Talent Innovation Summit – Women Tech Council

Dialogues, Advocates Key in Creating Diverse Company Culture

To create real workplace diversity and equality, dialogues and champions are key, said panelists at the Women’s Tech Council Talent Innovation Summit Tuesday.

While there are many reasons for companies to strive for diversity in the workplace, one is something that virtually every business is always working towards: the bottom line.

“We don’t think about gender because it’s gender—we think about gender in terms of teams,” said Cydni Tetro, co-founder and executive director of the Women’s Tech Council. “There are massive numbers of studies that will tell you teams perform better financially when they have women on that, and they’ve tracked that for many years.”

The Women’s Tech Council has been working to deepen the research and knowledge […]

Kristin Wright2017-05-03T19:44:26-07:00

Recap: Talent Innovation Summit.

We’ve all heard about the serious dearth of women in tech roles. At Google, for example, women make up 30% of the company’s workforce, but hold 17 percent of the company’s tech jobs. At Facebook, women fill 15 percent of tech roles. At Twitter, it’s just 10 percent.

Worse yet, women stand to gain one new STEM job for every 20 that are lost in other disrupted industries.

But how do we close the tech industry gender gap? Last week’s inaugural Talent Innovation Summit, sponsored by the Women Tech Council and held at Adobe’s Utah office, aimed to get the conversation started. Senior executives, HR personnel, business leaders, and a standing-room-only crowd gathered to discuss […]

Kristin Wright2017-04-12T05:20:09-07:00

MX Attends Women Tech Council Talent Innovation Summit

Hiring and diversity was the focus of the Women in Technology Council’s first Talent Innovation Summit. We had the opportunity to be in attendance with so many successful women in tech and it was truly an impactful morning. The last panel of the event featured four women from top companies in the area. Jill Layfield, former CEO of Backcountry, led the panel with Dianne Rivera (Goldman Sachs), Denise Leleux (eBay), and Alison Lutjemeier (Adobe). The panel shared great ideas for innovative recruiting and maintaining diversity. Some of their tips include:

1. Have women on your recruiting board.
2. Remove all unconscious bias by educating your employees
3. Set up a diverse slate of candidates, […]

Kristin Wright2017-04-12T05:31:59-07:00

New summit striving to address problems for women in Utah tech companies

“Starting the conversation” was the point of the Women Tech Council’s first Talent Innovation Summit Wednesday.

“If we don’t have the conversation, nothing changes,” said WTC president and co-founder Cydni Tetro.

Senior executives, human resources personnel, and business leaders filled Adobe’s Alpha Bravo gym to capacity Wednesday to discuss how to recruit and retain women in local technology companies. Because it was the WTC’s first try at a summit of this size and breadth, the goal was to bring in some top leaders to start the conversation, and present their ideas on what has worked and what hasn’t.

Kristin Wright2017-04-12T05:38:17-07:00