes of the Theranos scandal was panned by audiences after “The Inventor” HBO documentary was released. For the more cerebral, read the business book Bad Blood (written by the WSJ investigative journalist that blew the whistle on Theranos) for insights on how she built her house of cards on the backs of old, rich white men. 👀

  🔥 Bloomberg is turning up the heat on YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki for ignoring toxic videos in her focus on user engagement metrics, leading to a ghastly scenario for companies with a penchant for maximizing shareholder value over the quality of human lives.

  🛫 Familiar with the trappings of the ultra-rich, Abigail Disney wants to ban private jets for the super-rich to restore their humanity. In the widely-shared article, she talks about the value in the rare folks who push back on the rich and powerful.

Boom and bust:

• Female investors tick upward in the Forbes 2019 Midas List and Midas “Brink List” of up-and-coming investors. 💸 Yet with a measly 2% of venture capital dollars funding female founders, these dealmakers are responsible for deepening their “founder pools” for a diverse pipeline of entrepreneurs, with Monique Woodard tweeting “how auspicious” 💅 Forbes Midas List was released on Equal Pay Day.

  💵  “Investors have only recently begun to accept the reality of the market” for women’s health, CEO and founder Tania Boler raises $42 million in Series B funding for British health and lifestyle brand Elvie. Please don’t call it “femtech”. Women’s financial startup Ellevest raises $33 million, led by CEO and founder Sallie Krawcheck.

  💄  New York startup scene grows with successes of Glossier CEO and founder Emily Weiss and Rent the Runway CEO and co-founder Jennifer Hyman celebrating their companies joining the billion-dollar “unicorn” club.

  💰   One of the biggest fuel sources of the unicorn industrial complex is SoftBank’s $100 billion “Vision Fund” (💯) which is 45% funded by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Muhammad bin Salman who is responsible for murder of a journalist and the torture and detention of female activists in Saudi Arabia, cautions Human Rights Watch. The fund was run by 10 men until the recent addition of two female partners: Kirthiga Reddy and Lydia Jett.

“People are saying that we’re really politically active, when the reality is that it’s proportional to what’s happened. The climate crisis is not a forecast anymore. It’s real. It’s happening. If we’re going to survive the next 25 years, we need to work together more. We need to collaborate and we need more transparency.” – Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario

Having hosted 200+ Girl Geek Dinners over the past 10 years, we’ve heard from 1,000+ women who took the stage to share their expertise and experiences with the Girl Geek Community. They’ve collectively answered over 5,000 questions from our audience, and we’ve noticed some patterns — the same questions and trending topics emerge dinner after dinner, event after event.

It’s clear that women in tech (and other industries) at all stages of their careers often share common concerns and struggle with similar issues: focus, mentorship, career transitions, negotiations, imposter syndrome, continued learning, management, self-advocacy,  communication, and more… (sooooo much more!)

Girl Geek X Podcast allows us to address these key themes emerging from the Girl Geek X community in a series of episodes where we will weave together the “best of” from senior-level women speaking at Girl Geek X events, and for the first time, you’ll hear directly from the team behind Girl Geek X:

Angie’s favorite Girl Geek X Podcast is the episode on “Communication” – “because I am always working on this for myself!” Angie shares her entrepreneurial mindset and experience working at early-stage startups and companies with under 50 employees. Because her career began with a social welfare and english degree from UC Berkeley, she is passionate about showing women that they can enter the tech industry at any age. In a previous life, she was VP of Partnerships at a coding bootcamp for women, and has held roles in product management, marketing and web production. She has been making websites since 1999 in high school.

Sukrutha’s favorite Girl Geek X Podcast is the episode on “Imposter Syndrome” – “The way we deal with our obstacles change as we get more experience in our career and grow. Impostor syndrome is an obstacle that takes many forms and never fully goes away. Learning how to deal with it without going the other end of the spectrum has been something I realized I had to continue to focus on.” Sukrutha works as a senior engineering manager at Salesforce. She began her career as a software engineer in test at Citrix after graduating from USC with a master’s degree in electric engineering. Sukrutha joined the Girl Geek X team after her positive experience in college with the Society of Women Engineers, and enjoys providing a platform for technical women to shine and network with each other across companies. She has led initiatives at Salesforce Women in Tech ERG (that’s Employee Resource Group) in addition to hosting Girl Geek X events. An in her spare time, Sukrutha trains for races (swimming, running, biking).

Gretchen’s favorite Girl Geek X Podcast is the episode on “Bias in Hiring” – “because it’s important that every participant from recruiters to hiring managers understand their own biases if we want to ever have a chance at untangling the intertwined systemic discrimination that exists in every stage of the hiring process.” Gretchen has been launching and scaling enterprise software companies since way back in the last century. She’s been both a startup founder and founding employee. Most recently, she led SaaStr from a simple blog to the world’s largest global community of 100K+ B2B founders, execs and investors. She earned her MBA from UC Berkeley and in her spare time, she’s a diversity and inclusion advocate.

Rachel’s favorite Girl Geek X Podcast is the episode on “Learning” – “As a life-long learner, I’m always looking for new ways to learn and new information to take in. But the discussion in this episode helped me think about learning with intention. Now I focus on quality instead of quantity, and focus my learning time on knowledge that will strengthen the work I’m already doing.” Producer Rachel Jones is the newcomer to the Girl Geek X team. She produces podcasts and storytelling events with You Had Me At Black and StorySlam Oakland. Since graduating from Northwestern with a degree in film and radio, Rachel has developed platforms for underrepresented voices, from producing short films with filmmakers in Ethiopia, to teaching digital storytelling to students in India. Most recently, she led a youth journalism program on Chicago’s south side with Free Spirit Media. When Rachel’s not producing podcasts, you can find her searching for the best boba and ramen in the east bay.

Our first 5 episodes dealing with mentorship, career transitions, learning, imposter syndrome, and communication are already available, so go download ’em right now and get ready to enjoy your morning commute or your next gym sesh just a little bit more! (Seriously, it’ll feel like you just attended 3 of our best Girl Geek Dinners without having to make the extra trip to the Financial District or South Bay in the rain!)

More of a reader than a listener? We got you! The full transcript for every podcast will be posted under the “Listen” tab on the site’s top nav bar. Read on, ladies & allies!

Subscribe on Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher or iTunes to listen and stay up-to-date with the latest podcast releases from the Girl Geek X team!

We will be livestreaming 20+ Elevate speakers this Friday, March 8, 2019 to our global Girl Geek X community! Don’t miss out – get your FREE all-access virtual conference pass at elevate.girlgeek.io

Here are 20 inspiring women elevating tech:

Akilah Bolden-Monifa is Senior Vice President at ARISE Global Media and editor-in-chief of Arise 2.0, a global digital publication by LGBTQ folks of color and allies. Akilah is a former lawyer and self-taught developer who built her first Alexa skill called “Black History Everyday” at age 60.

Anna Bethke is Head of AI for Social Good at Intel. She is actively involved in the AI ethics discussion, collaborating on research surrounding the design of fair, transparent, ethical, and accessible AI systems. In her previous role as a deep learning data scientist, Anna was a member of the Intel AI Lab, developing deep learning natural language processing algorithms as part of the NLP Architect open source repository.

Citlalli Solano Leonce is a Senior Engineering Manager at Palo Alto Networks. She and her teams develop the backend of the Public Cloud Security service that protects enterprises as they unleash the power of the cloud. Citlalli has navigated her teams through M&A integrations while successfully building highly distributed API-based SaaS security platforms. Earlier in her career, she has developed software for CirroSecure, Cisco, Apple and The Central Bank of Mexico.

Colleen Bashar is Vice President of Pre-Sales at Guidewire. She has been focused on enterprise software for 19 years with a track record in both revenue and organizational growth. Colleen leverages skills acquired through her engineering degree, MBA and both large and small organizations, to deliver a unique perspective on the challenges of growth and scale and selling in a competitive market.

Dena Metili Mwangi is a Software Engineer at Sentry. She works on the Growth team at Sentry, an open source error monitoring tool. She is a Hackbright grad with a MA in Economics from Duke University with a passion for leveraging data and analytics to build better products. She’s passionate about using tech for good and paying it forward. Prior to Sentry, she worked as a Research Analyst at the World Bank.

Farnaz Ronaghi is CTO & Co-Founder at NovoEd. Farnaz studied engineering in Tehran before continuing her studies at Stanford University, where she she designed and developed the first version of NovoEd during her PhD studies at Stanford University. NovoEd provides online learning for busy professionals, and was acquired recently by Devonshire Investors to accelerate expansion of the market-leading enterprise learning delivery platform.

Grishma Jena is a Cognitive Software Engineer at IBM. She works on data science for marketing at IBM Watson. Her research interests are in Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. Grishma was recently a mentor for AI4ALL’s AI Project Fellowship, where she guided a group of high school students to use AI for prioritizing 911 EMS calls.

Heidi Williams is CTO & Co-Founder at tEQuitable, building a platform to address bias, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace. Prior to co-founding tEQuitable, Heidi was Vice President of Platform Engineering at Box for 4 years. Heidi is the founder of WEST, a mentoring program for women building careers in tech. Before Box, Heidi worked at Adobe for 17 years, beginning her career as a software engineer.

Janet George is a Fellow and Chief Data Scientist at Western Digital. She is a technical leader with over 15 years of experience in big data platform, machine learning, distributed computing, compilers, and artificial intelligence. Prior to Western Digital, she served as managing director, chief scientist, and big data expert at Accenture technology labs and served as head of Yahoo Labs Research Engineering.

Jen Taylor is Head of Products at Cloudflare. Prior to Cloudflare, she was a Senior Vice President of Product Management for Search at Salesforce. Prior to Salesforce, she held senior product management and marketing roles — including Manager of Platform Product Marketing at Facebook and Senior Director of Product Management at Adobe. Earlier in her career, Jen was a product manager at Macromedia (acquired by Adobe) for Dreamweaver.

Leyla Seka is Executive Vice President of the Salesforce Mobile platform experience, enabling all customers to unlock the power of Salesforce from anywhere. In this role, Leyla leads the charge on extending the power of Salesforce with a full portfolio of mobile apps, and she is responsible for driving product, go-to-market and other key programs around Salesforce’s mobile offerings. In her 11 years at Salesforce, Leyla has held a variety of positions across product management, product marketing and business operations.

Lili Gangas is Chief Technology Community Officer at Kapor Center. She helps catalyze Oakland’s emergence as a social impact hub of tech done right, tackling social and economic inequities of communities head-on. Lili advises inclusive tech entrepreneurship ecosystem building activities in Oakland, such as Oakland Startup Network, TechHire Oakland, Latinx in Tech, Kapor Center Innovation Lab. Lili is a proud immigrant from Bolivia who believes in fostering inclusive tech ecosystems for all.

Nupur Srivastava is Vice President of Product Management at Grand Rounds. She is responsible for product at Grand Rounds, leading a team of product managers, designers and growth marketers delivering end-to-end solutions that deliver improved health outcomes for members. Prior to Grand Rounds, Nupur was Head of Product for AliveCor, and held product positions in Cisco’s telemedicine group, as well as a product development company focused on affordable health technologies.

Omayeli Arenyeka is a Software Engineer at LinkedIn. Omayeli is an artist and technologist from Nigeria currently based in San Francisco. She is interested in the intersection of technology, art and activism. Her work outside of work aims to use writing, data, code and satire as tools to foster disillusionment with our current realities. She’s an alum of Code2040, the School of Poetic Computation and the Recurse Center.

Rosie Sennett is a Staff Sales Engineer at Splunk. She has shifted careers from Broadway Prop Builder to COBOL Programmer, and just missed the era of “mainframe punch cards” while following her nerdy side into the just burgeoning world of Business Intelligence. Rosie enjoys the puzzle solving heroics of tech support, and shifted again into Sales Engineering where she gets to dabble in everything and then pontificate about it. Fast forward 27 years, and she is enjoying her position as a Staff Sales Engineer at Splunk in San Francisco.

Sandra Lopez is Vice President for Intel Sports. Her team is focused on leading the business, marketing, and market development efforts of Intel Sports and Intel Studios to provide the future fans and consumers with the next generation of immersive media experiences. Previously, Sandra worked in Intel’s New Technology Group, leading and managing the Fashion wearable business.

Shanea Leven is Director of Product Management at Cloudflare. Prior to Cloudflare, Shanea was a Senior Technical Product Manager at eBay. Prior to eBay, Shanea was a Program Manager at Google, where she managed the Tech Entrepreneurship Nanodegree, a program aimed at teaching students how to build sustainable, revenue-generating businesses. Shanea is passionate about entrepreneurship as she began her career as an entrepreneur.

Shawna Wolverton is Senior Vice President of Product Management at Zendesk. She has over 20 years experience in enterprise software product management. Shawna recently joined Zendesk as the SVP of Product after a fantastic adventure in “new space” as the Chief Product Officer at Planet. Previously, Shawna spent 14 years at Salesforce, joining the organization as the first localization manager and leaving as an SVP of Platform product.

Sukrutha Bhadouria is CTO and co-founder of Girl Geek X, and a Senior Engineering Manager at Salesforce. She wants to change the world for girls, one geek dinner at a time, and she is passionate about technology, gender diversity, and engineering leadership. Sukrutha was named in Business Insider’s list of “30 Most Important Women Under 30 In Tech“ in 2014 and “San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40” Tech Titans of 2016.

Sheri Trivedi is an Instructional Content Strategist at the United States Digital Service in Washington DC. She works with her colleagues at the USDS to bring user-centered design to federal government agencies in order to serve the people. She has spent her career deeply interested in creating positive new user experiences, having previously led initiatives at GitHub, Salesforce and Autodesk.

Don’t miss these 20+ amazing women speaking on March 8, 2019 (International Women’s Day) — get your FREE Elevate conference pass here and tune in to the livestream! #ggxelevate #iwd2019

You can host a viewing party at your office! Here’s a handy guide for you.

By Angie Chang

From growing early-stage startups to large publicly-traded companies, here are 30 female CTOs to watch in 2019 — You will find household names like Nest, Starbucks, Gap, Intuit and Stitch Fix have chief technology officers that positively inspire the next generation of girl geeks!

Apptimize CTO & co-founder Nancy Hua

Nancy Hua is the Chief Technology Officer at Apptimize, a mobile experimentation startup. Prior to founding Apptimize, Nancy was an algorithmic trader. Nancy studied math with computer science at MIT and led the MIT fencing team. Nancy holds a B.S. in math with computer science from MIT. Follow her on Twitter at @huanancy.

Breaker CTO & co-founder Leah Culver

Leah Culver is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Breaker, a social podcast app. An author of OAuth and oEmbed API specifications, Leah is a Swift and Python developer – and former founder of Grove, Convore, and Pownce, which was acquired by Six Apart. Leah holds a B.S. in computer science from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Follow her on Twitter at @leahculver.

Compaas CTO & co-founder Lisa Dusseault

Lisa Dusseault is the Chief Technology Officer at Compaas. She has built her career solving complex technology problems. After Microsoft, she led internet standards groups at the IETF, and engineering teams at Linden Lab and Stubhub. She founded tech startups Cathy Labs, Klutch and ShareTheVisit. Lisa holds a B.S. in systems design engineering from University of Waterloo.

Confluent CTO & co-founder Neha Narkhede

Neha Narkhede is the Chief Technology Officer at Confluent. Prior to founding Confluent, Neha led streams infrastructure at LinkedIn, where she was responsible for LinkedIn’s streaming infrastructure built on top of Apache Kafka and Apache Samza. She is one of the initial authors of Apache Kafka and a committer and PMC member on the project. Neha holds a B.E. in computer science from University of Pune and a M.S. in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology. Follow her on Twitter at @nehanarkhede.

Democratic National Committee CTO Nellwyn Thomas

Nellwyn Thomas is the newly-appointed Chief Technology Officer for the Democratic National Committee. She has worked both in political campaigns and the tech industry (Facebook, Etsy). Nellwyn led deputy analytics for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. Follow her on Twitter at @nellwyn.

Gap CTO Rathi Murthy

Rathi Murthy is the Chief Technology Officer at Gap. Prior to Gap, Rathi was at America Express for almost four years, most recently SVP/CIO for Enterprise Growth. She held engineering leadership positions at eBay, Yahoo, Metreo and began her career as a software engineer and QA lead. Rathi holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Bangalore University and a M.S. in computer engineering from Santa Clara University.

Ghost Foundation CTO & co-founder Hannah Wolfe

Hannah Wolfe is the Chief Technology Officer at Ghost Foundation, an open source publishing platform. Prior to launching Ghost, she worked as a software engineer at Moo and Engine Creative. Hannah holds a M.S. in international business from Nottingham University Business School and a B.S. in computer science from University of Nottingham. Follow her on Twitter at @erisds.

Greo CTO & co-founder Elizabeth Davis

Elizabeth Davis is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder at Greo, a social video platform that graduated from Y Combinator’s accelerator program in 2017. Prior to Greo, she interned at Pinterest and Google. Elizabeth holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Follow her on Twitter at @lizfordays.

Intuit CTO Marianna Tessel

Marianna Tessel is the Chief Technology Officer at Intuit. Prior to the promotion, she was Chief Product Development Officer at Intuit. Prior to Intuit, Marianna was SVP of Engineering at Docker. Prior to that, Marianna held VP of Engineering roles at VMware, Intacct, Ariba and General Magic. Marianna holds a B.S. in computer science from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Kapor Center for Social Impact CTCO Lilibeth Gangas

Lilibeth Gangas is Chief Technology Community Officer at Kapor Center for Social Impact. Prior to Kapor Center for Social Impact, Lili worked at Accenture Technology Lab and Booz Allen. Prior to that, Lili worked on software and hardware solutions at Raytheon. Lili holds an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. Follow her on Twitter at @lilsg31.

LimeLoop CTO & co-founder Chantal Emmanuel

Chantal Emmanuel is the Chief Technology Officer at LimeLoop. Prior to founding LimeLoop, Chantal worked as a software engineer at SYPartners and Red Clay. Prior to learning to code at Dev Bootcamp, she worked on various community programs in New York. Chantal holds a B.A. in english from State University of New York at Binghamton. Follow her on Twitter at @chantalemmanuel.

MarketInvoice CTO Rija Javed

Rija Javed is the Chief Technology Officer at MarketInvoice, a UK-based finance platform. Prior to MarketInvoice, Rija was at Wealthfront for over four years, most recently Senior Director of Engineering. She began her career as a software engineer at Research in Motion and Zynga. Riya holds a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering and a M.S. in computer engineering, both from University of Toronto. Follow her on Twitter at @rijajaved.

Meetup CTO Yvette Pasqua

Having been the Chief Technology Officer at Meetup for three years now, Yvette Pasqua has led initiatives at the company to tackle 15 years of technical debt, create a more diverse and inclusive engineering team, and bring product improvements to market. Prior to Meetup, she held engineering leadership roles at Tinypass, AKQA, Possible and Schematic. Yvette holds a B.S. in biological basis of behavior from University of Pennsylvania. While in college, she gained work experience as a webmaster and networking computers at the medical center and hospital. Follow her on Twitter at @lolarobot.

Mode CTO Heather Rivers

As Mode‘s CTO, Heather Rivers leads engineering, product, design, and security. She has been writing software for 15 years, from games on her graphing calculator in high school, to computational linguistics in college, to tech companies like Yammer and Microsoft. Heather holds an A.B. in linguistics from University of Chicago. Follow her on Twitter at @heatherrivers.

Moxxly CTO & co-founder Santhi Analytis

Santhi Analytis is the Chief Technology Officer of Moxxly, redesigning the breast pump for today’s mobile mom. In 2017, Moxxly was acquired by Olle Larsson Holding, parent company of the Medela pump. She holds a PhD and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a B.S. in biomedical engineering and latin american studies. Follow her on Twitter at @dranalytis.

Nest CTO Yoky Matsuoka

Yoky Matsuoka is the Chief Technology Officer at Nest. Prior to Nest, Yoky was a founder of Google[x]. Prior to that, Yoky was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington. She developed robotic devices for rehabilitating and assisting the human body and brain, earning the MacArthur award in 2007. Yoky grew up assuming she would be a professional tennis player, but instead holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, where she was a postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering. Follow her on Twitter at @yokymatsuoka.

NovoEd CTO & co-founder Farnaz Ronaghi

Farnaz Ronaghi is the Chief Technology Officer at NovoEd, providing online learning for busy professionals. Farnaz holds a B.S. in computer engineering from Sharif University of Technology and a M.S. in management science and engineering from Stanford University. She designed and developed the first version of NovoEd during her PhD studies at Stanford University. Follow her on Twitter at @farnazr.

Nylas CTO & co-founder Christine Spang

Christine Spang is a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer at Nylas, handling over 100 million API requests per day. Prior to founding Nylas, she worked at Oracle after the company acquired Ksplice, where she was working as a key member of the team. Christine started working on free software via the Debian project when she was 15 and holds a S.B. in computer science from MIT. Follow her on Twitter at @spang.

One Medical Group CTO Kimber Lockhart

Kimber Lockhart is the Chief Technology Officer at innovative health care company One Medical Group. Previously, Kimber co-founded Increo Solutions, a document collaboration company that was acquired by Box in 2009. She was at Box for four years in a variety of roles, most recently Senior Director of Engineering responsible for Box’s web application. Kimber holds a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University. Follow her on Twitter at @kimber_lockhart.

Pilot CTO & founder Jessica McKellar

Jessica McKellar is the Chief Technology Officer at Pilot. Prior to founding Pilot, Jessica was a Director of Engineering at Dropbox, which had acquired her company Zulip, where she was co-founder and VP of Engineering. Prior to that, Jessica worked in engineering management at Oracle by way of Ksplice acquisition, where she was working as a software engineer. Jessica holds a B.S. in computer science and M.S. in computer science, both from MIT. Follow her on Twitter at @jessicamckellar.

Redfin CTO Bridget Frey

As Redfin‘s Chief Technology Officer, Bridget Fey leads the software engineering team of over 150 engineers in Seattle and San Francisco. Prior to Redfin, she held management positions at Lithium Technologies, IntrinsiQ Research, IMlogic and Plumtree Software. Bridget holds a B.S. in computer science from Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude. Follow her on Twitter at @SVBridget.

Starbucks CTO Gerri Martin-Flickinger

Gerri Martin-Flickinger joined Starbucks in 2015 as the Chief Technology Officer and has led the technology organization through significant transformation (mobile order and pay, voice ordering and social gifting). Prior to Starbucks, Gerri was CIO at Adobe, VeriSign, Network Associates, and McAfee Associates. Gerri holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Washington State University. Follow her on Twitter at @gmflickinger.

Stitch Fix CTO Cathy Polinsky

Cathy Polinsky is the Chief Technology Officer at Stitch Fix, an online subscription and personal shopping service that went public in 2017. Prior to Stitch Fix, Cathy was a SVP of Engineering for Enterprise Search at Salesforce. Prior to that, she was a Senior Engineering Manager at Yahoo and began her career as a software engineer. Cathy holds a B.A. in computer science from Swathmore College. Follow her on Twitter at @cathy_polinsky.

SurveyMonkey CTO Robin Ducot

Robin Ducot is the Chief Technology Officer at SurveyMonkey. Previously, Robin spent five years as Senior Vice President of Product Engineering at DocuSign. Prior to that, she was the Vice President of Engineering at Eventbrite. Robin holds a B.S. in computer science and art history from University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Swayable CTO & co-founder Valerie Coffman

Valerie Coffman is the Chief Technology Officer at Swayable, using data science to craft accurate, persuasive political messages. Prior to Swayable, Valerie was CTO at Xometry. Valerie holds a PhD and M.S. in theoretical condensed matter physics from Cornell University and a B.S. in physics from John Hopkins University. Follow her on Twitter at @valerierose.

tEQuitable CTO & co-founder Heidi Williams

As tEQuitable‘s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Heidi Williams is scaling a work culture platform that resolves conflicts with ombuds. Prior to co-founding tEQuitable, Heidi was VP of Engineering at Box for 4 years. Prior to that, she worked at Adobe for 17 years. Heidi holds a B.S. in computer science from Brown University. Follow her on Twitter at @heidivt73.

ThoughtWorks CTO Dr. Rebecca Parsons

Rebecca Parsons is the Chief Technology Officer at ThoughtWorks. Before ThoughtWorks, she worked as an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Central Florida, after completing a director’s postdoctoral fellowship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Rebecca holds a B.S. in computer science and economics from Bradley University and both an M.S. and PhD in computer science from Rice University. Follow her on Twitter at @rebeccaparsons.

Thrive Global CTO Cheryl Porro

Cheryl Porro is Chief Technology Officer at Thrive Global, Ariana Huffington’s wellness company. Prior to Thrive Global, Cheryl was at SVP of Technology and Products at Salesforce.org. She began her career as a quality engineer before entering engineering management. Cheryl holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic University. Follow her on Twitter at @cporro_sfdc.

Token Transit CTO & founder Ekaterina Kuznetsova

Ekaterina Kuznetsova is the Chief Technology Officer at Token Transit, enabling riders to pay for the public transit with their phone. Prior to founding Token Transit, Ekateria worked as a software engineer at Meteor, Akamai, Google and Appian. Ekaterina holds a B.S. in math and computer science from MIT. Follow her on Twitter at @technekate.

Transposit CTO & co-founder Tina Huang

Tina Huang is Chief Technology Officer at Transposit. Prior to founding Transposit, Tina worked as a Staff Software Engineer at Twitter for four years – and subsequently sued Twitter for promotion bias. Prior to Twitter, Tina worked at Google and Apple. Tina holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. Follow her on Twitter at @kmonkeyjam.

Stay up-to-date with Girl Geek X! To get notified of future events and news, join our mailing list! You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Here are 12 holiday gift ideas for great ways to empower, energize and celebrate fellow girl geeks – because if you can’t see it, you can’t be it!

Invincible Iron Man: Ironheart #1 Comic – $8.99

Riri Williams (“Ironheart”) is an engineering student who made her own Iron Man-like suit in the Marvel universe. She has her own comic series Invincible Iron Man: Ironheart #1 from Chicago writer, academic, and poet Eve Ewing, with art by Kevin Libranda. MIT made a fan film about Riri Williams starring a MIT engineering student, it’s worth watching!

littleBits Avengers Hero Inventor Kit – $99.99

This littleBits Avengers Hero Inventor Kit is recommended for ages 8+ to become their own superhero. Creative kids play and code easily using wearable tech sensors like accelerometers, a customizable light design, and authentic Avengers sounds.

Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy Book – $29.95

This beautifully illustrated Star Wars®: Women of the Galaxy book released in October by author Amy Ratcliffe profiles 75 female characters (Leia Organa, Rey, Ahsoka Tano, Iden Versio, Jyn Erso, Rose Tico, Maz Kanata and many more) from across films, fiction, comics, animation and games.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Swag – $17.95

The notorious Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a special collar she wears on days when she dissents from decisions being handed down by the Supreme Court. Wear your own in the form dissenting hard enamel earrings. 50% of profits from the sales of dissent pins swag are split between The Bronx Freedom Fund, International Refugee Assistance Project and Center for Reproductive Rights.

Lego Women of NASA Set – $19.99

Legendary women in NASA’s history with Lego’s Women of NASA LEGO set – small box of 231 pieces (and a tiny little space shuttle!) featuring minifig versions of astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, physicist and engineer Mae Jemison, and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

Book Light for Book Worms – $9.99

This ThinkGeek-exclusive anglerfish book light makes reading books and manuals in the dark possible. So cute that you may want to read your electronic book in the dark by the anglerfish light.

Sassy Female-Forward Socks – $10.99

These cheerful Blue Q sassy socks say “Go Away I’m Introverting”. Check out the entire selection for plenty of crafty fun, cats, flowers, and cursing (eg. “spoiler alert: there are assholes everywhere”).

National Parks Coloring Book – $16

Check out this coloring book of national parks, or this “leave it better than you found it” water bottle. For every 10 products sold from Parks Project Trail Crew and All Parks Collections, $10 is donated to make a national park experience possible for a kid.

Vogue and Code Laptop Stickers – $20

LA-based creative technologist April Speight wants to celebrate diversity in tech careers. She’s produced these fun Vogue and Code stickers for tech swag to diversify the culture. Put some on your laptop and give them away to others, they look great!

Ada Lovelace Candle – $12.95

This Ada Lovelace Secular Saint 8″ Candle will look great beside your laptop or your prototype Analytical Engine, or can be a great gift for programmers. Check out more secular saint candles and quirky stuff at Philosophers Guild.

Little Feminist Shirt – $25

Here are “little feminist” shirts for kids using 100% cotton! Size two can fit children ages 1-3, size four can fit children ages 3-5, and so on and so forth. There is also a monthly book club to diversify your bookshelves which includes bookmarks with discussion questions.

EFF Gift Certificate – $25 to $475

Did you know the Electronic Freedom Fronter (EFF) has gift membership certificates? Give the gift of digital freedom to your family, friends, and colleagues while strengthening our rights online. Recipients can claim member benefits and special gifts, from stickers to tshirts and hats!

Take The Time To Say Something Nice – FREE!

Compliments are free and great way to show your appreciation. Think about letting a woman’s boss know about their good work – give a specific example or two – because strong women lift each other up! (Image credit: Illustrator Libby Vanderploeg created the popular animated GIF featuring strong women lifting each other up as a PSA for International Women’s Day.)

For International Women’s Day on March 8, 2019 – we invite women from all around the world to participate in Girl Geek Elevate – a virtual conference – to share the latest in tech and leadership with fellow mid-and-senior level professional women.

This virtual conference is free for attendees – last year, over two thousand women signed up to attend – tuning in from 31 countries all around the world – to get inspired by speakers on the latest in tech trends and leadership.

Submit your proposal for a talk and/or panel here by January 4, 2019 11:59PM PDT for Girl Geek Elevate virtual conference.

Submit Your Proposal

We’re looking for speakers with unique perspectives to share their successes, failures, insights, advice, personal journeys and learnings with the community! Come share your story and elevate fellow Girl Geeks as they navigate the choppy waters of their own tech careers.

Both first-time and experienced speakers are welcome to apply. All nominations will be considered, and all selected speakers will participate in a speaker prep session with the Girl Geek team and your fellow panelists and moderators.

Why Speak at Elevate Virtual Conference?

• Share what you’ve learned the hard way so that other women can more easily navigate their own careers — your talk will reach thousands of viewers!
• Share the technology you’re working on and talk about the tough problems you’re solving
• Increase your visibility within your own organization and position yourself as a subject-matter expert in your field
• Open yourself to more career opportunities
• Highlight issues unique to women in technology/leadership, and issues you’ve experienced or are passionate about
• Connect with other great women leaders, peers and mentors
• Elevating other women is a fun & rewarding experience

We’re open to presentations, one-on-one interviews, and panels… choose the format you’re comfortable with!

Submit your proposal for a talk and/or panel here by January 4, 2019 11:59PM PDT for Girl Geek Elevate virtual conference.

Submit Your Proposal