Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Alaina Percival of ‘Women Who Code’ On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

…My most prominent skill is grit because it’s not all high moments. When you’re dealing with challenge after challenge, it can be heartbreaking, and obstacles can feel insurmountable. Keep sight of the vision, and pull back to the mission to nurture your soul.

As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alaina Percival.

Alaina Percival is CEO and co-founder of Women Who Code, a global nonprofit dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers. Under Alaina’s leadership, Women Who Code has grown to serve more than 290,000 women in 20 countries and 60 cities. This thriving movement offers 1,800 free technical and leadership events annually. Percival is an accomplished tech speaker, appearing at WSJ.d Live, CodeMotion Milan, Grace Hopper, Columbia University’s Social Enterprise, MIT’s Venture Capital and Innovation Conference, and more. Alaina has been interviewed by Forbes, WSJ, Wired, and other publications across the globe. Before Women Who Code, Alaina worked at PUMA’s headquarters in Germany and Riviera Partners and Snip.it, acquired by Yahoo. Alaina is also a Venture Partner at Valor Ventures and CodePath Advisor.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Women empowerment has been a theme throughout my life and my career. I worked at Puma in Germany for my first professional job, and I moved up relatively quickly there. Then I did an MBA and went to a small women’s performance footwear company, where I launched our first two women-specific volleyball and basketball shoes. When I moved into the tech industry, I honestly struggled for almost two years because my experience didn’t directly translate. I wasn’t coming from Facebook, Google, or Microsoft. So I started building side projects and learning how to code. Finally, I worked at a startup that got acquired, which helped me achieve my tech credibility.

I had already been doing Women Who Code while working in my next role at a top technical recruiting company, which was probably involved in 80% of the searches for highly funded startups. I saw fewer than 5% of the candidates getting these roles were women. And so, if you were getting a vice president of engineering or CTO role through them, you were on the multi-millionaire path. So I just said, this needs to be a part of the mission, and I started pulling in the things I was learning about from these highly successful people. Even though I’m not a software engineer, my community building and organizational management experience helped me structure Women Who Code and helped it grow rather quickly.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

That point in time where we were this small community; and it almost felt like a private club. We were working together, and we benefited from the community. Then when the media started doing stories about teaching girls and women to code, it was my wake-up call that this shouldn’t be a secret. The world deserves to have this. I can look back now all these years later and say we’re the largest and most active community of technologists in the world. We’re in 134 countries, and we put on nearly 2000 free technical events every year.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

At first, we started using the acronym WWC for Women Who Code, but then we started getting messages about wrestling on our threads. So now we abbreviate our name to WWCode.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We are focused on seeing women excel in their technology careers. Many people in the industry don’t address or realize this: getting into technology is the easiest and fastest way to make a tremendous impact. When I think about what Women Who Code does through the whole pipeline, we are particularly supporting the people in the industry right now to succeed. It’s by far the easiest way to have a tremendous impact. We have these incredible stories of how our organization is helping high-potential people. We’re creating real change in the community, tech industry, and people’s lives. Because we genuinely believe that making space for diverse women in technology and leadership is the easiest way to advance equality for women and girls.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Until now, all of our tracks have been technical, so we are launching a new track called “Career Navigation” or “Career Nav’ for short. Women Who Code partnered with WeXL.org because we believe it’s important to create stories that drive women into this fantastic career.

Positive stories help women decide that the tech industry is right for them. For so long, all the stories you heard were that it’s a “bro” culture; it’s a sexist industry; there are no women in the tech industry. These negative stories don’t help women enter or stay. We’ve all had challenging moments, but the truth is, the tech industry is so much better with you in it.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

Women are still significantly underrepresented in all levels of leadership. I want to see diverse women represented. And I think we need to be tackling this at the first level of leadership because women face a bias of being viewed based on their experience, whereas men often get hired based on their potential. That creates a clear barrier to the first level of leadership. One of the key things Women Who Code does is create space for you to practice leadership in a community. Women need a space to prepare and practice leadership. And that’s what we’ve built.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

It’s the death by a thousand cuts. It’s the small things that make you wonder if you belong here and make you think, “Oh, it’s me.” It’s the small things that if you complained about a single one of them, you’d be the weird person who complains. And often, there’s only one woman technologist in the room. The everyday bias wears you down over time so that when something a little bit bigger happens, you’ve built up self-doubt: “I don’t know if I belong. I don’t know if I want to do this. I don’t know if this is the right industry for me.” To the point where you decide to leave instead of overcoming it and changing your situation.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?

It’s a fantastic industry. You get to solve unique problems. You aren’t working in a silo. You’re often working on creative teams. One of the things that people love is that you’re solving big problems at scale. And you’re part of a technical revolution where things are changing so quickly. Especially for people who aren’t in the industry, the media has taught us that when you’re in the tech industry, you’re nerdy, live in your Mom’s basement, and have poor hygiene. The reality is that you’re in beautiful offices (pre-COVID) with excellent perks and free lunches, and high pay. And if you aren’t happy, there are six job offers that you’re getting every single week.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Trust the people around you to succeed and support them when they need it.

2. Do not be afraid of failure or mistakes because you learn from them.

3. My most prominent skill is grit because it’s not all high moments. When you’re dealing with challenge after challenge, it can be heartbreaking, and obstacles can feel insurmountable. Keep sight of the vision, and pull back to the mission to nurture your soul.

4. Don’t feel guilty for the decisions that you make.

5. I started listening to mystery books in the evenings, and I felt terrible that I wasn’t always learning. But a friend told me to honor whatever my meditation is. For me, it’s a page-turner book; for her, it’s a reality TV show — whatever your mind or your body needs to be strong, sound, and balanced.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

I find having a peer community to be incredibly valuable. You can share your expertise and thought-leadership and reveal the challenges you’re facing to your group. Especially as leaders, women often face imposter syndrome and feel like we need to be proving ourselves constantly. Having that peer space gives you opportunities to learn from others and helps you create space to be your whole self.

What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

I don’t manage a large team. I have people in between the teams. I think it’s good to put layers in place. Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to give individuals the attention that they need. And when you do have those layers, you’re providing opportunities for people to step up and learn and practice leadership.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

So many people have supported my success and Women Who Code’s success. One of the things that stood out to me was when we got to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. It was just a hero moment for me. There we were on the stock exchange floor, hugging and taking fun photos. I asked if we should do a more professional pose, and one of my board members said, “Alaina, you’re changing the face of leadership. Be yourself.” And that has just stayed with me.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I’ll tell you some success stories. One of the things that blew my mind was the story about our Mexico City director. She told me that her salary increased 200% after stepping up as a Woman Who Code director in under one year.

One of our directors in Atlanta was incredibly shy. By the end of the year of practicing leadership at Women Who Code as a volunteer, she was giving tech talks to standing-room-only crowds.

Another woman who received one of our first-ever scholarships was a single mother living below poverty. Today, she’s a software engineer and has worked at top technology companies with a salary range of way over a hundred thousand dollars. That is such a significant generational impact for her and her family.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

A variation of a T.S. Eliot quote — you never know how far you can go until you risk going too far.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

I would love a private breakfast or lunch with Richard Branson. I’ve always been so inspired by him reinventing himself, his thirst for adventure, and his deep sense of philanthropy.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.