 Hey guys, welcome to JSA TV, the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals, and JSA Radio, your voice for tech and telecom on iHeart Radio. I'm Jamie Scott of Kataya, and on behalf of my team here at JSA, welcome to our monthly virtual CEO roundtable. These monthly broadcasts lead us up to our onsite CEO roundtables at our executive networking event, the Telecom Exchange, or TEX. Coming for 2019, we are now quarterly hosting these events. So next one up, we're in Toronto, that's October 3rd for a one-day pop-up event, and then we're back to LA for our third telecom exchange there, November 11th through the 12th. Hope to see you there. More info at vtelecomexchange.com. So let's go ahead and get started. I love this topic today, something that we need to talk about more, adding more women into our telecom and data center C-suite. We have a fabulous lineup of amazing women as panelists today, from really innovative companies pushing that envelope, really excited to hear from them and learn more. And to keep us on point and to moderate our panel, we are proud to also have Marcy Nigro, she is partner at Technology Executive Group, or TEG. Marcy serves as a strategic advisor to leaders of private equity firms, portfolio companies, enterprises to solve those critical talent problems, such as lack of women representation and those top positions there. So perfect moderator, of course, for today's panel. Marcy, let's get started with you on introducing yourself, your company, your role there, and if you could take it away, and then we'll go around the horn and hear from our music panelists as well. Thank you, Jamie. My name is Marcy Nigro. I'm a partner at TEG, and we place mid-market and executive-level folks mostly in the technology industry. Thank you for having me. Oh, we are so honored to have you, and up next, Charlotte, can we hear from you in 30% coalition? Hi, thank you. I'm Charlotte LaRonna Ottoman, executive director of the 30% coalition. Just briefly, the coalition is an organization working on a national level to increase the number of women in senior leadership and on corporate boards. And that serves as a nice intro also to Annie, a CFO serving on that C-suite of the Innovative Data Center Operator E-Structure. Annie, you want to tell us more? Oh, yes, I've been for almost a year now the CFO of the Structure Data Center, a very dynamic Canadian organization with five data centers in Canada. And Karin, can you tell us about your role over at PLEX? I'm Karin Richner. I'm a technical account manager with PLEX Systems. They deliver industry-leading ERP and manufacturing automation to more than about 600 companies across process and discreet industries. And I also started a women at PLEX group within our company. So this segues really well on this panel discussion that we're having today. And so with that, let's just go ahead and get started. Marcy, you want to take it away? Yes. Ladies, thank you again so much for joining this call. This is a topic that needs to be talked about. And again, thank you for joining the call and sharing your thoughts, your opinions, and really what you're seeing out in the marketplace. So I'll throw out the first question. We would love to talk about what the common barriers are that you all feel are preventing women from entering the telecom and tech industry. So Annie, maybe we can start with you. And what are your thoughts on that question? So I think there are quite a few barriers, but the one I wanted to focus on was more the cultural side where as a society, we don't really encourage girls from a younger age to go into either technological programs or scientific programs. And this is where I think us as individuals and women leaders in those fields, we can actively participate in giving more visibility to women, to these students, whether they're in college, university, or even before. And I wanted to give an example of what we've done at these structures, so we actually have employees who are participating in this technological slash commerce case competition, which is international with teams of students coming from all over the world. And we had actually this year an amazing young lady, one of our employees, who was a guest judge during these competitions. And it was very, very nice for students, especially the female students coming from all over the world, to see that there was a judge who was a woman, a dynamic woman working in the tech field, and they could see her as an example. And her home feedback on the competition itself was that these young ladies were amazing and so prepared for that competition, that things are looking good. Thank you, Annie. We appreciate your feedback there. Karen? I have a kind of following a little bit of what Annie just mentioned, too. I mean, there's different ways you can answer this question in a sense of what demographic are you going to focus on. But I think that focusing on the younger demographic girls and young ladies that are in the school system is extremely important. And when we look at barriers within that area, we're looking at, I see, like, four key points. And one is gender bias. And this is gender bias from parents' perspective, from teachers and administrators. They bring their own norms and values into the education system. And where, you know, potentially you'll see an example where girls are more supported to follow non-STOM, STEM-related, excuse me, STEM-related classes. Another element is the lack of role models. This is role models outside of, you know, the school maybe coming in and also within the school, female role models. But it's also within the education system. And I remember myself, you know, hearing about Einstein, Newton, Charles Darwin, Hawking's Aristotle, Pythagoras, but you don't hear many female names, right? So there's this continuous subtle unconscious bias and unconscious, I think, lack of role models that's going on. And another part, two of the other two points I wanted to talk about is a little bit about the social and a bit more introspective aspect. And one is that social belongingness, that sense of, I want to join a class where I see more of me. So if girls see more boys in an advanced math class, they may hesitate a little bit more trying to get into that class. That might drive their decision on a different path. And another element, I think, is the sense of self-affecacy. You see a lot of young girls, I have two daughters, that's why I'm saying this, but you see a lot of these young girls where their overall belief in their ability to succeed diminishes as they increase through the education system. And it's interesting, you know, there's various programs out there that address that already to some extent, and I'm very thankful for that, like Girls Who Code or First Robotics. You know, both those programs start addressing that. There was a distinct barriers that I think people, girls and young women face at that age group. Karen, thank you. I think we're hearing a recurring theme, Annie and Karen, that a lot of this starts at the educational level and at the educational institutional level. And there is lack of awareness there. So, which is a big barrier. Charlotte, would love to hear your thoughts. And obviously, Charlotte, you deal more in executive management and C-suite. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the barriers that once women are, you know, entering into that executive level, you know, what could they be facing as different barriers? Thanks, Marcy. Well, I think that both Karen and Annie said are very true in terms of encouraging young girls and young women to pursue a tech career, if that's the path that they envision for themselves. I think one of the things that happens very early on, and, you know, I always go back to the purpose of the coalition is to create demand. I do think companies have a responsibility. So when they're recruiting these young girls and young women, I think they then have to implement programs to keep them. One of the things that we have found in the research over the last two or three years is that women are getting kicked out of the pipeline very early on for whatever reason. I mean, we can talk about work-life balance, which is not going to change. We continue to be the ones having the babies. So I mean, I think that companies have to deal with that. I think that there are programs that can be implemented to remove those barriers within companies. So I am of the opinion that, you know, we're producing an amazing group of new talented young girls and women. And we as leaders, but also as companies need to ensure that they continue through their career the best what they can. Absolutely. Charlotte, you brought up in a conversation that you and I had a role called the Rooney Rule. Can you share that with the group? I'm sorry about what, Marcy? The Rooney Rule. The Rooney Rule, yes. One of the things that, you know, one of the challenges I think that we, and I include we, you know, the people on this call and everybody working in the industry to promote gender diversity is, you know, that first of all, I can't find qualified women or, you know, okay, you want me to appoint a woman over qualified man, et cetera. So what we do, we and within the coalition, we have a large group of institutional investors, among other members, but the institutional investors are engaging with companies. And the ask that we make to companies is that they implement the Rooney Rule, and this is the rule that was actually ironically established in the NFL by Dan Rooney, which basically is, you know, in your candidate pool, we're asking you to commit to including women and people of color. And what happens is that once they've made that commitment, if women and people of color are in the candidate pool, it's very difficult then to not make a selection based on competencies and chemistry, et cetera. And I think that this can be applied throughout the industry and starting at the very beginning as we're recruiting young women and high potentials to move through the company career path. Great. Thank you, Charlotte. I'd love to get everyone's thought and feedback on what can we do as professional women ourselves? How can we help steer more women towards professional success? Annie, what are your thoughts here? I think for me, and I've experienced it in the past, it all comes to mentoring. I was blessed with a few mentors throughout my career, but the one that was the most impactful was a woman mentor. And she really listened to everything I had to say, challenged me every time she felt I was having opinions that were stopping me from growing or even trying new things. So she was really there to challenge me, but above and beyond everything that she's done for me is, I think many of us and myself included, we sometimes not all times suffer from the elite version, maybe, of the imposter syndrome. As there are opportunities for us to move on in our careers, we're going to look at the requirements and go, oh, gee, I only have 85% of the competencies. What am I going to do about that last 15% while other people will simply go and try? So this is where that mentor can help you be more confident and challenge you about, listen, 85% is great. You'll be really successful. And whatever you're missing, you'll learn along the way. So I was blessed with someone who has been doing that for me for a few years. And I think and I think I've done it to myself. I repaid the favor to younger ladies working for me over the years and tried to do the same thing, challenge them, offer them opportunities. And I think that's going to be the key. Each and every one of us should have at least one younger generation lady that we're helping and challenging to keep growing in their careers. Like, like I was experiencing and I'm so thankful to all my mentors in the past. That's excellent. Thank you so much. I'll tell you, I had a dinner the other night in New York with about 15 very, very successful women, both in the C-suite, a company that just IPO'd recently, the treasurer of that company was there. Just some brilliant, brilliant women. Of all, all different ages. And we were talking about the topic that you just mentioned, which is when women look at a job description, if they don't feel that they've checked off every box, they won't go for that job. And it's such a different, I'll tell you, because I've been doing this for 24 years and I've seen this over and over again. When men see a job description, if they have one of the 20 things, they'll go for it and work, you know, they will build a case for themselves. And, you know, we have to be more aware of that and we have to really spread that message and help women get over that. We really do, because at the end of the day, I will tell you firsthand when a client gives a, you know, 25 must haves as an executive search consultant, our job is to take those 25 must haves and take it down to really five. I can't live without. So that, you know, no one has to check every box. And if you're strong and confident, you can overcome some of the things that are not on that job description. You're absolutely right. Bringing that up, that was amazing. Karen, what are your thoughts here? Well, I checked the, I checked every box that both Annie and you, Marcy, have mentioned. I definitely believe that it's important to find a mentor. I also believe it's important to find a sponsor as well, you know, that that connection between the two. One is a little different than the other. And the sponsor is someone who more will sponsor you. We look out for you from a perspective of career growth within that specific company. I also think it's important not to necessarily always have, whether you have a sponsor and a mentor, you may want to have a male and a female. You know, you could have a little bit of, you know, difference that way, because it's different perspectives. I think different perspectives, you grow from that. And the next thing is grow your posse. I call it your posse. So you have, so besides more formal, if you want to call that mentors and sponsor, you also have maybe a group of six, seven women you can go to. It doesn't necessarily have to be women where you can bounce one or two things off and they, you know, that they will lift you up by that comment that they will make at that point in time. And that will just bring you over that edge at that specific point in time. And that's why, what I mean by posse. So it's these, these people who believe in you. The third thing is, I think it's extremely important. And I've heard, I've heard both of you say it in a different way, but it's very important to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So if you can't check the hundred, all the boxes in the interview, let it go, learn to be uncomfortable with that and apply anyway. If, you know, by me standing here, or sitting here with all of you, it's not necessarily 100% comfortable for me, but I'm learning through this experience, right? So these are things that you have to put yourself out there. Oh, you know, ultimately you are responsible for your own career. And the last point, which is extremely important, we have to all help each other. So by doing this, by reaching out to being a mentor and having a mentee, by being part of a posse group yourself. You know, this is extremely, it's very, it's extremely important to have positive influence on each other. So I think those are, you know, all things that will help steer women within their own professional growth. Excellent. Thank you. Charlotte. I'm going to give you another question. I'm going to give you another question. Thank you. Charlotte. I'm going to give you another question because I think this has your name written all over it. As I've watched you in front of many people at coalition meetings. Just, you know, drive messaging so effectively. And I've watched this organization, the 30% coalition just become more and more successful over the years. And increase membership and have so many wins. So maybe we can talk together about driving new initiatives and different initiatives to empower women, both in technology and in other sectors of the marketplace. The initiatives that you've taken on from, you know, writing letters to getting limited partners involved to, you know, initiatives that you and the organization have taken on have just shown incredible success. And I'd love for you to just share a couple of those with us. Thank you for your support over the years and your friendship. I'd like to just kind of take what Annie and Karen said, because I agree with that. I do think once again, that we have to put the responsibility on the companies. One of the initiatives, I mean, we as women are doing, I think, far beyond what we're asking of men. But that's another, you know, they're born, born ready, board ready, they're born, you know, with leadership skills, et cetera. So we're all working on achieving that. And obviously I'm joking here, but one of the things we're doing at the coalition is to address what Annie and Karen are talking about, but at the corporate level. We have a large group of public companies, private equity companies within the coalition. And we're working with chief diversity officers to implement this kind of structure in a company that would, from a policy standpoint, would encourage, empower, mentor and sponsor women. I don't find it normal that women retire at 60 years old and they then have to go out and try to become board ready, whatever that means. It's too late. It really is too late. Why can't companies, everybody now, as I mentioned earlier, has a diversity and inclusion program. They have a chief diversity officer. Why can't companies institute a training program or an awareness program for women when they're 40, when they're starting their career, when they're beginning to think about what they want to do. Why can't a company institute a mentor sponsorship program so that the responsibility is not on the woman to go out and find a sponsor, which since we do have problems asking for things. The challenges are there. We're trying to construct strategies that will collaboratively influence companies because I think that we have been successful because we are collaborative. But we'll help and assist them to do what I believe they want to do, which is to empower the women and people of color within their organizations as a business case and because it's the right thing to do. So I'm pretty excited about that initiative. We've had one round table with chief diversity officers and we'll continue in the fall to empower them. And I don't know who is in our audience today, but we'd be happy to have that an offline discussion because I think that the chief diversity officer today has probably one of the most challenging jobs but also has an opportunity to be extremely impactful and powerful to do the objectives and meet the objectives that Annie and Karen talked about. It's so interesting to listen to everyone speak on this call because I think what we're realizing is you have to attack this topic from the bottom up, which is the education and educational institutions. You have to attack it from the top down, which is the corporate environment and getting the message out, corporate responsibility and so on and so forth. And then Charlotte, you actually even brought in attacking it from the middle. It's not waiting till someone is retired or at the peak of their career and that's the only thing that's next after retirement but really prepping these women in their prime. So great conversation, great conversation. Another question, what are some of the real-life experiences that maybe each of you faced when it came time to gender balance? I know this is about tech and telecom but it really, it's even more broader than that in a lot of respects. So it just so happens we're all in tech so our experiences come from the tech and technology sector and Charlotte, you spent I think you said over 20 years in technology as well. So why don't we start with Annie. Some of the life experiences that you may have faced in regards to gender balance. So I think the best example that I can provide is my experience at East structure where our leader, Todd Coleman, our CEO, when the time came to have a new CFO looked at his leadership team and realized maybe there was not enough diversity in there. So when he spoke to the recruiter he gave the clear instructions that he wanted to only meet with female candidates because he wanted his next CFO to be a woman and he went full speed ahead with this only met female candidates, I was hired and to be honest it was a big point in my decision to actually join the structure knowing that the CEO cared about diversity and he really wanted his company maybe not to reach parity because today in tech reaching parity it's not going to happen tomorrow unfortunately but that it was something so important to him that he specifically wanted a female CFO and today I was reading some statistics trying to find what is the percentage of women in tech. I've seen 11%, I've seen 25%, that's about the range that I found and I'm happy to report that at East structure today we are at 26, should we be proud of 26? Maybe not but under the circumstances we are in the high range and we're going to be working for sure to have a greater, be closer to parity but I think as a young organization very dynamic we're doing the job in terms of ensuring that parity is going to be reached one day. It's amazing, congratulations by the way. Thank you. Keep that number going up. Karen, any thoughts here? I mean I have, at my level I've had different conversations with different people where they have a similar focus as Annie mentioned where they're trying to consciously make sure that when they interview people they include a woman at a minimum or hopefully more women depending on the type of position where you might have more candidates that apply that are female. So I heard that and I think our percentage right here at Plex is very similar to what Annie mentioned between 25 and 30, so I still feel we have a little work to do but I think I'd be interested to hear what Charlotte has to say on this subject actually. So from an experience standpoint and from her perspective from what she's been working on. So thank you. Just personally, I come from telecom. I come from the corporate side. I spent 20 years in Paris actually for a large telecommunication company leading the best of relations, capital market strategies and in that role there's this very close relationship with CEO, senior leadership, the market. So I felt like I was kind of the queen. Everybody would take my calls and everybody would talk to me and what do you think, et cetera. Came back to the US, got involved in the gender mission. Actually, initially I thought, okay, well, I'm so fantastic. I can serve on a board. This is wonderful. I went to a meeting and it's like, okay, I'm going to do this next. And it was like running into a brick wall. Literally, I finally got an appointment with an executive recruiter and she laughed at me. I mean, she basically told me that, well, you look like you live in California as opposed to South Florida, whatever that means. You don't look, you don't dress to be board ready. I don't know this whole thing. So I thought, okay. So I spent a few more months not pursuing that, but talking to other women and I decided like, this is really not fair. I mean, this is ridiculous. All of these women are hoping and there's a few of them that are making it and they're making it through connections or as Annie said, they've been lucky enough to have a mentor or a sponsor, but the majority of women, and that is still the case today, are pursuing an unreachable goal. So my goal and the goal of the coalition and I founded the coalition with a couple of colleagues was to do something. I'm sympathetic to programs. I'm sympathetic to bettering ourselves, but I fundamentally believe and we're dealing with public equities. We're dealing with private equities, but I fundamentally believe that it's a structural problem and until we change that, working again, I stress collaboratively with companies that we can make a difference and we are. We now have 250 companies that have appointed a woman to the board for the very first time in their history. So we're chipping away at a very large iceberg, but I think that again, coming from the other side, I feel optimistic. I feel that companies do want to do something. I think they need our help and they need that general pressure which we apply every day. So working hard for everyone. And Marcy actually, I just wanted to add a little bit to that. I was interested to hear what Charlotte was going to say beforehand, but I was able to process some of my thoughts as I was listening to you and within Plex, I started a group called Women at Plex and we also made the conscious havers to have an executive presence within that group which is very important. And we had an opportunity to have conversations about what we're doing with our executive board as well. And I was very pleased to see the positive reception and from the executive board, from our president here and the total belief in how having diversity, having inclusion and that sense of belonging is how important that actually is to innovation, to what we do within companies, to be, you know, it influences substantially our bottom line. You know, obviously it's a business, so we have to look at it from that perspective. But having the element of diversity and inclusion within a company is extremely important for its growth and for innovation specifically within technology, I think, for where we want to go. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I'm proud to say that TEG is 99% women and we have one man. And he's wonderful. But, you know, this is a wonderful, this is a wonderful industry for women, the executive search industry. And, you know, we certainly didn't only go for women, but we're doing wonderful as an organization and we will embrace, continue to embrace bringing executive women in and also bringing executive women to the table and trying to create this awareness. And moving forward, I just so much appreciate everyone coming to the call today. Great insight and vision. So thank you. Yeah, and really, thank you guys. Your views have been so moving. Again, our all-star panelists, Charlotte Laurent-Arman, Executive Director of 30% Coalition, Annie Corvay, Senior Vice President and CFO of eStructure and Karen Richner, Technical Account Manager, Text Systems. And of course, a big thank you to Marci Nigro, the TEG, Technology Executive Group. I got to say, on a personal note, I've really been moved by your words today. So many great tips on how we can keep pushing through. I'd also like to dedicate this great conversation today, this virtual CEO roundtable to my friend, Bryn Fowler. You guys may know her. She's one of the founders of Women's Tech Forum, WTF. She's also an advisory board member for Telecom Exchange. This panel topic really came about initially from a brainstorm session with her before she was suddenly diagnosed with colon cancer. So Bryn, I know you are watching, and you are one of the strongest fighters I know, so keep fighting. You are here virtually with us, and we want you in person next time. So, to us to you, my friend, and also to all great women fighters out there who have a voice but might not have a microphone, I wanted to also let you guys know that JSA created WSI or the Women's Speaking Initiative to get more speakers, women speakers, keynoting and speaking at our industry events. So please go ahead and check out jsa.net slash WSI and add your speaker bio there and we'll promote your bio to event producers. So that's it today. Amazing conversation. Thank you all for your amazing views and tips. These are phenomenal. I'm feeling very inspired. I hope you do too. Thank you for tuning in to JSA TV. Until next time, happy networking.