Speaker: Female hires rare at city tech startups
Little has changed in Pittsburgh in 3 decades
Audrey Russo is embarrassed to report that over the last three decades, the needle hasn’t moved much in terms of gender dynamics in the tech industry.
That’s based on her observations since the late 1990s, when she began as a director of information technology at Reynolds Metals Co., an aluminum firm acquired by Alcoa in 2000.
In her current role as president and CEO of the North Side-based Pittsburgh Technology Council, companies have approached her to ask how to “manage” their profiles on Glassdoor.com, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based website where employees can anonymously review companies.
Ms. Russo’s advice is that it’s better to focus on a company strategy — one friendly to women — than to try to erase negative remarks, as she explained to a room of about 35 women Wednesday afternoon during the Impactful Women in Technology Summit hosted by the South West Communities Chamber of Commerce.
“What are the ranks of women? What does it look like in leadership? What are your benefits? What it’s like to work for someone in your organization?” she said. “All those things create
new messages that no one would have thought about five years ago.”
But for all the work that public companies have toiled over in trying to bring more women to the table, she said, startups haven’t quite learned those lessons.
“The big corporations had to spend all these years putting together diversity and inclusion and compliance and gender information and share that with the world, and there’s this whole undercurrent of companies that — before they become public — are behaving in ways that no one in this room are proud of.”
Publicly traded companies must follow protocols set forth by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They must report the number of women in leadership roles and turnover rates, Ms. Russo explained. Those controls hold firms accountable.
Private companies, which include most startups, follow no such rules. Investors are still mostly focused on returns and are “not necessarily interested in the culture” of the company, she said.
To flip that dynamic, women need to acquire new skills constantly, Ms. Russo explained. “That’s your additive package.”
Learn finance. Learn how to read and create spreadsheets. Learn to read balance sheets. Understand profit and loss. Constantly have conversations about these things, she said, because they’re skills all successful people have.
And while coding is being pushed in school districts at a young age and is at the heart of Erica Peterson’s organization, Moms Can: Code, she emphasized that even non-computer programmers can be considered “women of tech.” Her organization, which she primarily operates from her home in Robinson, offers free online coding courses.
“There is this huge misconception that you have to be a coder to create technology. You can have a great idea and not be a coder.”
Women just need to know how to communicate an idea and understand the code behind it. She doesn’t need to build it.
And outside of skills acquisition and bright ideas, women need to get comfortable with ideas that make them shift in their seats, Ms. Russo said.
“Only way we’re going to make real changes is two things,” she said, “and women tend not to appreciate having this conversation, but it’s power and money.”
“We can’t be afraid to talk about that … it doesn’t make us not good people … it means that until we have that, there is an unequal balance that is still proliferating.”