#Monday Motivation — Bethany Mayer’s 15 tips for making it in the tech industry
What better way to start your Monday than with honest career advice from a president and CEO who heads up a publicly-traded technology company worth almost half a billion dollars?
Bethany Mayer is the president and CEO of Ixia, the market leader in network test and security solutions. At Inspirefest 2015, she took us on a journey through her career, which spans 32 years in the tech industry. She spoke about the excitement of working at Apple in its early days, creating the first laptops, to running a two-and-a-half billion dollar networking business at HP. Refreshingly honest and insightful, she included her failures along the way.
In a league almost of her own — In preparation for her keynote, Bethany attempted to research how many female CEOs of publicly-traded tech companies there were, and she couldn’t find more than 10.
Reflecting on her journey, she described it as navigating through a glass maze — an alternative perspective to the ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ analogy that is synonymous with women trying to reach leadership roles in the tech industry.
“It is a maze that you have to go through on your journey in life to lead you to where you want to go. And, in a way, it’s glass because there are people watching you,” she explained.
Bethany Mayer explains the concept of the ‘glass maze’ at Inspirefest 2015
Here are her 15 tips, which she elaborates on in her keynote presentation, which you can watch in full below.
- Careers are very long. You think you have to get somewhere quickly and do everything all at once, but there is a season for everything.
2. Sometimes you need to go sideways to go forward.
3. You have to decide where you’re going in your career.
4. Don’t let others define you, they don’t know what you’re capable of.
5. Sponsors are different from mentors.
6. Following others may not get you where you want to go — and sometimes they can leave you behind there.
7. Nobody owes you anything. Everything you get you’ll have to earn.
8. You have to perform, and perform very well.
9. Your reputation is, ultimately, all you have.
10. Learn to read a room.
11. Listen more than you speak.
12. How you leave a company is as important as how you get there, so do it gracefully.
13. Learn from failure and apply it.
14. Stay connected to friends.
15. Be authentic.
Bethany Mayer’s 15 tips for navigating the ‘glass maze’
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