Is it really that hard to become a woman VP?
This story is just one story, about a woman in a VP position in the high-tech industry.
BigPanda has just reached a cap of 100 employees at its Israeli site. This is obviously a big milestone for the company, but it’s not the most exciting one. We welcomed Hagit Merhavi as our new Vice President of Product Management — the first female senior manager to join our technical team — and the 100th employee of the site!
My team and I sat down with Hagit to talk about the path she took and to understand if it’s really that hard to become a woman VP.
I could prolong for hours about Hagit’s background, but this is not the point. The facts are that Hagit grew up in a very manly environment — very small percentage of women at her high school growing up, served at an all-men’s division in the army, studied electrical engineering — a male dominant domain, and eventually started working at the high tech industry — which has 67.3% man (as for 2021). For her, male dominance at the management table is not a big deal.
Hagit told us that she does not feel like an outcast in an all-man forum, on the contrary — her background made her resilient to insecurities from the gender point of view. “It can get pretty lonely”, Hagit said, when asked how common it is to have other female managers as colleagues around the senior management table.
I feel safe to say that Hagit is the exception. A survey conducted in 2021 found that Imposter Syndrome affects 65% of professionals — Of those, 53% were young, high-achieving, female professionals. The tech industry is well aware of these gender differences and the importance of diversifying teams and most specifically, management teams. In some cases, promoting or hiring women for management positions becomes a bigger objective than hiring the right professional — which makes the path towards real diversity that much harder for women.
Another Pandora’s box is in recruiting, a subject close to my heart. When asked about her own experience as a candidate, Hagit said she didn’t feel discriminated against on a gender basis, but did touch on another painful point. Hagit told us that when interviewing, she would only apply for positions for which she is 100% qualified. A recent study sheds light on the gender difference in approach when applying to positions. It is fairly simple — a woman would apply for a position only in case she fills all of the requirements, whereas a man would apply if he fills only 60% of the requirements. The only silver lining to this statistic is that there is a 16% chance that the woman will get the job — since she is more likely to have the full skillset.
Hagit manages a team of product managers — men and women. She is also a hiring manager, so the follow up question was obvious — “do you give preferential treatment to your female employees or candidates?”. She admits that she has a lot of empathy toward female candidates and sometimes has to self-challenge her interview takeaways. As for her employees, I always had the feeling that women’s development plans are oriented towards soft skills, whereas men’s are all about technical skills, but Hagit proved me wrong. When building personal development plans, she focuses mainly on professional development, with no gender based differences.
Hagit joined us recently, and even though it looked like a perfect fit from the beginning, she had some other offers on the table. “BigPanda is at a very interesting stage and I felt I had a lot to contribute as well as grow professionally in the role”, she said, “this is a great starting point, when joining a new company”. Hagit was also excited to work with other experienced professionals, so I guess her joining us indicates that we managed to impress her with our talents.
When I found out that Hagit was the site’s 100th employee, I was excited to show her off to everyone. A super strong, opinionated, and smart professional woman, is the perfect poster child for this achievement! But Hagit was not too excited by the attention. We got to talking about inspirational women and I have to say that this time, I was not surprised when she chose her past co-worker and not some key character out of a row of historical women. It was her past employee, an iconic UX designer that was intelligent, confident, and humble, and was never afraid to ask simple questions in a big forum.
If there was one message I want you to take from this humble blog is, surprisingly enough, Hagit’s message to all of those young, high-achieving, female professionals out there. “You don’t need to act out any role. Don’t try to be a man — you are not a man. You are a great woman, be yourself”.
