Hey everyone. Um Welcome to this uh this session on the getting more women into tech leadership. Uh I'm excited to see you all here. Um So, yeah, for me, it's uh it's in the, it's right afternoon, but I think uh people are here from all over the world.So happy morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are. Um All right. So uh before I get into the content a little bit about myself, uh my name is Su Hilter Beno dot uh I'm from Iceland. I'm 29 years old. Um And I have a master's in computer science and I am a tech lead and backend developer at Picnic. Uh Now picnic is a, is a Dutch company, uh former start up and current scale up. Um Picnic is as my colleague likes to explain it, a tech company that just happens to deliver groceries. Um We are an extremely data driven uh company and we try to develop as much as we can in-house. Now, Picnic has grown immensely since it was founded in 2015 when I started in, in 2019. There were around 70 people in the tech team. Um And now we are a team of more than 200 growing. So when I began my journey, there were only three women in the tech leadership uh yeah, in tech leadership positions at Picnic. Um And that did not really change until fairly recently.

Uh while the share of women in the in the non lead positions uh was was still growing and is now uh a bit under the, the, yeah, the industry average of 20% in the Netherlands. Um So today, I want to talk a bit about what picnic has done. Uh And what other companies can do to get more women into tech leadership. Um And I'll also share a bit about my experience of uh breaking through the glass ceiling. Now, a bit about this metaphor of the glass ceiling. Um So it's often used to describe the barrier that stops women from reaching leadership positions, whether that is in tech, in organizations in general, in politics, whatever. Um However, I find this metaphor a bit flawed. Uh First of all, the barrier of gender inequality isn't just this one big thing that we can, you know, break through or get rid of. Um There are so many different factors that cause share of women in leadership to be low, not just men going, you know, men in burdens go. Now we're not gonna promote this woman because she's a woman. Um Of course, that does sometimes still happen unfortunately. But um you know, uh usually it, it, it's not like that. Um And even if you do manage to break through, um you know, we can't just like dust our hands. It's a, you know, uh gender inequality fixed now I'm ceo uh feminism is no longer needed.

Um And secondly, uh the presentation of it being this barrier that you have to break through it kind of sends the message that only some, those who are strong enough, those who are good enough and smart enough can actually break through it, which can be demoralizing because it makes you feel like it's, it's pointless maybe to even try because you could just be banging your head against the ceiling for your entire life and never really breaking through.

Um So in the 2007 article, Women and the Labyrinth of leadership, uh which I really like um eagle and Carly present a revised metaphor uh instead of the single barrier of a glass ceiling that must be broken to get through. Um They describe the path to leadership as uh traversing through a labyrinth. So it has twists and turns, it has dead ends that force you to retract your steps and try again. Um And the labyrinth can be different for each person depending on factors such as yeah, gender identity, but also skin color or sexuality. Um It requires skill to traverse the labyrinth. Um But most of all it requires perseverance to reach the center. Now, I'd like to extend the metaphor even further than they did. Um Now, those of you who are as interested in Greek mythology as I am, uh might recall the story of the labyrinth of Crete. Um It was designed by the inventor Daus to house the monstrous minotaur. Um And the hero Theseus was tasked with navigating the labyrinth in order to kill the minotaur. Now, essentially, there are three ways of navigating a labyrinth. You know, you can just go ahead, try it, just trial and error, try whatever happens. Um Go it alone. Uh You can follow the example of someone else, follow hints and, and get advice from someone else and we can redesign the labyrinth.

So I wanna talk now a bit about how these three different approaches apply to me and what I and others at picnic are trying to do to help others get to the center of the maze. Um So the first one obviously just going for it, trial and error, going it alone. Um You try out the different path, you try to persevere when you hit dead ends and you keep track of your progress. Um This is possible but it is very time consuming. It's hard and it can be emotionally draining to constantly hit the barriers, constantly hit the dead ends. Um And even if you do make it, uh you could run into the biggest challenge of the labyrinth, which is the Minotaur. And uh for the sake of the metaphor, we can pretend that the minotaur symbolizes, you know, the middle aged white ceo who just bullies women out of his company because he doesn't believe that they can handle leadership. So thankfully, this path was not the one that I had to take. I haven't run into any scary minotaur. Um And I did not have to go it alone, which brings me to the second point. Now in the original myth of uh of the labyrinth, Theseus was assisted by the princess Ariane. Uh She gave him a ball of string that he could unravel as he went through the maze and then he could follow the string on his way back.

Now, we, those of us who have come a bit further and are on our way to leadership. We can be Ariane and we can leave behind the string for others to follow. Uh which means that uh we can share what has helped us, we can share what challenges we face and how we tackle them and we can support each other um as we venture through shouting and encouraging words through the walls. Now, this was the biggest thing that helped me personally. Um I had an incredibly supportive mentor, an amazing tech lead and a colleague and a friend who was going through the same process as I was. Uh and they were all women. Um Each of them provided their help in different ways. They listened to my worries and anxieties. They gave me advice and guidance and they celebrated my successes. I would truly not be where I am today without their help. And I want to provide this kind of help to anyone else who needs it. Um Now, companies can foster this kind of support through effective mentorship programs. This is what we have a technic. We, I was assigned this uh this amazing mentor in my first six months at Picnic and she's been here with me now and supports me at every step in my career.

Um And then we can uh enable the women in our teams to connect with each other and share experiences. And of course, when you do have women in leadership positions, you can celeb celebrate them, you can empower them and encourage them to, to help others. Uh So at picnic, we have this group, we call the Picnic Tech ladies uh where we host sessions on topics such as imposter syndrome burnout. And then of course, tech leadership uh where the women in the leadership positions can share their experiences and advice and therefore inspire the rest of us. Uh Now, the final point I want to make here is that we can also just redesign the labyrinth because it really shouldn't have to be so convoluted when the path to leadership for men is sometimes just like a straight hallway that's incredibly unfair and it shouldn't have to be that way.

So those who have the power. Those who design the labyrinth, they should break down walls, they should simplify the routes and they should make it easier for anyone who wants to reach the center. And of course, we should get rid of the Minotaur as soon as possible, or at least educate him one way. It's not nice to eat people. Um, so how can we actually do this, uh, companies first need to investigate what the barriers exactly are, is it unclear expectations or unclear progression uh opportunities? Is it imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence? Maybe it's lack of support for working mothers or lack of mentorship and support in general. Um Without this data, it's really hard to decide what to actually do about the problem. So at picnic, we ran a survey among the picnic tech ladies and we asked them exactly what is it that is holding you back? Um uh And what we discovered was that for many, it was a perceived lack of technological skills that they listed. Um It was hindering them for going for my position, the position of tech lead. Um And this is really understandable as the name I kind of implies a need for, for technical expertise.

And plus uh people often they have the wrong idea about what their own leads actually do and how much they know. All they know is that this is the person that I ask questions to and I get answers. So it's hard to imagine yourself in that position of having to answer other people's questions. Um So what we can do about this kind of problem is to make sure that the expectations for the role are incredibly clear, what are the skills needed and what are the responsibilities involved? Um As it turns out, the tech lead role at technic requires quite a lot of people, skills, communication, skills and organizational skills. And according to the survey, we ran, those were a much smaller concern than tech skills. But we like, not all of the women realized that that was still like, OK, you could, you could make up for your lack of tech skills by being an am amazing people manager, for example. So another issue is uh an opaque promotion process, promotion process. If you have no idea where to even start on your journey, you're obviously not going to get far into the labyrinth. Uh Now at picnic, we implemented a transparent and structured application process where we advertise open positions.

We ask candidates to write a motivation letter and we run them through uh three interviews with clear evaluation criteria. This not only made the process more visible and that selection more fair and less susceptible to bias. But it also gave me the confidence that after going through this uh really rigorous process, I had the confidence that I really earned my position, which alleviated my imposter syndrome. Now, in general, if imposter syndrome or lack of confidence is the cause. The company can also address this with mentorship programs, trainings and mental health support. Um Picnic also provides that we have a collaboration with uh open up, which is uh yeah, where we can get free psychological uh support session therapy sessions whenever we need it.

Um Now, if, if if lack of role models at the company is the cause, the company can remedy this by for example, inviting inspiring leaders from other companies in the industry to come talk to their employees. Um If it's a lack of support for working mothers, then you can introduce policies that provide the support, you can uh introduce flexible hours, equal parental leave, you know, working from home, all those kinds of policies, they help out a lot. Um And finally, if it's um yeah, if it's just uh a lack of confidence or, or lack of mentorship, you can implement a mentorship program again or or again, one of those sessions where you can share experiences and like have the solidarity and trust that you can, you have people who, who you can reach out to for help.

Um So to, to wrap this up. Um I think uh my final words is that gender inequality is not a problem that can be solved just one individual at a time. Yes, women can achieve the same positions as men in an unequal system by persevering and using all their skills and leveraging whatever privilege they have, but they shouldn't have to do so much more than men to achieve the same. Anyone who inspires to leadership should be able to take the same route, have the same opportunities and support and be able to achieve the same goal in a similar time. And to do that, we really need to analyze what barriers exist, how they affect people differently and then address those issues by removing those barriers and that is what we aim to do at picnic. Thank you very much. Uh Thank you. Thank you so much for all the clubs and the support in chat. Um, really happy to see this. Um, I was quite stressed for this and I only finished my slides this morning. But, uh, so I'm, I'm, I'm really glad, glad to see. Um Yep. So now, uh, if there are any, any questions, feel free to ask them in the chat.

Um, but if not, you could, uh, yeah, you can reach out to me on linkedin if you have anything that you, that you don't want to share with a bigger group that you just wanna ask me personally. Um, and, uh, yeah, check out picnic. We have a lot of open positions and I would really, really love to hire more women. We already have some amazing women at the company. But, uh, but I mean, I'm always happy to have more, right? I haven't seen any, any questions in the chat, but, uh, Yeah, again, thanks everyone so much for this. All right, I have one question here. What is your current biggest leadership challenge? Um So for me, basically, I, I was in a, I was in a separate uh team and then I applied to be a tech lead in a completely different team which had a slightly different tech, tech, but of course, uh completely different product. So at least in my first months um uh yeah, like the biggest challenge was that it was just this really, really new domain that I had to learn so much about. It was really challenging that uh like I was being asked questions that I really didn't know the answer to. Um And then I think what, what is uh important to know about this?

What I said that uh like you, you see your lead and you ask them questions and they come back to you with the answer, but you don't always see that maybe they actually went and asked someone else or maybe they thought about it, maybe they googled it, who knows? Um But it's really, it's OK to not know all the answers to all of the questions. Um And I think in fact, it's, it's better if everyone is, is more open about it. Also people in leadership positions open about saying, I don't know, but I will look it up for you or I don't know but you can ask this person. So uh yeah, I think that's, that has been my biggest challenge. Um Then I see there's also a question in the Q and A um has the labyrinth changed in your career path so far or is it yet to become more clear? Um So for me, yeah, so I, as I said, I had this um I had the support from my, my mentor and my, my lead and my colleague uh which helped me a lot. Um But I think, I mean, there's always things that can be improved. For example, at picnic, we are working on. Um for example, that, that currently at picnic, it seems like the only way to progress is to go into a tech lead or maybe a product owner position.

But we do also want to promote people who maybe don't necessarily want to be in a management position, but do still want to uh progress somewhere. And then we are working on uh these like two separate path, which is then the expert path. And I think that is one thing that can help a bit because then like it makes it more clear what are the paths that are available to you. And then we can also alongside that, like, make it really clear what are the differences between those two roles. Um Because if, if a tech position is the only role that you see available that also makes you think, well, if I'm gonna be a like uh a tech tech expert is the one that goes to this path. So I need to be a tech expert to go to this path. But when you have that separation, it also makes it a lot clearer. I hope that answers your question. Um And then a question, how do you see balance? Uh Yeah, balancing our life and work in a scenario, more aggressive about results. Um So yeah, I don't know. I, my personal philosophy is just, I work from 9 to 5 every day and I stop at five, I close my laptop at five. sometimes I, uh, yeah, sometimes I do need to uh uh do something extra but then it's really like, uh an exceptional thing and I try not to make it a regular thing. I try to always just stop at five.

so even if, if, yeah, the company is aggressive about results. If they're pushing you to do more than what you are paid to do, that is either, uh, like a sign for you to talk to someone about, hey, you know, this is not ok, or maybe time for you to look into, maybe I should move to a company that is, that fits my pace a lot better because some people do enjoy working in the evening and working overtime and that's fine, but it's not for everyone.

Um, oh, and then I see there's a question specifically about picnic. Um, we, so we mostly try to hire full time employees, but we do also hire external advisors sometimes um and for international candidates. Um usually picnic. Um Well, we do like, we do want everyone to eventually uh move to, to pick uh sorry to the Netherlands. So like fully remote roles are not really available. But there are, there is a lot of flexibility in that. Uh you know, you don't have to move right away. A lot of people work uh from their home country for part of the year and then part of the year in the Netherlands. So that, yeah, but that can be negotiated with a, with a recruiter. Um I think we're all almost at the end. Um I don't see any more questions, but uh again, thanks everyone so much for watching. It was really, really amazing. Um I think, yes. So my, my linkedin is in my profile, but I'll also share it um in the chat so I can find it and through my linkedin, you can also check out the, the linkedin of Picnic. Um If that uh if I manage to sell you on, on my company. Ah Yeah. Good point from uh Carolina. She's one of our recruiters. Uh Picnic does support relocation for people outside of the Netherlands. All right. I think uh that about wraps it up. Thank you so much, everyone for joining.

Uh Check out my linkedin, check out the linkedin of Picnic. Um And uh I hope you have a really awesome rest of your conference. Hi, everyone.