Supporting women in tech — real examples of what works

“There are a lot of boys coming out your building,” my mother said when she picked me up from work one day. I am a woman in tech, and yes, I work with a lot of men. When it comes to inclusion and diversity in the workplace, I have heard it all from mentoring, sponsorship, and affinity groups. I also was president of Women@Amazon and Tepper Women in Business, and I was vice president of Women in Computer Science at the University of Illinois. More importantly, I have had many leaders (female and male) support me as a female leader in a male-dominated environment.

Other AWS employees often ask me, “How can I help support women in tech more?” Though funding and programs are a critical part of progress in this area, what matter most are how you make women feel and how you set an example for others to follow. This is how you can help change the dynamic at work and make women feel included. In this post, I share examples of times when leaders lifted me up and made me feel included, valued, and supported.

“That’s what she said”

I recently read the book, That’s What She Said, which is not about Michael Scott from The Office. Although the book wasn’t as actionable as I’d hoped, it did underscore a powerful way to include women at work. For example, I was involved in a heated debate about priorities in AWS. In…