Q & A with Rebecca Clyde
Rebecca Clyde is the CXO of Ideas Collide and co-founder of an early stage chatbot startup, Botco.ai. With more than 20 years in digital marketing in the technology industry, she is passionate about advancing women in tech, and in 2017, co-founded the Phoenix Chapter of Girls in Tech. A native Spanish speaker, Rebecca was born in Costa Rica and spent her formative years in Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay. She holds an MBA from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and a B.A. in communications from Brigham Young University. Rebecca enjoys traveling the world, and most recently returned from Indonesia this summer. She has three children and lives in Scottsdale, AZ.
Tell us about your first job in tech. Who did you work for, what was your role, and what excited you about the work you did?
My first job in tech was in the late 90s–the days of the dot-com boom–as an account coordinator for a tech PR firm called Brodeur Porter Novelli. I was assigned to several startups focused on generating media coverage and forged relationships with the tech analyst community on their behalf. I was most excited about the opportunity to take these startup CEOs on “press tours” — we’d travel to NYC, Boston, and San Francisco and organize interviews with key technology trade publication editors. It was an exciting time to be in tech.
Describe your job in technology today.
Today I’m focused on developing an AI technology for the marketing world. I’m the co-founder of Botco.ai, a conversational marketing platform that enables meaningful and intelligent conversations between businesses and their customers. We’re leveraging exciting developments in computational linguistics and natural language processing to create a capability that will make it easier for customers to get what they need from the companies they do business with.
Describe the point in your childhood when you first became interested in technology.
My uncle worked for Texas Instruments, and every time he visited he’d bring my family new gadgets. Some of these were toys, such as the Speak n’ Spell and the TI-99. In the 80s, these were shiny, exciting products! I remember being fascinated with computing and wanted to be part of that world somehow.
Who has been the most influential individual or mentor in your education or career, and how did this person help advance your role in technology?
During my seven years at Intel here in AZ, I received mentoring from many amazing individuals who guided and helped me become who I am today. I’m especially grateful to Megan Bednarz, who taught me the importance of dreaming big and always forging ahead (even against the naysayers). I’ve always admired Rose Schooler–now a VP at Intel’s Internet of Things division–for her ability to create a vision and lead her organization in such a way that the best people always wanted to work for her. Plus, she could ink deals like no other in the tech world.
What do you love most about working in the tech world?
Everything is possible!
What do you believe is the biggest hurdle women face in pursuing a career in technology?
Discrimination. Our industry is plagued with it, and unfortunately women are sometimes made to feel unwelcome in many ways. Fortunately, we have organizations like Girls in Tech bringing these issues to light, creating a welcoming environment where girls and women can learn to navigate this world successfully.
If you could change one thing about your education or career path, what would it be?
I would’ve taken computer science courses in undergrad.
Please describe a time you experienced sexism as a female in technology. How did you respond?
Unfortunately, there’ve been more than a handful of times in which I’ve experienced sexism as a female in tech. Amongst them are three similarities. (1.) Being spoken to condescendingly. I remember people (mostly men) assuming I wouldn’t be able to “get it” and talking down to me even when I understood perfectly. Earlier in my career I would play along, but later I started cutting them off when they started acting that way. Sometimes I’d simply call them out on it. (2.) Being denied opportunities based on incorrect assumptions. Why was it believed that because I had young children I might not be able to handle a rigorous schedule or projects that required a lot of travel? I had to speak up and remind them that my capabilities hadn’t changed just because I’d given birth to a child. (3.) Being excluded from the inner circle. Golf and drinking buddies often surrounded management, and somehow those guys (and they were always guys) saw faster advancement. In many ways, it’s what motivated me to leave the corporate world and forge out on my own. I sought to create a world that wasn’t exclusionary.
Who in the tech field inspires you, and why?
My science advisor, Deborah McGuiness. She runs the Knowledge Systems Lab at Stanford and heads up Ontology and Knowledge Representation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. I enjoy working with her because when presented with a business challenge or need, she can quickly identify an approach on how to solve it from a computational perspective. Plus, she can explain it in a way that a non-computer science major like myself can understand. She has a great ability to translate scientific approaches into business outcomes, and I feel very fortunate to have her on my founding team for Botco.ai.
If you could give advice to other females in tech, what would it be?
If you can dream it, you can do it!
To learn more about Rebecca Clyde, find her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter at @RebeccaClyde. Be sure to register for the Phoenix Girls in Tech email newsletter at www.phoenix.girlsintech.org.
