 The Q presents on the ground. Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Rick here with the Cube We are on the ground at the Santa Clara Convention Center at the Anita board women of vision Awards 2016 We're here last year excited to be back and talking to probably the person that has the most fun evening of the night The emcee of the awards are welcome. Thank you so much glad to be here, but you have a day job too You're the executive vice president chief product officer of air tops a big title and a big job That is true. Yeah, I do products during the day and Oprah Winfrey at night So talk a little bit about Anita Borg and what this this organization has done and is doing for you know women specifically in technology So, you know Anita Borg and I got involved with Anita Borg about 10 years ago, right? And Anita Borg is really about building capabilities for women in computing women in technologies and in particular being the preeminent Organization for women in technology. There's quite a few organizations, but we differentiate ourselves because first of all We're the biggest we offer the most programs and we really focus on technology women Not just women at large and there's many organizations that do that, but we focus on really catering to growing the population Making companies responsible right for doing the right things to promote and provide advantages to women in the workplace And really influencing the industry as well So what are the things that we need to do from a policy perspective to make sure that women have opportunities, right? In the technical fields. Yeah, and I think it's it is a really interesting distinction that you bring up because we've had that conversation before I'm gonna think with Elizabeth last year that you know There's a lot of ways you can get involved in technology and not be a technologist marketing role sales role HR, etc But it but Anita Borg is specifically focused on technical roles Yeah, it is and you know what we're actually having that debate as part of Anita Borg because technology is sort of It's sort of growing in every part of an organization, right? So you have marketing that now you're doing data science and your mining information and you're doing demand Generation, you know with computing and so we're sort of going through that conversation now where you say who is a woman? Technologist traditionally, it's been mostly women in computing, you know women that have done mostly engineering Kind of fields, right? But when you look at women in technology today, you know, they're really sort of pervasive across many organizations, right? So there's marketing women that are technologists certainly IT organizations have a lot of women technologists In my organization, you know product development is all about you know, right technologists, right? So we're having that conversation and I think it's going to expand over time, you know As the world goes digital, you know and people go into sort of the internet of everything Type world, right many more companies that have not been traditionally sort of viewed as technology companies even evolve to do technology, right? So who would have thought that you know GE, you know Engines or whatever really mostly about software and technology today, right? So it's forcing organizations like ours, you know to really start to think about who's the audience of the future That's an interesting take because you know, there's the rules that are different pure engineering rules But as you just said the functions are all becoming much more technology based and you know We have a premise and and I believe it strongly that every company is really a technology company It's just what do you wrap your technology around what product what service whether it's GE, you know We covered the Ford Innovation Center launch here in Silicon Valley Arguably your car is your largest wearable and I think that we all have going on And as you mentioned before we came on there, you know your journey Has gone from different companies and different roles and different functions all kind of wrapped within this technology field Yeah, it is that way, you know, it's interesting. I mean I'm a mechanical engineer, you know So that's that's the most sort of grounded set of you know engineering. It's very physical, right? But to go from that to recognize that even a lot of mechanical engineering is shifting to control systems to computing things that manage Mechanical things right? That's what my career has been around about so I've gone from engineering more to services, you know With the cloud with everything being connected with sensors, you know Everything is really about sort of delivering a service with an outcome to our customers And so you're seeing all kinds of organizations moving to be more technology, you know friendly and enabled right from banks to You know electrical companies to you know traditional oil and gas companies You know everybody's really a technology company this day. Yeah, we talked to B and Y Mellon last year They were the company award winner and if you think about it most interactions now with the bank are electronic Right, there's not a lot of going into the teller or going down even on the commercial side to go work with your local banker Yeah, and it's interesting, you know I just went to visit a small bank in the southeast and I didn't meet with the person that that's just the CIO I met with sort of the chief digital officer now right because what you know Traditional companies are going through is how do you digitize you know and how you go from sort of an a physical bank or a teller You know to being really an online entity, right? So imagine if you know more traditional little companies are transforming just imagine what that's going to do to technology Really across the world, right? So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about your journey because obviously when you got started a while back You know there were a lot less women involved in technology How did you choose this path? How did you get through some of your early kind of challenges? And and then what advice are you giving? Young girl or older girls and young women now. Yeah, so, you know Sometimes I feel that you know life is sort of a series of zigzags You know, you don't plan out necessarily to go into technology and it's a direct path You know for me I started out with mechanical engineering working information systems for factory floors And this is that at the time of client server computing. I mean, you know sunwork stations were kind of new So that led me to like hey this stuff is really cool and interesting, but computer science was really a new a new field So I you know what I decided to do was to insert myself more into things that had to do with IT and technology I was at AT&T at the time and I eventually ended up running the IP backbone for AT&T So going from factory floors to much more core, you know internet related. I made a good move I made a great move, you know, and that was really at the beginning of the internet when I know when Al Gore invented it Or ALRs, it was D-Case, Shipping CDs, if that's where you draw the line That's right, you know, so and that was in the early 90s And from there, you know, I mean what's been happening is things change so quickly You know if you think about it We have companies today that didn't exist, you know five years ago if you look at the twitters and there, you know All these companies that are emerging so for me what I ended up doing is saying, okay The kind of skills that I need need to shift. I can't sort of rely on my old skills I went back to school several times. I actually went back to school I went to Carnegie Mellon here locally to get a degree in software management. This is the compliment. Yeah And what kind of a degree was it? It was a masters in software management You know, and it was a two-year program and I did that when I was working and had kids It's a busy it's a busy life But you know part of that is you know and what I tell young women is you can't rely on your old knowledge You know because the world shifts so fast So I think it's important to be kind of a learning a learning person, right number one And the second thing is take risks go take a different kind of job And that's a little bit of what I've done, you know, I've gone from engineering to then to services I've gone to sales and now I run a product organization But it's so doing you know, I mean look when I went into the sales Roll I've never done sales before sort of jumping into it, right? So, you know what I tell girls is you know, don't ever limit yourself by what you think you don't know, right? You know most guys basically say hey, what is that? You know, I can do it. Yep I'll be over there right and so that you know that sense of confidence of Feeling like you can do anything and you can learn and make mistakes right and learn along the way is really important Those are you know two big lessons the third lesson I tell women is just Get mentors because you're gonna learn from other people right mentors and sponsors But you know leverage all these people around you don't think you're perfect You don't have to be but you know get a bunch of people that can help you sort of orient you see if you go You know if you go this way left, you know, and you should be zigzagging right, you know, they'll tell you Well, Anna, that's great tip great tip and he's looking forward to the fun. You got some good jokes I'm sure you'll knock it out of the park. I'm really looking forward. All right. Well, thank you so much Absolutely and good luck tonight have fun tonight and when we see you in At Grace Hopper in October. Yeah, I'll be there. I'm bringing a contingent of about a hundred women with me. Oh, it's horrific Yeah, we'll be there. All right, Anna Pinsuk. I'm Jeff Frick. Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you so much All right, you're watching the Cube. We're at the Anita board women of vision awards 2015. Thanks for watching