More women in tech now will encourage more girls to pursue their own interest in tech (and will therefore enable greater equality).
Join the movement, make yourself heard and spread #WomenInTechNow.
Schibsted wants tech-women NOW!
Name: Miriam Grut Norrby
Position: Investment Manager
Company: Schibsted Growth
How long have you worked there? Since 2012
Country: Sweden
Previous jobs: Facebook, CEO of a SaaS startup, Co-founder of ICT startup and a digital agency, consultant. I’ve spent time as an entrepreneur building digital companies, I’ve done a whole lot of sales and business development and in my current job I invest in companies in various stages and help them grow and scale.
Why should more women take on tech positions?
Having access to a wide range of differentiated opinions, standpoints and perspectives is key when building great companies and great products. Diversity, both in genders and backgrounds enables great ideas, execution and management.
What should we do to get more women interested in tech positions?
Start from a young age, obligatory programming/coding classes in school, tech on the agenda in all educational instances. Etc. Engage women and MEN to drive change.
What do you like the most about working with tech?
All companies are different, including tech companies. Depending on stage and size and the fact that there are technical and non-technical roles within tech companies not all people will have the same experience working within “the tech industry”. Since I usually work with younger and smaller companies, startups, I have a thing for people who uses their technical skills to solve real and big problems, who build and create new things and experiences and have an unconventional way of thinking. Join the right tech company and you could have a huge impact on a lot of people, help drive innovation and progress in society and hopefully help make the world a better place.
Name: Malin Bäcklund
Position: CIO
Company: Schibsted Sverige
How long have you worked there? 4 years
Country: Sweden
Previous jobs: COO (including IT) at Aftonbladet, Vice President at Trema (Software house), Project Manager & Software Engineer at IBM
Why should more women take on tech positions?
We need them to develop good products and solutions to help businesses and society to evolve in the right direction. Women add value to all aspects of the development process; quality, speed and efficiency.
What should we do to get more women interested in tech positions?
We should hire more women in tech positions and in power positions to build role models. Inspire our daughters.
What do you like the most about working with tech?
The possibility to make a big difference. There is a great GAP between “cheap and value adding IT” and “expensive and not well working IT”.
Name: Camilla Bjørn
Position: Product Leader for VGs niche sites Godt, Vektklubb, MinMote and TL;DR
Company: VG
How long have you worked there? 10 years
Country: Norway
Previous jobs: Journalist and head of entertainment
Why should more women take on tech positions?
It may sound as a cliché, but you can change the world! We need more people in tech NOW, especially to prepare for the future. To meet these needs we have to have more women with us. Increasing the percentage of women is likely to attract and open doors for other women and girls. Diversity and gender equality are important factors in order to increase innovation. And not to diminish men’s capacities or women’s interests, but I think there is a lot to gain if women step up the tech game in more female oriented industries as well.
What should we do to get more women interested in tech positions?
A lot! Governments and politicians should to take a clear stand, setting examples like President Obama in the US on the importance of tech and recruitment in their politics, therein also focusing on the gender gap. Big companies must take social responsibility by actively recruiting females to developer positions etc. Women in tech need to stand up and be role models by encouraging others. At an individual level; be fearless, keep an open mind and develop yuorself. Get involved with a tech network and spread #womenintechnow!!
What do you like the most about working with tech?
I came from an editorial background. It helped that I wasn’t afraid to ask elementary (stupid) questions, hehe! I’m loving the agile work methods in tech and the fact that anything is possible, and also to learn new things every day. It’s more fun and uncomplicated than I first thought.
Name: Lidia Oshlyansky
Position: Senior Engineering Manager, User Experience Schibsted Media Group
Company: Schibsted Products and Technology
How long have you worked there? Seven months
Country: Sweden
Previous jobs: UX research manager for Emerging Markets at Google, UX researcher at Nokia, Head of User Experience at Reading Room, Information architect lead T101, User experience design and architecture contracting at what is now LBi and a company called Bunnyfoot …. the list can go on, but this takes us back about 10 years so we’ll stop here.
Why should more women take on tech positions?
The obvious answer for me is that diversity makes for more creative environments – that’s been proven by years of research. The less obvious answer is that we should all be striving towards a future where the gender of the person does not somehow pre-select their chosen profession. Boys should feel happy and secure choosing a career that is a typically “female” profession and girls shouldn’t think twice about choosing careers in typically “male” professions. The point is that professions shouldn’t have some sort of gender bias attached to them – ever.
What should we do to get more women interested in tech positions?
This is a complex question. I think it starts with education and ends with hiring practices. It includes everything in between from the way that media portray women to how we reinforce education and how we encourage our kids at home. As a mother I’ve become very conscious of how much goes into raising and educating children and how much of that is outside my control, but also how much I can do to help my child see potential.
What do you like the most about working with tech?
I love how quickly things move; it’s never boring. I love how what we build ends up in people’s daily lives and, hopefully, makes those lives a little easier, more fun, more productive. I also love how technology can transform lives and make them better.
Name: Anette Mellbye
Position: CEO
Company: Aftenposten Mobil
How long have you worked there? Since Aftenposten Mobil was formed in January 2013.
Country: Norway
Previous jobs: Management trainee in Schibsted Media Group, project manager, journalist, research manager, editorial manger, development editor
Why should more women take on tech positions?
First, because I think that diversity leads to better solutions and products; monoculture is bad for business. Second, because technology has begun to permeate every industry. Before, we talked about the tech industry; now we see that industries which previously concerned themselves very little with technology are being affected and turned upside down. Look at the energy industry and Nest; look at the taxi industry and Uber; look at what’s going on in education and health. They’re all in the software industry, and tech expertise has become vital at every stage, whether it’s about developing a product, distributing it, or marketing it. Essentially, all jobs are tech jobs. Take marketing as an example. Before, we talked about TV advertising; now, we talk about growth hacking.
What should we do to get more women interested in tech positions?
I think it’s important to highlight all the areas where the role of technology and digitization is growing. Technology is everywhere, and we need to be involved in creating new opportunities in society.
I also think we need to start early, in the schools: teaching math with Dragonbox and giving coding courses in after-school programs, for example.
What do you like the most about working with tech?
I like the possibilities, the potential that lies in it, the constant search for better, more relevant and friction-free user experiences and products. If we deliver on convenience, we have succeeded– but to that we need to understand users and technology at every stage. I try to remind myself that what people want is convenience, not technology. Tech has also become exciting because it’s far more diverse than before; it covers more disciplines now.
Name: Galina Shubina
Position: Tech Lead for Data & Analytics
Company: Schibsted Product & Technology
How long have you worked there? 9 months
Country: Sweden
Previous jobs: Google
Why should more women take on tech positions?
Because we need to develop products that cater to more than 50% of the world’s population. Because technical positions are interesting, challenging, and in many ways provide great personal growth opportunities.
What should we do to get more women interested in tech positions?
Engage more with women at different levels in their studies and careers, mentorship of women by women, creating friendly and truly meritocratic environments.
What do you like the most about working with tech?
The three main things for me are constant learning, ability to deliver changes that affect millions of users in their daily lives, making sense of lots and lots of data.