thank you so much thank you for letting
me speak English today men have always
played an important role in my career
for my first employer here in Stockholm
the Italian shoe importer who taught me
everything about running a small
business – my first manager in Silicon
Valley who hired me to do international
sales for the tech company he told me I
never had to compromise my values in
order to make a sale
– mom chill my love and business partner
together we started two enterprise
software companies and built an amazing
family about a year and a half ago I
started attending events for women in
Silicon Valley women in tech these were
fantastic gatherings so many women
coming together sharing their stories
supporting each other but there was one
group of people that was noticeably
absent men if we were talking about
equality and tech and advancing women to
leadership where were the guys I know
who makes the decisions after being in
so I started to I I really wanted to
look at the numbers and I was new to
this again 74 percent of the
professional computing positions in the
United States were filled by men while
only 43% of the total professional
occupations were held by men if you look
at leadership 83 percent of the chief
information officers and 95 percent of
the CEOs of the fortune 500 companies
were men that’s a lot of guys so why
didn’t I see
anywhere and rather than speculating I
decided to go straight to the source so
I interviewed over 50 men in the tech
industry from CEOs to individual
contributors that have worked in tech
for ten to thirty years and to my great
surprise so many of them all but one
actually thought that there was no
equality in tech but that it was fixable
and many of them agreed with me as I’m
trying to achieve a 50/50 gender balance
at all levels of the organization from
the bottom all the way to the top but
the sheer concept like the idea of
gender equality and female empowerment
that was really vague to a lot of men
and they felt intimidated by it so they
did still see though we want to be
included we want you to invite us as
discussion and but for different reasons
so I started looking at the different
reasons and it turns out that if men
have a personal engagement in the issue
they will show up Melissa on my team
invited me to come along or you know my
daughter she’s really into math oh my
god maybe she’s gonna go into
engineering is this the workplace I want
her to enter other men they want to show
up as better leaders or maybe they have
a problem that they want to find a
solution to that pertains to retention
for example Stella on my team you know
the girl who’s on the DevOps team she’s
really really good I think she’s gonna
leave she doesn’t seem happy lately what
can I actually do to make her stick
around other men will show up out of
curiosity you know I know it’s the right
thing to do this thing with the quality
but how okay what can I do to help
so all these reasons weren’t very but I
started to notice patterns as I was
interviewing these men and I developed a
matrix based on seven
composite characters based on my data at
the top of our matrix we have the
advocates the advocates are represented
by Mark James and some year they
understand the importance of diversity
of thought they care about the business
they care about the people they
understand why their engagement matters
so much they don’t care what other
people think about them supporting women
and minorities they’re intelligent and
they’re aware of their influence
so mark at the top he’s a specialist he
works inside the organization or outside
the organization he could be an HR
manager or a diversity consultant for
example and he can even be a man who has
lots of friends you know the type of
guys that sit down and they actually try
to convince other men to hire retain and
promote women not a lot of them out
there but there’s some and they’re not
really the type of leaders that other
men want to follow but they will listen
to him the next person on the matrix is
James he’s a change agent
he’s a visible presence in the
organization I mean he leads by example
he’s successful and he builds teams with
good mixes of men and women on them he’s
confident and other men want to be like
him he will lead initiatives that are
that are that are looking at values of
the organization when it comes to
equality and he will say are these the
values that we want to have do we set
new new standards and then creating
strategies to execute against those
values and standards so he’s very
hands-on the next person is Samir and
Samir is our sponsor he is just like
James he’s confident and undeterred by
what other people’s opinions are and he
will he’s he’s determined to support
women and if he finds a woman who has
great potential he will stand behind her
and make her visible and promotable
by putting his own name on the line the
next category of people on the matrix
are the allies so the allies often have
a daughter at home maybe somebody who’s
changing the view that they have of
women in the workplace or they’ve worked
on teams with lots of women and that’s
been a really successful team and they
feel like they want to be part of MIL
building more teams like that they will
speak up on behalf of women but
typically on a one-on-one basis not in
front of a crowd mem was our mentor and
Mammal will mentor through official
programs or on an ad-hoc basis not quite
as selflessly as Sameer does it he is
sometimes a little bit concerned about
his reputation and he will back away if
somebody’s questioning his motives solo
memo are you having lunch with Lisa are
you supporting her and if he’s part of
an official mentoring program that would
be good for him otherwise he might back
away al is respectful of women and he
really wants to help but he doesn’t
really know how so he tends to punt the
problem to other people he will say
things like I love women they’re so
valuable but he doesn’t necessarily say
I really need to build a diverse team
because it’s going to drive innovation
he’s not quite there yet then we have
Chris chris is friendly but he’s
intimidated by the me2 movement he is
when he gets uncomfortable or when he
has to take sides
he tiny tends to back away he will
support women on an individual basis
though but preferably women that he
knows very well like his daughter or
maybe a woman on his team that he’s
befriended he will use these friendships
kind of a
a shield if somebody’s questioning his
motives so Chris how come you’re acting
or behaving that way around Jenny over
friends but he won’t speak up or stand
up on behalf of a woman last on our
matrix we have Richard he goes by his
nickname he is very insecure and he
prefers status quo he fears that women
are going to replace men in the
workplace I don’t spend a lot of time
trying to convince Richard to become an
ally I just use them as a reference
point so now that we have our seven
characters on his matrix what can they
do to move equality along and to advance
more women to leadership I well if you
if you’re a man then you may identify
with one of the characters or a
combination of characters and that’s a
good first step but you might actually
need some some suggestions on what you
can do to help and support women so I’m
writing a book right now about the
matrix and it details the characters and
it talks about specific steps that men
can take to progress from one level to
the next character above him and that’s
all based on the interviews that I’ve
conducted so for example if you’re an
owl and you want to become a memo what
can you realistically do well you can
start by listening you can start by
really listening and tuning in to what
the woman is saying maybe she’s talking
about her challenges maybe she has some
confrontations at work that she needs to
deal with maybe she wants to talk about
something that’s a little bit more of a
personal nature maybe she has an issue
with her manager so let’s say her name
is Sylvia and Sylvia is struggling with
a communication with her manager Al can
with her permission and only with her
permission actually step in and talk to
her man
and see if he can help to improve that
communication a little bit he can also
do hands-on things you know we’ve all
heard the example of him stepping into
the meeting and saying I want to hear
what Julia thinks or you know last week
Julia had a really good point why don’t
we talk about that so no matter if the
action is grand or if it’s small these
are all gestures and actual things that
Alice doing to move to the level of memo
and no matter what character you are no
matter what level you’re at there’s
always more that you can do as a man to
the men have to decide themselves not
only what level they’re at but what they
want to do to help and it’s really not
up to us as co-workers and outside
experts to judge or criticize and
judging by some of the men that I see
here in the audience maybe some of you
want to be advocates or allies maybe you
want to be an owl or a Sameer or maybe
even a James at the very least you don’t
want to be a dick Richard what this is
it’s really an invitation for you to
learn how continuous individual
contribution can lead to sustainable
change that means if everybody all of us
do something then we can actually start
to change things so with that I’d like
to invite every man who’s in the
audience and every man who’s listening
to think about one woman at work who can
use a friendly word who can use a
conversation somebody who wants to share
how she’s doing with her career and
maybe need some advice I asked her how
you can support her this will actually
be something that Mammal would do and it
leads to change
or maybe you have values that are the
same or different than the organization
that you’re working for when it comes to
equality sit down and talk about those
values write them down and then hire and
promote based on those values that’s
what James would do now if you’re a
woman you can if you’re successful you
feel like you’ve really reached
somewhere in your career I’d like to
encourage you to identify an owl or a
Kris because you can coach them and
mentor them to become allies of women
and Kris and I’ll have the greatest
potential to grow into stronger
supporters of equality if you’re a woman
who is struggling and you’re not feeling
seen or valued in your organization I
suggest that you try to identify it
James or a Sameer because they can
actually help you to move along to the
next step so I know as a woman we’re
very angry and it’s kind of natural
right now that we want to expose and
shame and punish a lot of men’s that
have been misusing their power for a lot
of years and that’s fine but what comes
next how do we reach equality how do we
work together to achieve those goals
punishment and deterrence are just not
going to be enough we need positive
redemptive action in order to create
that sustainable change by all so with
that I’d like to share a story early on
in my career about 20 years ago or so I
was working for a Sameer and he was a
fantastic manager who taught me
everything I needed to know and he
coached me and he watched out for me he
backed me up he made me shine and then
one day we’re at a trade show in Las
Vegas and were walking back from the
event and one of the distributors kind
of leans over and in
and whisper something sleazy in my ear
and later on that day I told Samir I
said this has happened and he looked at
me and he said you know what you never
need to do business with anybody who
makes you feel uncomfortable and I
thought okay and it didn’t I didn’t even
understand the impact of those words I
navigated through the tech industry for
20 years after that with those words in
my head you never need to do business
with anybody who makes you feel
uncomfortable and there are more Samir’s
out there than we could ever fathom
there are men that want to support us
and support equality in the workplace
there are men that have a daughter at
home who’s changing their view of women
in the workplace there are men who claim
that their best managers ever have been
women and there are men that want to
work side by side with us and that truly
believe in equality all they need is a
little encouragement and some practical
advice and I hope that this presentation
today has provided a start to that thank you
me speak English today men have always
played an important role in my career
for my first employer here in Stockholm
the Italian shoe importer who taught me
everything about running a small
business – my first manager in Silicon
Valley who hired me to do international
sales for the tech company he told me I
never had to compromise my values in
order to make a sale
– mom chill my love and business partner
together we started two enterprise
software companies and built an amazing
family about a year and a half ago I
started attending events for women in
Silicon Valley women in tech these were
fantastic gatherings so many women
coming together sharing their stories
supporting each other but there was one
group of people that was noticeably
absent men if we were talking about
equality and tech and advancing women to
leadership where were the guys I know
who makes the decisions after being in
so I started to I I really wanted to
look at the numbers and I was new to
this again 74 percent of the
professional computing positions in the
United States were filled by men while
only 43% of the total professional
occupations were held by men if you look
at leadership 83 percent of the chief
information officers and 95 percent of
the CEOs of the fortune 500 companies
were men that’s a lot of guys so why
didn’t I see
anywhere and rather than speculating I
decided to go straight to the source so
I interviewed over 50 men in the tech
industry from CEOs to individual
contributors that have worked in tech
for ten to thirty years and to my great
surprise so many of them all but one
actually thought that there was no
equality in tech but that it was fixable
and many of them agreed with me as I’m
trying to achieve a 50/50 gender balance
at all levels of the organization from
the bottom all the way to the top but
the sheer concept like the idea of
gender equality and female empowerment
that was really vague to a lot of men
and they felt intimidated by it so they
did still see though we want to be
included we want you to invite us as
discussion and but for different reasons
so I started looking at the different
reasons and it turns out that if men
have a personal engagement in the issue
they will show up Melissa on my team
invited me to come along or you know my
daughter she’s really into math oh my
god maybe she’s gonna go into
engineering is this the workplace I want
her to enter other men they want to show
up as better leaders or maybe they have
a problem that they want to find a
solution to that pertains to retention
for example Stella on my team you know
the girl who’s on the DevOps team she’s
really really good I think she’s gonna
leave she doesn’t seem happy lately what
can I actually do to make her stick
around other men will show up out of
curiosity you know I know it’s the right
thing to do this thing with the quality
but how okay what can I do to help
so all these reasons weren’t very but I
started to notice patterns as I was
interviewing these men and I developed a
matrix based on seven
composite characters based on my data at
the top of our matrix we have the
advocates the advocates are represented
by Mark James and some year they
understand the importance of diversity
of thought they care about the business
they care about the people they
understand why their engagement matters
so much they don’t care what other
people think about them supporting women
and minorities they’re intelligent and
they’re aware of their influence
so mark at the top he’s a specialist he
works inside the organization or outside
the organization he could be an HR
manager or a diversity consultant for
example and he can even be a man who has
lots of friends you know the type of
guys that sit down and they actually try
to convince other men to hire retain and
promote women not a lot of them out
there but there’s some and they’re not
really the type of leaders that other
men want to follow but they will listen
to him the next person on the matrix is
James he’s a change agent
he’s a visible presence in the
organization I mean he leads by example
he’s successful and he builds teams with
good mixes of men and women on them he’s
confident and other men want to be like
him he will lead initiatives that are
that are that are looking at values of
the organization when it comes to
equality and he will say are these the
values that we want to have do we set
new new standards and then creating
strategies to execute against those
values and standards so he’s very
hands-on the next person is Samir and
Samir is our sponsor he is just like
James he’s confident and undeterred by
what other people’s opinions are and he
will he’s he’s determined to support
women and if he finds a woman who has
great potential he will stand behind her
and make her visible and promotable
by putting his own name on the line the
next category of people on the matrix
are the allies so the allies often have
a daughter at home maybe somebody who’s
changing the view that they have of
women in the workplace or they’ve worked
on teams with lots of women and that’s
been a really successful team and they
feel like they want to be part of MIL
building more teams like that they will
speak up on behalf of women but
typically on a one-on-one basis not in
front of a crowd mem was our mentor and
Mammal will mentor through official
programs or on an ad-hoc basis not quite
as selflessly as Sameer does it he is
sometimes a little bit concerned about
his reputation and he will back away if
somebody’s questioning his motives solo
memo are you having lunch with Lisa are
you supporting her and if he’s part of
an official mentoring program that would
be good for him otherwise he might back
away al is respectful of women and he
really wants to help but he doesn’t
really know how so he tends to punt the
problem to other people he will say
things like I love women they’re so
valuable but he doesn’t necessarily say
I really need to build a diverse team
because it’s going to drive innovation
he’s not quite there yet then we have
Chris chris is friendly but he’s
intimidated by the me2 movement he is
when he gets uncomfortable or when he
has to take sides
he tiny tends to back away he will
support women on an individual basis
though but preferably women that he
knows very well like his daughter or
maybe a woman on his team that he’s
befriended he will use these friendships
kind of a
a shield if somebody’s questioning his
motives so Chris how come you’re acting
or behaving that way around Jenny over
friends but he won’t speak up or stand
up on behalf of a woman last on our
matrix we have Richard he goes by his
nickname he is very insecure and he
prefers status quo he fears that women
are going to replace men in the
workplace I don’t spend a lot of time
trying to convince Richard to become an
ally I just use them as a reference
point so now that we have our seven
characters on his matrix what can they
do to move equality along and to advance
more women to leadership I well if you
if you’re a man then you may identify
with one of the characters or a
combination of characters and that’s a
good first step but you might actually
need some some suggestions on what you
can do to help and support women so I’m
writing a book right now about the
matrix and it details the characters and
it talks about specific steps that men
can take to progress from one level to
the next character above him and that’s
all based on the interviews that I’ve
conducted so for example if you’re an
owl and you want to become a memo what
can you realistically do well you can
start by listening you can start by
really listening and tuning in to what
the woman is saying maybe she’s talking
about her challenges maybe she has some
confrontations at work that she needs to
deal with maybe she wants to talk about
something that’s a little bit more of a
personal nature maybe she has an issue
with her manager so let’s say her name
is Sylvia and Sylvia is struggling with
a communication with her manager Al can
with her permission and only with her
permission actually step in and talk to
her man
and see if he can help to improve that
communication a little bit he can also
do hands-on things you know we’ve all
heard the example of him stepping into
the meeting and saying I want to hear
what Julia thinks or you know last week
Julia had a really good point why don’t
we talk about that so no matter if the
action is grand or if it’s small these
are all gestures and actual things that
Alice doing to move to the level of memo
and no matter what character you are no
matter what level you’re at there’s
always more that you can do as a man to
the men have to decide themselves not
only what level they’re at but what they
want to do to help and it’s really not
up to us as co-workers and outside
experts to judge or criticize and
judging by some of the men that I see
here in the audience maybe some of you
want to be advocates or allies maybe you
want to be an owl or a Sameer or maybe
even a James at the very least you don’t
want to be a dick Richard what this is
it’s really an invitation for you to
learn how continuous individual
contribution can lead to sustainable
change that means if everybody all of us
do something then we can actually start
to change things so with that I’d like
to invite every man who’s in the
audience and every man who’s listening
to think about one woman at work who can
use a friendly word who can use a
conversation somebody who wants to share
how she’s doing with her career and
maybe need some advice I asked her how
you can support her this will actually
be something that Mammal would do and it
leads to change
or maybe you have values that are the
same or different than the organization
that you’re working for when it comes to
equality sit down and talk about those
values write them down and then hire and
promote based on those values that’s
what James would do now if you’re a
woman you can if you’re successful you
feel like you’ve really reached
somewhere in your career I’d like to
encourage you to identify an owl or a
Kris because you can coach them and
mentor them to become allies of women
and Kris and I’ll have the greatest
potential to grow into stronger
supporters of equality if you’re a woman
who is struggling and you’re not feeling
seen or valued in your organization I
suggest that you try to identify it
James or a Sameer because they can
actually help you to move along to the
next step so I know as a woman we’re
very angry and it’s kind of natural
right now that we want to expose and
shame and punish a lot of men’s that
have been misusing their power for a lot
of years and that’s fine but what comes
next how do we reach equality how do we
work together to achieve those goals
punishment and deterrence are just not
going to be enough we need positive
redemptive action in order to create
that sustainable change by all so with
that I’d like to share a story early on
in my career about 20 years ago or so I
was working for a Sameer and he was a
fantastic manager who taught me
everything I needed to know and he
coached me and he watched out for me he
backed me up he made me shine and then
one day we’re at a trade show in Las
Vegas and were walking back from the
event and one of the distributors kind
of leans over and in
and whisper something sleazy in my ear
and later on that day I told Samir I
said this has happened and he looked at
me and he said you know what you never
need to do business with anybody who
makes you feel uncomfortable and I
thought okay and it didn’t I didn’t even
understand the impact of those words I
navigated through the tech industry for
20 years after that with those words in
my head you never need to do business
with anybody who makes you feel
uncomfortable and there are more Samir’s
out there than we could ever fathom
there are men that want to support us
and support equality in the workplace
there are men that have a daughter at
home who’s changing their view of women
in the workplace there are men who claim
that their best managers ever have been
women and there are men that want to
work side by side with us and that truly
believe in equality all they need is a
little encouragement and some practical
advice and I hope that this presentation
today has provided a start to that thank you
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