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women in IT roundtable


Celebrating the talent and achievements of women in business, and ahead of its sponsorship of the 2015 Women in Business Awards, Clarify invited a select audience of successful women to discuss the topic of women in IT enterprise sales. The event came as Clarify revealed that just over 20% of field sales positions are held by women, while the figure for sales management is much lower. Clarify’s founder and CEO Claire Edmunds, herself the recipient of 2014 Woman of the Year at last year’s Awards, wanted to ask the question why


The keys to encouraging more women into technology


Taking place in the prestigious surroundings of Danesfield House Hotel, the event was chaired by Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj


Participants


Claire Edmunds: CEO Clarify Emma Braithwaite: LEO sales manager, Xerox


Louise Delahoussaye: Account manager, VMWare


Natalie Lamb: Director commerce, UK and Ireland, IBM


Jacquie Rees: National business development manager, Unipart


Holly Hamilton: Senior business development manager, Clarify


Rebecca Sewell: Head of talent acquisition, Clarify


Victoria McQuade: Head of communications, Clarify


Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj: Co-founder of Boardwalk Leadership


As co-founder of Boardwalk Leadership, which provides training and research consultancy in gender diversity and inclusion, Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj works extensively in the field of women’s leadership in business. She sits on the advisory boards for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship in the House of Lords and is also an associate professor at Henley Business School, where she previously established the Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship. Dr Janjuha-Jivraj has just completed a policy report on Women in Leadership across the Commonwealth countries.


Lined up to debate: the Roundtable team Alison Dewar reports the Roundtable highlights


What are the enablers and inhibitors which make women’s careers flourish?


Xerox’s Emma Braithwaite believes sometimes women can “inhibit themselves”, explaining that when a woman looks at a job specification, she is more likely to focus on the 30% of the role she can’t do, rather than the 70% she can. In that way, women will talk themselves out of a promotion.


Rebecca Sewell, Clarify’s own head of talent acquisition, commented that when she asks women to reflect back on an interview situation, in nine out of 10 cases women will mention the negatives, whereas men will focus on the positives.


IBM’s Natalie Lamb said the environment that people are brought up in and the behavioural stereotypes they have experienced are key factors. As someone who regularly mentors graduates she believes attitudes to risk and the levels of confidence are important.


“You can change the way you behave and www.businessmag.co.uk


operate. From my mentoring I know it’s all about how confident people feel about themselves, and male and females adopt different perspectives to it. Women think they can do it and men will say I want to give it a go. Confidence and risk plays a big part in our abilities to adapt to a role.”


Fear of failure was a concern for Claire Edmunds, who spoke of junior managers who were often worried about taking on additional responsibilities: “They are nervous of doing things wrong so fear of failure becomes an inhibitor. Once people are given the encouragement to take risks and they give themselves permission to make mistakes, they can fly.”


When companies say they encourage innovation, do you see that panning out across the organisation?


Edmunds said it is down to managers and mentors: “Where do you go to get someone to say ‘try it?’.” It is difficult for women to say that to themselves, it is


Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj


very much about the environment you are operating in.”


Lamb said the size of the company was also important, pointing out that she had started life in a small start-up which was then acquired by IBM. “I am my own worst critic,” she said. “You have to have the confidence to say ‘I am doing all I can’.”


Picking up the mentoring theme, Lamb added that the advice she gives to graduates


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JULY/AUGUST 2015


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