How I blended liberal arts and tech
I had the pleasure to attend the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, sponsored by Advancing Women in Product. I was sitting in a room full of brilliant, motivated women that are eager to do the next big thing.
The speakers were dynamic — they ranged from Stella and Dot CEO, Jessica Herrin, to Pixar animationist, Danielle Feinberg, to Senior Director at McKesson Corporation, Cynthia Strickland. While their job titles and industries are diverse, they all had one common theme: take your passion and blend it into your career.
My passion before becoming the co-founder and CEO of Proof, a mobile payment platform for bars, stemmed from my liberal arts background. I worked in the political campaign trenches to get more women elected to political office. (Note: women still only comprise 20% of elected officials.)
Shocking? Not really. Women don’t even come close to comprising 50% of the Fortune 500 CEO positions, advisory boards, senior leadership in the tech industry, and the list goes on.
Cynthia Strickland, a speaker at The Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, sparked a little fire inside all of us. She reminded us to really understand our “why.” — Why are we working the job that we’re in? Why do we get out of bed each morning?
My personal ‘why’ for blending my liberal arts background and tech was to take on a new challenge: the private sector. The private sector can arguably create more lasting social change than the public sector by providing women with equal pay, allowing flexible schedules to support working mothers, giving maternity and paternity leave to new parents, and making their leadership equally represented by men and women.
Luckily, I found a new channel that I can pump my energy into supporting this cause — that channel is Advancing Women in Product. AWIP was established to foster and develop the next generation of women product leaders.
I encourage anyone that’s interested in changing the leadership demographics in the tech industry to volunteer with us. We’re looking for talented women to fill various roles. Connect with us at info@advancingwomeninproduct.org.
