Becoming a Diversity in Tech Leader
2 min readJul 22, 2021
Recently I was honoured to receive an award for Diversity and Inclusion Tech Leader of the year 2021 at the Liftoff Awards hosted by YBF Ventures.
It made me reflect on the last 4 years of my life and why I have dedicated my time to building opportunities for Women to access Emerging Tech through meetups with Women in Blockchain and Women in Emerging Tech.
- Barriers to entry include using technical language that exclude newbies- if we simplify the language and don’t use acronyms, we can create a safe and welcoming space, women will feel welcome to join meetups to learn and talk about Technology without imposter syndrome and maybe explore careers in tech too.
- No question is too basic- we need to allow a safe space to learn and flourish and explore. Don’t fall into the trap of speaking language that is too complex for others to understand you. It actually doesn't make you look smarter.
- Connect Humans to each other- create a network of people that will support and mentor one another and give time freely and never drop the ladder behind you.
- You cant be what you can’t see- Enough with the Manels already ( all male panels are so 90s!!). If you cant put a woman at the front with enough knowledge to speak, change the topic, change the conversation, be inclusive.
- Look at your webpage- Do you have an all male white exec and advisory team? Then it’s time to refresh your view, at least 50% percent of your customers are likely to be women and come from different backgrounds, so make sure that your team reflects the audience you want to sell to.
- Do you have a succession plan for diversity? I once met the previous CEO of IBM Andrew Stevens, he told me he had a succession plan for every level of the business and was training the women in the business to ready to step up. We need to plan for success it wont just happen on it’s own, we need mentors and allies and brave leadership to help us get there. Diversity and Inclusion doesn’t just happen by itself, it needs champions of change.
Want to join the conversation? Come along to a meet up you are welcome.
