C-Suite and Motherhood: Exclusive Interview with Maria Alvarez of Bing
Maria Alvarez, Bing’s Partner Director of Engineering Shared Services, was gracious enough to take time out of her busy schedule to sit down with us to discuss the exciting opportunities she sees for women in tech, what Microsoft is doing to attract more talented moms to their workforce, and what it’s like to be a mom in a C-suite position.
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Maria moved to the US 25 years ago from Venezuela to pursue her Masters degree in Computer Science. She ventured into tech because her mother told her that it was a career of the future, and mom was absolutely right.
Maria has had an incredible career over the last 25 years. Shortly after obtaining her degree, she was hired by Symantec as a developer, where she quickly moved through the ranks of management, and was eventually hired by Hewlett Packard. Shortly after her employer change, Maria was poached to work for a spinoff of HP. She then began a company within Yahoo and served as the Chief of Staff and a VP of Engineering for the search-engine giant for five years. After that, Maria became the Chief Technology Officer of a company in Spain for a short while before deciding to return to the States. Upon her return, Microsoft invited her to be Chief of Staff and Partner Director of Engineering Shared Services for the Bing platform.
She mentions all of this as if it is nothing out of the ordinary. And in the midst all of this career advancement, Maria has also been able to maintain a healthy marriage and raise her three teenage children. She highlights the importance of flexibility, support systems, and taking risks. Her interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How has your time been as Chief of Staff at Microsoft, and how has the company worked to improve gender equality over the years?
As you have most likely heard from the news, this is a very hot topic right now in the tech industry. And Microsoft is pretty committed to this. Actually my involvement in leading and mentoring women has become more profound since I joined Microsoft. Microsoft is pushing for this very very much, there is a very supportive environment that I have never seen before. Microsoft is huge company but overall in the area that we are, we have flexible schedules, we are very supportive, we have women’s communities, and events. We are committed, and Microsoft is very keen on hiring the best talent. I personally have gone to conferences for women and minorities to have a greater presence there and to include and attract women, but also to work on retaining the women that we have at the company.
Aside from being present at conferences, does Microsoft offer any recruiting events specifically for women? Or for MBAs?
Microsoft is present at all major conferences. There is one specific one, In October there is a major conference for women in Technology that we are big supporters of. As a matter of fact, last year our CEO was the first male to speak at the conference. And every year that conference grows and we target women in technology, women in other professional areas, and different groups. So we are pretty strong there and we have other opportunities for other disciplines. So specifically for MBA I am not from that discipline I’m not aware but I’m telling you, I know that there is targeted hiring for marketing, finance and other functions. Microsoft will be targeting those conferences specifically.
Over the years, what changes have you seen in Microsoft’s attitude towards working moms and how has that changed over the years?
I have seen a change. I think there is more awareness not only for working moms but also men. Because the parenting side is for both men and women and as you’ve seen Microsoft recently increased the maternity leave and also the paternity leave. So before there was no paternity, they added paternity leave and increased maternity leave as well. More and more as everybody is becoming more aware, technology companies are making unlimited leave for moms, for dads, others are increasing. As an industry we have more understanding. The way I work with the ladies that work for me that are moms, it’s all about flexibility So they have flexible schedules, if they need to work from home because they have a sick kid. That also applies to men, because you have some single men with kids. And you give them flexibility so they’re able to be home to attend to a sick child or go to events some of them work from home, do their thing, or leave early and connect back at night. They have different schedules and I think that that is increasingly becoming the norm. And Microsoft in that regard is super flexible, which is great.
A lot of women in our communities have expressed reluctance to expose their status as a parent during the application or recruiting process. What advice do you have for those parents?
More and more we [at big tech companies] are being trained to address unconscious bias. So many are afraid to disclose their status because it may be seen as a disadvantage and many studies have been done on that We want to make sure that those biases are not preventing us from making the right call for us to make when we hire. So we are training more and that should NOT be any impediment or detrimental to anybody who wants to disclose that information. In an interview we will never ask that kind of information or anything else that is personal and of course it is up to the applicant. But that doesn’t make you more or less qualified, we are hiring you for your capabilities that you bring to the job for which you are interviewing. I can speak for myself, that doesn’t matter to me. For my teams I look for diversity, I leave it up to the applicant to disclose and at Microsoft because we are increasingly aware of how to combat our unconscious bias, that will not be detrimental for applicant should they choose to share it.
As a mom in a high powered position, how have you managed your work-life balance with your three children and how have your employers supported you over the years?
Higher positions are very demanding of your time, and the biggest benefit for me is the flexibility. Having the flexibility means a lot to me, the fact that I can stay home and take care of my children makes me want to perform more. I can take four hours off to spend with my child and then I can work at night or work on the weekend. So flexibility maters tremendously for me, that’s how I have handled my whole career. If they were ever strict about being in the office from 9 to 5, that wouldn’t work for me, that is impossible for me to be honest. And then on top of that having a strong support system like my husband who has been very supportive and shares responsibility of taking care of the kids. So having the support system of a partner, husband, wife or other system of family members and friends has been important. Otherwise it is pretty tough. For that reason, I am super mindful of single parents on my team who might need additional flexibility, and they have continued to deliver results and advance in the company.
Have you ever had to negotiate that flexibility in the past? Or has everyone been fairly accommodating?
So, I have to say the tech industry is pretty good actually. All my career and all my years in all of those different companies, they have been very flexible. I think maybe in other industries it may be tougher. But given that we are in technology we can communicate and connect remotely with all of the tech advances you can work anywhere. So for us I have seen great flexibility, and never had an issue.
Could you offer any advice for moms who are pursuing C-suite positions?
It is tough to balance the two. If you want to pursue a C-suite, it will require a lot of your time and so my advice is to have a support system, not only from a family perspective but also from a professional perspective. So having a set of people that you can go and discuss things openly with, who can advise you and make recommendations is very very important. Because it is so demanding I always tell people that it will not come freely. The more you go in power, the more is demanded of you. In some cases it may be all the time, and in some cases it may be in spurts; but you have to be mindful of that. In my experience managing large organizations with complex products and services, it has required sacrifices many times as a result of extensive travel. My advice is always to have a support system for you personally but also in your team, try to hire people who will complement you and help you to scale. That is also super key.
The lasting thought is that we are in a very interesting time where women in the work place, women in management, power positions, are very hot topics. We are constantly discussing why we don’t have enough women in power, how do we improve that, how do we encourage them to pursue these positions? And this is very top-of-mind for Microsoft so I think that this is a unique opportunity for women to leverage this point. To take advantage, in a good way, of this in that it is now top-of-mind, people are noticing and now is the time to put ourselves out there and to take risks. Sometimes as women we don’t take risks or are afraid, and we don’t apply to a position because when we look at the A-Z requirements we think we need to have it all, but men usually don’t do that, they are more aggressive. So we need to take those opportunities, take risks, and network! And use this time when everybody is more mindful of women in the workplace to reach out for help. This is a great time to be a woman and/or a minority in technology.
