Women in the technology workforce
Women in the technology workforce have more power to influence their intuitive strengths and innovative ideas when they are heard. Unfortunately many women in the workforce remain quiet and unheard as they are fear driven into their gender stereotypes. With roughly 10% of CEO roles that are made up of women it’s clear there’s a huge gap that we must continue to fill. Imagine the impact of more women in leadership
That is why my guest today, Caroline Schiff is very passionate about creating a space for women to practice mindfulness and provide a group of women to mentor one another in a safe and unapologetic environment.
That is why I’m proud to introduce my guest in today’s episode, Caroline Schiff. A woman of allyship, supporting and elevating other women in the tech and educational industries.
Caroline teaches us that, even when we feel outside of our comfort zone or under pressure, that it’s important to stay true to our core spiritually; of who we are and what we can bring to the table and that seeking support from other women can be so crucial in the manifestation of our success.
She believes that her purpose is to elevate women by building communities and forums where individuals can form authentic connections and lift each other up. She currently leads Chicago's marketing and partnership at General Assembly, which is an education company that provides dynamic training to close the skill and gaps.
Caroline is an expert in marketing, in a technology industry but she also has a
spiritual practice. She believes in meditation and mindfulness and how that's she has really been guided in her work and how she shows up today. So I want to talk about how fascinating this is. When you think about technology,
and when you think about spiritualism, they seem so disconnected. But actually, there's quite an overlap between everything that's within that, and specifically focusing on like women that are in technology, that there's always a disparity around how much of you know, the mind block there is about the scarcity of women, and the scarcity mindset of women in technology. But before we get into more juicy details of this podcast, let’s hear a little from Caroline about what led her into, you know, wanting to elevate women and building communities for them.
“I realized I wanted to be a part of changing the narrative...So I think my work really began when I started at my current company, General Assembly, and actually thought it was like my third or fourth day on the job I attended with our women in tech breakfast. This is my first experience at this event,
which I've now been leading for over 3 years now. And it was, I think that's my first impression of it, it was just a very welcoming community. And everyone was very excited to be there. It was a smaller community, I think there were probably 30 or 40 people held at a coffee shop in downtown Chicago. And the notice there was a vulnerability and an openness among the speakers that were sharing their stories. And there was something so unique and different about my previous work experience, I worked with a lot of men and it was very like the book. And I come from an advertising background, I worked at a large agency and then moved into a more traditional food company. And so it was really cool to kind of blend my personal and professional interests. And so that was my first exposure to this community at the General Assembly, and then stepping into the classroom. So General Assembly is a technology education company. And we essentially provide various learning opportunities for adults that are looking to pivot careers. So we're running multiple 12 week courses at a time and across user experience design, software engineering and data science. And it was very clear to me that there was a gender disparity in our software engineering and our data science courses, which are a lot more technical than the design piece. And this was a little, I think, alarming to me. And I realized I wanted to be a part of changing the narrative. I wanted to understand why more women weren't enrolling in these courses, when there was such a high demand on the employer side. And so taking those two experiences. And I later I think five or six months later started owning these women in tech breakfast and really wanted to grow the community and wanted to bring awareness to our two organizations and individuals about the work that we were doing and why it was so impactful to get women involved into kind of close this gender gap in the tech space. So that's kind of when my work began. The event has transformed tremendously. And pre COVID days, we were hosting this event in various locations across Chicago. So co working spaces and incubators and employer spaces. So we were selling out at like 200 registrations 300 registrations per event. And there's just like magic that happened. “ - Caroline Schiff
Caroline’s story is truly inspiring, as she has so much experience to share with women in the corporate world. Be sure to tune into this podcast, Episode 10 as I guarantee you won’t want to miss out in hearing more about:
● Developing a platform that connects employers with more diverse talent
● Ways that women can create allyship
● Connecting with mindfulness to overcome your fears
● How meditation can guide your professional perspective
● How empathy drives empowerment
Thank you for your continued support - Payal Beri
