Latest news with #GirlsWhoCode
Forbes
25-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Hiring For Potential: Why Attitude Still Trumps Experience
Young businesswoman wearing pink blazer and glasses giving thumbs up Reshma Saujani founded Girls Who Code in 2012. On paper, you'd expect her to have a deep background in tech: a computer science degree, or perhaps years working in software engineering. But look closer, and you'll find something else entirely. Saujani studied political science and law. She built her career in legal and political activism, not technology. It wasn't until she ran for U.S. Congress—the first Indian American woman to do so—that a stark gap came into focus. On the campaign trail in 2009, visiting schools in the Bronx and Queens, Saujani noticed something striking: almost no girls in computer science classrooms. So, she did what great leaders do: she spotted a problem and built a solution. Saujani didn't need to code. She needed to lead. And that's exactly what she did. She used her voice, her policy background, and her storytelling skills to build a movement. And in doing so, she helped hundreds of thousands of girls reimagine their professional futures. What Saujani's story shows is this: expertise isn't always what it looks like on a resume. Leadership doesn't always come with the 'right' credentials. And that's exactly why skills-based hiring—while smart—can't be the whole story. Two-thirds of employers now say they use it to guide decisions. Experience might be trendy. But character still wins. It's a lot easier to teach someone how to use AI than it is to teach them to show up with curiosity, initiative, and drive. That's the problem: we've developed hiring systems that reward polish over potential. Asking for five years of experience using a tool that's only existed for two doesn't just send the wrong signal. It sends the wrong people away. These systems are not just unrealistic; they're exclusionary. And they're part of the reason entry-level jobs are quietly disappearing. The result? Candidates stretch for roles they're overqualified for, while the ones they're actually right for go unfilled. Great people get passed over because they didn't go to the 'right' school or intern at the 'right' company. And the cycle of inequity repeats over and over, especially for people who were never invited into those rooms to begin with. Hiring 'safe' can feel comforting. But it often leads to underwhelming results. If you only hire for what someone's already done, you pass over the people who can grow with you. There's a better way. Stop padding job descriptions with laundry lists of software and skills. Start focusing on traits like adaptability, curiosity, coachability, and a growth mindset. This is what it means and how it looks to hire for potential. These qualities are much harder to teach than technical skills. And to uncover them, your interview questions must go deeper, beyond surface-level answers and into moments of reflection and growth. Try thoughtful questions such as: These types of prompts surface how a candidate thinks, adapts, and learns. That's where the real potential lives. Hiring for potential isn't soft; it's smart. High-potential hires often ramp up faster than expected, stay with a company longer because they see growth ahead, and help build strong, resilient cultures from the inside out. Take Menlo Innovations, a software design and development firm. Instead of relying solely on resumes, they put applicants through real-world challenges that mimic the workday and pair up candidates on paper-based tasks that reflect daily responsibilities. Those who support their partner and collaborate effectively move forward in the hiring process. And it's not just Silicon Valley tech firms. Big consulting players like Bain & Company use online assessments to evaluate a candidate's situational awareness, numerical and verbal aptitude, and logical reasoning before a technical interview is even scheduled. They're not just hiring what someone knows; they're hiring how someone thinks. When you're championing a candidate who doesn't check all of the conventional boxes, help leadership see the long view. Reframe it as a long-term investment, not a short-term plug. Point to past hires where you made a similar bet and it paid off. Highlight how this candidate's mindset or learning velocity aligns with real business needs. Be specific. Tie it to outcomes, not job titles. Because here's the truth: the strongest teams aren't built by playing it safe. They're built by taking smart, strategic risks on people with the drive to grow into the work and beyond it. You're not just filling roles. You're shaping the future of your team. A team that can stretch, adapt, and evolve alongside your company. When in doubt, hire the human, not the resume.
Newsweek
18-07-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Why Are So Few Women in Tech Leadership?
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Reaching equitable gender representation has remained an elusive challenge in the tech world. Despite decades of promises to make the world a better place and democratize opportunity, the tech establishment and its investors have not delivered. Just 3 percent of venture capital investment in 2024 went to solely women-owned businesses, and just 26 percent of the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index CTO or CIO positions are held by women, according to a 2024 analysis by Russell Reynolds Associates. "The main issue, I think, is unconscious bias," Francine Gordon, management professor at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business, told Newsweek. "I think that has a lot to do with why women in tech tend to leave. ... They don't see upward mobility, and a lot of that is because of unconscious bias." She added that these biases affect key career moments such as hiring, performance reviews, promotion conversations, leadership searches and investor pitches. The tech industry has long viewed itself as different from the business titans of yesteryear. After the dot-com boom and bust, optimism soared around the ability to rapidly share information and work more productively, thanks to software, the cloud and, later, augmented or virtual reality, machine-learning and generative AI. This optimism drove heavy investments and high salaries and birthed a new culture, headquartered in Silicon Valley, with profits soaring as the world evolved from analog to digital. With great profits came job security, prestige and hefty compensation packages, driving glamorization of STEM fields to students and early-career professionals. But it has also driven exclusivity. Alongside this push, women were encouraged into science and technology fields, through programs like Girls Who Code, or into entrepreneurship, by funds like Anu Duggal's Female Founders Fund or Jesse Draper's Halogen Ventures, but those efforts have been overshadowed by a persistent inequity driven by societal, organizational and financial pressures, according to recent research. Larger workforce inequality in tech and startups and tech's failure to be a meritocracy play strong roles in the lack of gender equity and female leadership in tech. Larger workforce inequality in tech and startups and tech's failure to be a meritocracy play strong roles in the lack of gender equity and female leadership in tech. Newsweek Illustration/Canva/Getty A 2024 survey of women working in tech by Web Summit found that 50 percent of women reported experiencing sexism in the workplace, while half of women (49 percent) also feel pressured to choose between family and career. "Respondents identified unconscious gender bias, balancing career and personal life, the scarcity of female role models, imposter syndrome, lack of support networks, and difficulties in funding as their most significant challenges," the report stated. Institutional Bias and Support After completing her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at Yale, Gordon was part of the first "wave" of two female faculty members at Stanford University's business school. When they started in 1972, she said, it was a "very hostile environment," adding that her lone female colleague, Myra Strober, had people walking out of her classes because they didn't want to be taught by a woman or hear women's ideas. Gordon also recalled that office secretaries had to be reassigned because some didn't want to work for her, highlighting how even women can internalize bias. Through the struggle, she learned the importance of friends and allies at work. "I don't think people meant it to be hostile, but it really was. [Strober] and I became very good friends," Gordon said. "If you're the only one, it's very hard to succeed. Everybody's watching you, and you also have the sense of, "If I don't do well, everybody's going to think all women are bad." Gordon later worked in management roles at Pacific Bell, Ungermann-Bass and Boston Consulting Group before starting a consulting firm called Womennovation. She emphasized the importance of mentorship and sponsorship in the advancement of women's careers in tech. An article in a 1992 issue of Stanford Business magazine quotes Strober saying that with a supportive dean in place at the school, "[women] began to apply in large numbers. ... It was difficult for many of our male colleagues to understand that we were the beginning of a social revolution. I'm not sure that we understood it ourselves!" Gordon notes that "things are much better now," though a slight reversal has occurred over the last few years, amid a new presidential administration and its high-profile collaborations with the tech industry. "People are more resentful of women who have advanced," she adds, noting that DEI has come under a microscope as part of a multiyear advocacy movement. "There's been an increase in attacks on people who are different, and it's really widespread. Everyone thinks California is so liberal; we have a lot of hate groups here, too, and I think it's been encouraged to some extent." Gordon also mentioned concern around seeing well-known leaders making public commentary that is anti-woman, anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ, contributing to a culture that skews toward labeling anyone in an out-group as inherently unqualified. Melissa Faulkner, CIO at the global construction company Skanska, points to strong mentorship and a culture of diverse leadership that allowed her to reach the CIO post in 2021. "I've been fortunate to have a lot of incredible mentors during my time here at Skanska and even previously," Faulkner told Newsweek. "We're a servant leadership company. We have a lot of empathy and are really focused on empowering teams." Faulkner also noted her company's strong female presence in leadership as an indicator of an inclusive culture. "Our executive leadership team is made up of more than 50 percent women. ... We have strategic operational leadership, where there's women running our business and running P&L. So I do feel like Skanska is a place to be celebrated for how women have been able to stand in leadership positions." Tracking the Data Without proper measurement, many companies are likely to be in the dark about the state of gender equity within their own companies. Financial consulting firm Grant Thornton has recommended tracking turnover data by gender, finding in 2024 that just 22 percent of tech companies do so, and keeping close tabs on pay equity as well. However, representation itself should not be the lone goal, as Mary A. Armstrong and Susan L. Averett, professors at Lafayette College, wrote in a paper that bore the book Disparate Measures: The Intersectional Economics of Women in STEM Work. "They're partial solutions," Armstrong said in an interview on a New Books Network podcast. "Part of the true lies of STEM is that we let ourselves imagine that opportunity and access or the power of diversity ... [are] complete solutions, but they're not. They're only partial solutions. They matter, but they don't correct the larger system that disadvantages women in the labor force, including in the STEM and STEM-related workforce." Disparate Measures also asserts that it is a myth that women do not seek STEM roles or leadership and that by simply encouraging them to enter the utopian techno-meritocracy that lives in the minds of tech investors and leaders, we can meaningfully address gender equality. Faulkner shared a similar thought as well. "We've always been interested in technology, but now there's a visibility component where there wasn't before," she said. Faulkner also noted that it wasn't as much about knowledge or access as it was those early STEM environments, such as science and math classes and extracurriculars in school as well as entry-level jobs. "Knowing that's a role and a place that they can have a career starts really early in education. ... For so long, it really wasn't a very inclusive environment where women who were interested were welcomed, if you will, into technology. That has really changed a lot, but it starts early on," she said. Armstrong and Averett's book highlights, among other challenges, difficulties in finding reliable data across time, the lack of parental support in the United States and unequal treatment of women as well as immigrants and people of color as the vectors for ongoing inequality in STEM. "Often we discuss STEM jobs as if they are some sort of magic set of occupations that live in the ether and function in a way that is entirely distinct from the rest of the labor force," Armstrong, a gender studies professor, said. "We are perhaps in a habit of pretending that STEM work is not wired into all the other systems of inequality that shape society. [But] STEM work is not exempt from these dynamics." The category of STEM-related work—roles like nurse or health care technician that require high levels of skill and certification but are not considered "core STEM" roles like those in engineering—Armstrong and Averett note, has strong female representation but is also correlated to lower earning potential, effectively segmenting women out of the higher-earning fields. "[STEM-related jobs] are diverse in training and technical demands, but they're often omitted from policy research discussions," Averett, an economics professor, said. "It turns out women in STEM-related work are potentially concentrated in lower-paid roles, which reflects persistent patterns of occupational segregation." So, while many of the issues of inequality persistent in tech are persistent in society writ large, the tech industry benefits from certain protections—such as idealism and sky-high profits—that have allowed it to propagate inequality, both socially and within its workplaces. Unless societal issues are addressed, working in tech or STEM will be like working in any other field, or maybe worse if concentrated power goes unchecked—it's not the utopian meritocracy that many believe it to be.
Business Insider
13-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
How CEOs know when it's time to quit
After more than four decades running Whole Foods, cofounder John Mackey's heart was telling him it was time to go. "It wasn't really exciting any longer," he told Business Insider. When Mackey sold the business to Amazon in 2017, he committed to staying on for five years. Over time, however, struggles with the retail behemoth around culture took a toll, Mackey said. A year before the fifth anniversary of the sale, he told Amazon's higher-ups that he intended to leave. Mackey said another big factor behind his decision was his status as "the last man standing." The colleagues who'd helped him propel the grocer from a single Austin location in 1980 to a natural foods powerhouse had moved on. "Those were the people that I was in the foxholes with," Mackey said. "We shared the triumphs. We mourned together the losses." For CEOs, it can be vexing to grapple with when — and how — to descend from what could be the pinnacle of their careers. Former chiefs sometimes struggle with a loss of identity, leaving behind work they care about, and letting go of big-time perks. BI spoke to a half-dozen execs about how they knew it was time to move on. Their reasons varied, though all said giving up work they loved wasn't always easy. Nevertheless, more CEOs are stepping aside these days, whether by choice or otherwise. Last week, Linda Yaccarino announced she was leaving her job running Elon Musk's social media platform, X, after just two years. The number of CEO changes for S&P 500 companies is on pace to reach 14.6% for the year, according to data from The Conference Board and ESGAUGE. This would mark the highest turnover rate for CEOs since 2001. When it doesn't feel scary Reshma Saujani, who founded the nonprofit Girls Who Code in 2012 to close the gender gap in tech, said leaders should look for the exit when they stop being afraid. "When you walk into work and it doesn't feel scary, you know it's time to go," she told BI. Saujani gave up her CEO role in 2021, in part because she wanted to develop a nonprofit called Moms First, which began as a Girls Who Code initiative. She said her strength is as a startup entrepreneur. That involves figuring out a problem, communicating about it, working to solve it, and building teams. "We were kind of past that point," she said of Girls Who Code. It had gone from being a startup to "basically being a teenager." Saujani said she rejected the advice of friend and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, whom she said told her that most founders shouldn't stay on as directors. Saujani maintains a permanent seat on the board of Girls Who Code. "This is my baby," she said. Rick Hammell's baby was Atlas, a human resources services company he started and ran for nearly nine years until 2023. He said it was hard, but he eventually asked himself whether he was the right person to take Atlas to the next level. "It took a lot of humility, I will say," Hammell told BI. Ultimately, he decided to leave because he found himself spending more time in meetings with his board and investors than with customers. Hammell woke up one day and decided he was done. He left to start Helios, which helps employers manage global workforces, so he could get his "hands dirty again" by building something new. Setting a deadline Even for CEOs who aren't founders, letting go of an all-consuming job can be hard. It was for Bill George, who was CEO at the medical device maker Medtronic until 2001. George said he knew from the start he wanted to be chief for no more than a decade because, with few exceptions, he felt CEOs performed best in their first decade on the job. As his self-imposed deadline drew closer, he said he was unnerved by the thought of letting go. It wasn't just the work or colleagues he'd be leaving. Chiefs who've been on the job longer tend to have more influence than the newbies, George said, and longtime CEOs often get invited to take part in important events, fancy conferences, and White House gatherings. "You start to say, 'Well, why would I give all this up?'" said George, who is now an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. In his final six months or so as CEO, he met regularly with a therapist to prepare for the ultimate hard stop: going from overseeing some 30,000 employees to having a head-spinning amount of free time. "All of a sudden," he said, "it's you, and if you're lucky, a part-time assistant." In the lead up, George said he also reminded himself that he was leaving the company "in good shape." That's similar to what Dave Guilmette, head of the employee-benefits administrator Alight, thought when he left his previous CEO role at a division of the insurance brokerage Aon in 2023. "I had this basic mantra: Try to leave it better than you got it," Guilmette told BI. Life after being the CEO Like George, former Cardinal Health CEO George Barrett knew he wanted to limit his time running the medical products distributor to about a decade so that he'd finish the job with as much energy as he had at the start. "That was really important to me, because I had a pretty strong sense that I wanted to do some things afterwards," Barrett told BI. Stepping down also carved out "opportunity and space" for successors. Barrett said he knew he didn't want to run another big company, in part, because he wanted to teach, mentor, and focus on policy work. He also wanted to spend more time making music, something he'd studied in his youth. In his decades at Whole Foods, Mackey, who has since started the wellness company said he was able to grow the grocer by continually asking, "What does the company most need me to do now?" In 2021, Mackey quizzed himself again and came up with a novel answer: "What the company most needs me to do now is leave."
Technical.ly
02-07-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Which Pittsburgh coding bootcamp is right for you? Search this guide to find out
If you're trying to break into tech but don't have the time or funds for a four-year degree, a coding bootcamp might be more your speed. Bootcamps have been around for over a decade, evolving with the tech landscape. Many are pitched as fast tracks into high-paying tech roles, often requiring little or no prior experience. But with so many options out there, it can be tough to tell which programs are legit and which ones aren't. That's why created this searchable guide to Pittsburgh-area coding bootcamps. It includes key details like application deadlines, costs, time commitments and other factors to help you choose the right fit. Most of the programs listed are geared toward adults and require at least a high school diploma. If you're looking for youth-oriented options, check out STEM Coding Lab, Girls Who Code, Code Galaxy or BootUp PGH at Community Forge. While some bootcamps are free, most require a serious dedication. If that doesn't fit with your full-time job, there are also free online resources where you can start learning the basics at your own pace. You might also consider joining local groups like Code & Coffee Pittsburgh, where you can connect with others in the tech community, ask questions and learn in a more casual, supportive environment. To find out more about bootcamps with structured instruction and the potential to connect with local employers after graduation, keep reading. This list is an update of our 2024 bootcamp guide. Have a suggestion we should add? Reach out to pittsburgh@
Newsweek
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Meghan Markle Podcast Loses in Charts to Her Biggest Critics
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Meghan Markle's podcast was outperformed during its nine-week run by rival shows from staunch critics. The Duchess of Sussex launched Confessions of a Female Founder on April 8 and the final episode dropped on June 3. At its height, Meghan's show hit second place among Apple podcasts but quickly slipped down the charts after the first two episodes while on Spotify it hovered around 21st place. That put it behind some big-name political and debate podcasts from commentators with whom she does not see eye to eye. Meghan Markle listens to the radio through headphones during a visit tot Reprezent 107.3FM at Pop Brixton, in London, England, on January 9, 2018. Meghan Markle listens to the radio through headphones during a visit tot Reprezent 107.3FM at Pop Brixton, in London, England, on January 9, 2018. Dominic Lipinski -Meghan Markle's Position in the Spotify Charts Newsweek reported Confessions came into the Spotify charts at number 24 on April 10 and archived versions of the site show that by April 12 it had dropped out of the top 100 again. By April 14, it was back in at number 21, polling in the same position on several other dates leading to June 7, according versions of the chart list that were archived across April, May and June. The show has since dropped out of the top 100. Meghan's Position in the Apple Podcast Charts Historical Apple chart data is more difficult to recover due to the way the website is set up, with archived versions limited to the top six podcasts only. Confessions did particularly well on Apple after its first episode, which featured Bumble's Whitney Wolfe Herd, dropped on April 8, landing it in second place by April 12 and 13. And its second episode, featuring Reshma Saujani, founder of nonprofit Girls Who Code, also landed Confessions in fifth place on April 15. However, Newsweek has not been able to find record of the podcast returning to the top six beyond that point and news reports recorded it dropping out of the top 200 by April 26. All of which puts it someway behind high-profile rivals and critics of the couple. Tucker Carlson Former Fox News host Carlson consistently came in the top 10 on Spotify throughout this period, usually fifth or seventh, with The Tucker Carlson Show. He has previously said that Piers Morgan losing his job for doubting Meghan's account of suicidal thoughts "was the most insane thing I've ever seen." He added in the January interview with Morgan: "Meghan Markle does not represent Black people in the United States." Candace Owens Candace came in ninth or tenth place in the week's when Meghan's show was at 21st. In January, Owens denounced Meghan and Harry for visiting the L.A. wildfire disaster zone, telling Newsweek in a statement: "I agree with the general public sentiment that Meghan and Harry are inauthentic ambulance chasers." Joe Rogan The Joe Rogan Experience was at the top of the Spotify charts on Monday, and was consistently among the top few shows on both Spotify and Apple throughout the period. Its host has been far less personally critical of the Sussexes than Carlson, Owens and others but Harry and Meghan took aim at him in January 2022, during the COVID-19 era. The couple released a statement via their spokesperson confirming they had been "expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all-too-real consequences of Covid-19 misinformation on its platform." The comment was widely interpreted as a veiled swipe at Rogan, who also appeared to read it that way and hit back during a light-hearted skit on his Netflix comedy special Burn the Boats in August 2024. Rogan joked he wanted to do magic mushrooms with Harry and wait until they kick in before saying: "I'm going to hover over him and say, 'Are you sure vaccines are safe? B****, you're not a scientist!'" Other High-Profile Critics During the weeks in which Confessions was number 21 on Spotify, Meghan outperformed Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly, who are both consistent features of the Spotify and Apple top 100 lists but at times lower down. The fact Meghan's show quickly dropped down the lists, however, will leave hosts like Shapiro and Kelly able to claim a greater degree of consistency. Shapiro gave an interview to Piers Morgan in 2023 in which he said: "They're just the worst. I actually read Prince Harry's awful memoir and the number of things that are obviously not true, and the absolute self-delusion, and arrogant self-delusion..." Kelly regularly criticizes Meghan. For example in 2023, she addressed Prince Harry: "Your wife's a bully. Her former press communications person who worked for both you and your brother, Jason Knauf, is on the record about the bullying she committed against people who were younger than or were less powerful than she was within the palace, who she made cry all the time." Meghan has denied bullying palace staff. Link Lauren, a former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aide, also hit a peak on Apple when his show Spot On first launched on May 12, entering the charts in fifth on May 13. It too subsequently dropped down the list and was positioned at 159th on Monday. Lauren earlier this year said: "Meghan Markle the Duchess of Scamalot just dropped the trailer for her new Netflix show and let me just say it was one of the most out of touch things I've seen in a while. "Most Americans right now, most people in the world, are struggling to put food on the table, they're struggling to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage. Who wants to watch an ex-duchess traipse around her mansion picking flowers?" Both Meghan's two podcast series, Confessions and the 2022 show Archetypes, have opted for limited runs which means they have come and gone in the space of only a few months, never cementing a long-term position in the charts. That may well work for Meghan in terms of the range of commitments she has, including her Netflix contract and online shop, though a longer-term consequence may be that her shows become less embedded in the public imagination as a result. Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page. Do you have a question about Charles and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@ We'd love to hear from you.
