How to thrive in the world of tech? 4 top tips from these female trailblazers

Gender diversity is no longer just a buzzword: tech firms worldwide have averaged a remarkable 33 per cent female representation in their workforces as of 2022¹. Southeast Asia is taking the lead for women’s representation in the tech sector. Clocking a 39 per cent share of tech-related university degree holders and a 32 per cent share of the tech workforce in 2020, the participation of women in tech across the region is significantly higher than that of the global averages of 35 per cent and 28 per cent respectively².

Across all industries, Singapore has also made considerable progress towards gender parity with a record 36 per cent of board positions occupied by women in 2022, representing a 13 per cent increase from the previous year and ranking first in Asia for progressive and gender-diverse board leadership³. Women also make up 41 per cent of the tech workforce in the city-state, well above the global average of 28 per cent². 

The growing call for gender parity in the workplace is not unfounded, given that inclusive and gender-diverse workplace cultures have often been found to produce higher levels of innovation⁴ and profit⁵. However, more can be done to improve gender parity in the tech industry today.

Against the backdrop of International Women’s Day, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), Singapore Global Network (SGN), SGInnovate and Amazon Web Services (AWS) organised a panel discussion, titled Tech for Good: Female Trailblazers in Charge. The discussion featured three influential female trailblazers in the tech industry, where they shared their advice for building a rewarding career in tech. The event, held on 3 Mar 2023, attracted more than 100 guests. Here are some of the insights shared during the discussion:

About the panelists:

• Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec – Vice President of Technology, AWS
  Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec’s teams in Amazon Web Services include large scale foundational cloud services like CloudWatch, Kinesis, and Amazon S3/Glacier.
• Serene Cai – Co-Founder, Speedoc
  Cai's startup leverages technology to bridge the gaps in the growing healthcare demand by availing services like telemedicine and virtual hospitals to people from all walks of life.
• Puiyan Leung– Partner, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India
  Leung empowers entrepreneurs in the region to create and harnesses opportunities to drive positive change for the betterment of society.

About the moderator:

• Jacqueline Poh – Managing Director, Singapore Economic Development Board 
  Poh advocates passionately for the development of female leaders and the betterment of Singaporeans’ lives through tech.

1. “Balcony-hop” your way to good work-life balance

As a mother of three, Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec has adopted a “balcony-hopping” strategy. She begins by building a metaphorical inventory of all the balconies she has to stand on (or the ‘hats’ that she wears) in a day.

With that inventory in mind, Tomsen Bukovec begins her week by looking at the day’s tasks and understanding her role in each work meeting so she can prioritise which balconies to hop onto. That way, she can focus on being present to create impact during critical moments.

As there are only so many hours in a day, balcony hopping enables you to be a better parent or leader by creating space for you to reflect on whether you are spending your time meaningfully and intentionally — and on the balconies that matter the most.

By the same token, Puiyan Leung, who joined the session virtually, shares that it is indeed challenging to wear multiple hats. Leung was dialling into the event while nursing her 9-month-old baby back to health from a recent bout of Hand-Food-Mouth Disease. To this end, her strategy is to always be present and focused on whatever she is tackling at a given moment. She is disciplined about how she spends her time, adding, “There is no room for FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out).”

Discipline and focus are also life principles Serene Cai abide by, as they help to ensure that she is playing each of her roles well at the right time. Having a strong support system is crucial to achieving this balance. Her tip is to “build your own support system, understand where you want to spend your time and who you want to spend your time with”, and to never discount support that comes from unexpected places.

2. Master the art of networking to seek the best mentorship opportunities

Cai is a firm believer in empowering female professionals to engage in sponsorship in the right ways for their personal growth. Besides encouraging women to actively reach out for mentorship, she shares that younger women should be mindful to look for mentors who can provide them with actionable support in a project or field of work. Cai recommends being specific about the learning points that they hope to gain and to prepare precise questions to ask, so that younger professionals can make the most out of meetings with their mentors.

Tomsen Bukovec has also implemented a system of shadowing for team members in AWS, in which she maps out individual meetings for her colleagues to join as active observers. This is a scalable type of sponsorship as employees have the chance to “be exposed to [important conversations] they wouldn’t have had otherwise”.

It is important too that young women to take charge of their own learning by proactively soliciting guidance. Tomsen Bukovec encourages female professionals to initiate mentoring opportunities, as there is always a meeting for them to sit in if they have a clear learning objective in mind.

Systematic support for women in tech is gaining traction as well. For instance, AWS Korea’s group mentoring programme pairs school-going youths with engineers to prepare them for a career in tech from a young age. This encourages a sizeable portion of middle-school female students who are interested in STEM to take the first step into the industry.

Additionally, Leung encourages attendees to be open minded and listen actively when making new connections as sponsorship can come from anywhere and not necessarily only from senior figures. “360-degree sponsorship is almost as important these days […] Reach out to all the people around you. Every one of them can be your advocate and every one of them is somebody to learn from,” Jacqueline Poh elaborates.

3. Recognise that we have a part to play in change management

Leung points out that prior studies have shown that female founders are more likely to be subject to risk-based questions like “What if things go wrong?”, which automatically places them in a defensive position. Comparatively, male counterparts tend to receive more opportunity-based questions that sound more positive, such as “What other locations are you planning to expand to?”.

With such increased awareness, investors have the opportunity to level the playing field by adjusting the questions they pose to founders, regardless of their gender.

Hoping for mindset shifts to culminate in better interview questions being asked, Cai asserts that questions about women’s family plans should never be asked. The process of asking the right questions is a continuous journey of learning even for Cai, as she actively seeks to frame her interview questions in a more aspirational manner for prospective employees.

Poh shares a piece of advice: Women professionals should have the confidence to flip the risk-based question into an opportunity-based one, and provide a response accordingly.

Leung shares the same view, underscoring the importance of realising when a conversation may risk being derailed by unfair risk-based questions. She also emphasises the need for others who are present in the conversation to be vigilant, aware and act to provide support for fellow women by actively steering the conversation back on track.

On when to speak up, Tomsen Bukovec emphasises the importance of acting upon one’s desired outcomes and adjusting the course of action accordingly.

She quips, “You have to read the room and you have to figure out what is the best way to accomplish that outcome. If there was one piece of advice, I would tell my younger self and other women who are early in their careers to be bolder. Early on in my own career, one of my biggest challenges was overcoming my own perception that asking for new opportunities would be considered too much — too much of a stretch, too unexpected. When I was younger, I sometimes held off on that bold ask and then saw others stepping into that gap instead of me.”

Tomsen Bukovec added that once she realised that she had been overthinking the situation, she started to express what she wanted and developed her skills much faster. “It was a turning point for me. I had the work ethic and drive but once I realised how to grab an opportunity — it sped up how fast I was able to grow.”

4. Be confident because you have it in you

Research from the LinkedIn Gender Insights Report highlights that women apply to 20 per cent fewer jobs than men, as they feel that they are not competent enough if they cannot meet 100 per cent of the job’s listed criteria. Conversely, men are more likely to apply for the job after meeting only about 60 per cent of the criteria.

Rationalising that this statistic speaks to a wider societal mindset where women end up shortchanging themselves, Cai encourages young women to have greater confidence in their abilities by debunking the conventional stereotype that women are less skilled than their male counterparts.

Likewise, Leung recounts that she would have never imagined jumping from her previous position as a mobile engineer role to her current one as a partner at Vertex Ventures. Today, she finds herself working in a gender-balanced investment team at Vertex, where she is in a position to speak up for women founders.

While these female entrepreneurs might differ from traditional expectations of strong leadership, they still display essential leadership and decision-making qualities. Many also demonstrate strong empathy and humility, which are invaluable in today’s world.

Having more women investment professionals on the team ensures that these qualities do not go unnoticed and also provides more opportunities for female-led startups. Leung shares, “Diversity of all sorts helps. I think gender diversity in the investment community would help to open the top of the funnel or [increase] the number of female founders that we see.” 

Breaking glass ceilings and bridging gaps — from Singapore

In Singapore, change at the institutional level is made possible with programmes, such as SG Women In Tech, a joint initiative driven by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and SGInnovate. SG Women In Tech aims to build a supportive community for women tech professionals to share resources and career opportunities. 

To further enhance gender diversity in the workplace, public and private players, such as IMDA, Dell Technologies, Salesforce and ST Engineering, have also launched a collaborative mentorship programme Mentor Connect that awards leadership opportunities to women mentees, and allows them to broaden their professional networks.

Footnotes:

¹ Hupfer, Susanne et al. “Women in the tech industry: Gaining ground, but facing new headwinds.” Deloitte Insights, 2021, https://www2.deloitte.com/xe/en/insights/industry/technology/technology-media-and-telecom-predictions/2022/statistics-show-women-in-technology-are-facing-new-headwinds.html. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.

² Rastogi, Vaishali et al. “Boosting Women in Technology in Southeast Asia.” Boston Consulting Group, 2020, https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/boosting-women-in-southeast-asia-tech-sector. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.

³ Tian, Sheryl. “Record Number of Singapore’s New Director Roles Filled by Women”. Bloomberg, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-02/record-number-of-singapore-s-new-director-roles-filled-by-women?srnd=premium&leadSource=uverify%20wall. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.

⁴ Eastman, Maggin. “What innovative companies and women on boards have in common”. MCSI, 2019, https://www.msci.com/www/blog-posts/what-innovative-companies-and/01281290345. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.

⁵ Noland, Marcus et al. “Is Gender Diversity Profitable? Evidence from a Global Survey”. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Working Papers, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2016, https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/gender-diversity-profitable-evidence-global-survey. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.

⁶ Ignatova, Maria. “New Report: Women Apply to Fewer Jobs Than Men, But Are More Likely to Get Hired”. LinkedIn, 2019, https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisition/how-women-find-jobs-gender-report. Accessed 22 Mar 2023.