Success Overcomes Sexism
“Women needed to wear tights although it was 30 degrees.”
This was the seventh in a series of #RoleModels events, supporting and connecting women leaders in the tech and Startup community. Ana Alex, CEO and Co-Founder of Outfittery, was in the hot seat this time, interviewed by David Noel, Head of Internal Communications at Soundcloud Berlin.
Sometimes you think you’ve heard it all regarding sexism in the workplace until someone tells you about a boss who ordered women to wear tights with their skirts in 30 degree heat. Clearly this chap in the Frankfurt tax department he was in control, but couldn’t control himself. Regardless, this was the experience of Ana Alex, from Outfittery, the online clothing company with stylists exclusively for men. I doubt they advise their customers to wrap up when the sun is shining.
The real man in the room on this occasion was Prince, Ana’s handsome dog, who is one of five canines in the office. He’s seen Outfitters grow rapidly over the past few years, and has earned himself a glossy fur coat. A happy picture indeed, but Anna’s undertaken a sometimes tricky journey along the way, and described tight gate as the worst three months of her life. “I did an internship there and started ambitious with lots of ideas, but soon realised I wanted to do things differently. I was told the CEO wouldn’t be happy. I didn’t like the politics at all and was really frustrated after the three months. I thought, really, this could be the next 40 years of my life, in an office where you don’t feel comfortable or don’t like the people. It’s just not right.”
Latterly, a kindred spirit suggested they do their next intern in a Startup, which suited her down to the ground. When it came to writing her final year thesis, Ana was inspired to write about the network between Startups and investors, and studied the social network of German VCs and the Startup scene. As it happened, one of the people Ana interviewed was from Rocket, who then offered her a job back when they had only 25 people working there.
Although Rocket seemingly has a reputation for being a somewhat intense place to work, Ana says the experience was a good learning curve for her. “They hired and fired people all the time. If you didn’t work, you were out.” Synchronicity or whatever it is that brings people together, played its part there too, when Ana was introduced to her Co-Founder partner Julia, at Zalando.
Further down the line, they were both exposed to some to more cutting edge sexism at a gala event for a big auditing firm, where they were nominated for getting a star prize. All the nominees were asked to go into a separate room, so they made their way in their glamorous evening dresses, only to be confronted by two employees of the firm, who told them it was only for the nominees now, not their partners. “Five minutes later it happened again. It was a real fail from their side and made me realise how it must feel to be a female manager going into a male dominated environment. I was just laughing at it.”
Some of Ana’s investors provide more amusement on occasion, when they call her saying they want to hire women — maybe they see it as a really roundabout way of positive discrimination. “I’ve asked them, so what’s the job description? Being a woman? I say please don’t tell anyone you want to hire a woman. Just hire one. We women don’t want to be hired because we’re women — this is how a lot of companies are approaching this.”
If you’re planning to start your own business, Ana suggests getting a good mentor you can talk to about everything, to focus on one thing at a time and to not worry too much. “Don’t even try to plan the next year and how everything is going to work out and so on. “ She suggestsputting a certain time frame on how long you can afford to try building your own company, and suggests living in a shared flat, reducing your living costs and focussing on one thing at a time. “One of the hardest things was to learn not to think about the company and to get a certain distance. It’s good to go to the mountains or whatever and have some leisure time. Take holidays — you’ll come back so much more relaxed.
After much grafting and uphill struggles, there must be moments when Ana can breathe out and at the very least delegate. “I’m still learning. For me it’s about continuing to learn and being excited by my everyday work. And if something is boring, get a manager. Let them do it and take on the next challenge. That’s having your own company — you can really choose what you want to work on and you can choose with whom you want to work.”
These days, everyone’s perma-switched on to their smart phones in case they miss anything. However, Ana has taken a stance on this by only checking emails twice a day for a limited spell in the morning and evening, and regularly meets colleagues for lunch. “We’re all in a world of being busy all day. The great ideas are coming at the moment where you don’t have a smartphone in your hand, where you just sit around and look into the air, and suddenly things happen in your empty mind. It gives you time to reflect on what happened that day. This is something that I needed to learn, the hard way.”
One of the people behind this approach is former Der Spiegel journalist, Tiziano Terzani, who helped Ana to think from other perspectives. “He worked his whole life at Der Spiegel and his books are great. He said when you come to a crossing, always take the steepest path. Since I read this, I’m always doing this. When I’m in the forest with Prince, I always take the steepest path. So for those thinking of starting their own company, it’s probably the steepest path you can take, but it’s always the right path.
Of course, while Role Models is about recognising women in the traditionally male dominated tech industry, it’s not taking a stance against men in any way shape or form. They have their uses — no doubt about that — particularly when it comes to jumping the gun with recruitment and decision making, according to Ana. “Men are better at helping each other. They have a certain way of networking. When it comes to giving advantages to someone, just because you know them, women are shy. Men would easily hire someone they know for a position, whereas a woman would ponder more. I think women should be bolder at this.”
