Inside Outside Innovation

In this episode, Brian Ardinger talks with Doug Branson about his new book The Future of Tech is Women: How to Achieve Gender Diversity.  Brian and Doug start the conversation by looking at trends in the market. Doug outlines the history of women in senior corporate positions. Of the 70 women that have been CEOs of publicly held companies, 70% have MBAs. Of the 27 women that have held exec positions in IT companies (out of 600), two have STEM backgrounds and 25 have business or law backgrounds. Doug believes the current emphasis on STEM for women produces lopsided experience. It won’t take women higher in the company. They also need business and marketing backgrounds. The IT industry, Doug suggests, is the worst of all industries for representing females. In Silicon Valley, the men they bring in, to fill the middle-level ranks using H1B visas, crowds women and minorities out and prevents them from rising in these environments.  Doug’s book, The Future of Tech is Women, is about how industries can generall