Cambia Grove’s approach can be described simply: convene, organize and connect the community; identify problems and find solutions; and catalyze innovation. Our Spring Forward with Women Leaders series touches on all these points and more. We organized the event with partners WTIA, Anna S. Choi Business Coaching & Marketing Consulting, Artemis Connection, CoMotion, Washington State Department of Commerce, and 100% Talent, who was also our primary sponsor. This time around we worked together to do more community outreach by advertising the series in the South Seattle Emerald, The Seattle Globalist, and The Stranger. The success of both the kickoff event and our “How to Become an Executive” discussion is a good indication that our efforts are paying off.

Keynote, Workforce Study Presentation and Pipeline Success Stories

On March 23, Spring Forward with Women Leaders 2017 began this year’s series with a full conference room in the new CoMotion HQ space. Guests were treated to three separate presentations, preceded by a welcome video from Senator Patty Murray.

Sen. Murray Welcome and Beth Osborne Keynote

Given the current political climate, it wasn’t surprising that Sen. Murray’s message emphasized the role that the men and women assembled in the room can play a role creating better gender equity and supporting diversity and inclusion.

Her remarks segued naturally into Beth Osborne’s keynote, during which Osborne leaned on her 14 years in politics inside and outside of the beltway to orient the audience to areas where their efforts can make a difference. She said her role with the Senator is dedicated to bringing the voices of constituents back to D.C., and talked about how important civic engagement is in the public process.

Presentation of WA State Preliminary Numbers from Workforce Study

Maura Little presented data about the Washington state workforce. Washington remains very challenged with respect to its progress on gender pay equality (something series sponsor 100% Talent is working on through employers), and in life science-related industries in both Washington and nationally, women are generally under-represented compared to their overall private sector employment share, with the exception being in Research & Development (R&D). Little’s presentation sought to inject more data into the discussion around those topics. You can find her presentation here.

Pipeline Success Stories for Women in Tech and STEM Fields

For the final presentation, Christy Johnson of Artemis Connection sat down for a conversation with two women on the front lines of trying to improve the pipeline for STEM-related fields: Mamtha Banerjee (Director of Technology at Expedia) and Cheryl Ingram, PhD (CEO and Founder of Diverse City LLC).

Ingram shared her personal story about how the discouragement she experienced as a girl has fueled her passion to provide, through her company as well as her faculty role at Shoreline Community College, more opportunities in STEM for people from historically stigmatized backgrounds and identities.

Banerjee saw some misalignment between the opportunities being presented and women’s personal and professional goals. She said women are asking for growth options in their careers, and that—like many millennials—women earlier in their careers want the flexibility to try different work rules, including flex schedules. Ingram also called on companies to not only invest in diversity, but also to create career trajectories for women in STEM fields.

Banerjee also called on her experience as a startup advocate to draw attention to her observation that here in the Pacific Northwest, it can be challenging for women to raise funding, particularly when their business is trying to address social problems. She said she meets a lot of women entrepreneurs in STEM developing products or services that reach children, but that she sees B2B funding as easier to obtain.

Final Thoughts

In many ways, the discussions on March 23 reflected many of the concerns raised in last year’s Spring Forward with Women Leaders series—from topics like gender pay equity to gender diversity on technical teams. Osborne’s stories about growing levels of engagement in the political arena, combined with the data being gathered about Washington’s workforce, feels like a positive step. And the work of women like Ingram and Banerjee—and their male allies, who were represented in the room much more than last year’s series—helped create a tone for this attendee of restrained optimism.

How to Become an Executive

On April 6th, four female entrepreneurs came together for part two of the Spring Forward series for a discussion that touched on first experiences in the workplace, the obstacles panelists have faced, what mentorship can mean to women aspiring to the C-suite, and how to wield influence once you get there.

The panel:

• Anna Steffeney of LeaveLogic
• Avni Patel Thompson of Poppy
• Lacey Leavitt of Mechanical Dreams VR
• Leen Kawas of M3 Biotechnology

First Roles

The breadth of initial professional experiences of the panelists reflected how circuitous the journey from individual contributor to founder can be.

Kawas, whose primary professional experience has been with M3 Biotechnology, started showing entrepreneurial characteristics in high school, although she couldn’t name them. “I just wasn’t enabled,” she said.

Leavitt also started her career on unequal footing, but Seattle was welcoming to her vision and aspirations in the male-dominated traditional filmmaking industry. “We are growing and cultivating a female-centric film community,” she said. “My last 10 years have been so rewarding because of the progress we’re making in community with amazing women,” she said. “Because we’re not in New York or LA, we didn’t have to ask permission.” She said that now that Mechanical Dreams VR is moving into bigger projects, she notices the resistance much more. “There’s a shift [in attitudes] when you start talking about larger budgets,” she said.

Obstacles – and How to Overcome Them

The obstacles the panelists discussed on their journey as entrepreneurs were often quite personal.

Kawas said mentorship played a very important role early on, both for her and the people she worked with. “It helped change people’s minds about [reservations based on] age, gender and even accent.” She said her persistence won people over, especially in those mentoring relationships.

For Leavitt, her journey to Mechanical Dreams VR was a product of being clear on the values she wanted to nurture before founding the company. “Persistence also comes up a lot,” she said. She said she learned a lot about the need for fearlessness when it came to the learning she needed to do.

Patel Thompson echoed the need for an adaptive learning style. “Being the CEO of a tech company, I have to be very Socratic in terms of method,” she said. She and other panelists said they spend a considerable amount of time learning from their colleagues about other job functions.

Lovell shared that she has seen, in her dealings with startups, that the great leaders hire the best people. “You should aspire to hire people better than you are,” she said.

Mentorship

The panel offered very concrete advice about nurturing mentoring relationships.

Steffeney said she demonstrated initiative with her first mentors by asking them if she could keep them updated on her progress.

Lovell added that, for initiating mentoring relationships, “The first request has to have guard rails around it. Start with a really small question and let the relationship evolve.”

Steffeney suggested keeping conversations very vertical, so that there’s a natural thread to follow, while Patel Thompson suggested that pairing up with mentors can become difficult even for the most well-intentioned. “You need to find someone you have a spark with,” Patel Thompson said, adding “You need to know what you are asking each person in your Rolodex for.”

Wielding Influence

Influence was a frequent topic throughout the conversation.

“Expertise is a part of that skill set,” Patel Thompson said. She explained that part of that is “staying longer to ask questions in order to earn the respect of those people [you are trying to influence].” She said this works best when it comes from a place of sincere curiosity.

Lovell said that early in her career, in order to overcome some of the gender bias she experienced, she had to get really good at articulating her value proposition. But she clarified further by saying, “I always framed it in terms of how it would benefit them. If they thought it was their idea, then [even better].”

Kawas said influence starts with addressing our own practices. “If you want to influence, be very thoughtful when giving feedback, be willing to accept harsh feedback, and remember to give people credit,” she said.

Final Thoughts

For budding entrepreneurs, Lovell shared some very practical advice.

“You can’t overestimate the value of social capital,” she said. “You need to build a network that gets you to check-writers and to the community. And it’s important to recognize that many communities have systemic, institutional barriers to accessing this capital: women, people of color, those with low income backgrounds.” Looking to the engaged audience, she added “There is somebody in this room who can connect you to someone who can help you.”

Other panelists’ final thoughts revolved around the ideas of finding and pursuing your passions, and the need to be big and bold, especially when it comes to trying new ideas.

Steffeney also shared one thought that seemed to summarize nicely the tone of the evening.

“What got you here won’t get you there,” Steffeney said with respect to long-term goals. She added she had seen great progress in people who focus on relationships over bootstraps.

Like what we’re doing with our Spring Forward series? Check out a video of our Male Allies event here and learn more about what men can do to support women in the tech industry.