Thank you for having me today. I'm very excited to talk through um my session topic, which was being a woman in a tech heavy job right now.And I'm a director at Pfizer Digital and I know that things have certainly been a little bit wild and, and up and down given the pandemic the last few years. So I'm excited to um have a sense of what's on people's minds other than what folks have uh brought to my attention as well prior to having a session. But again, introducing myself, I'm Jess Romeo. I work with Pfizer Digital. Uh Our group is uh a little over 5000 people uh at Pfizer Global and I'm director of web publishing. And this is a bit different obviously than the session when I can speak uh with people in person. So I'll talk a bit about my expectations of, of kind of who everyone is and and why they're interested in having this conversation from the moment that I was able to, to reach out to try to participate with women tech. I had been approached by a few people um when it was announced that I would be speaking, who were coming back to the job market post pandemic because unfortunately, um, we, we had all heard, of course, probably new people and read that there was a mass exodus of unfortunately, women from the, the job force.

Um, due to many factors, a large factor, I'm sure being the need to suddenly have all your kids back at home that you now needed to help and, and sort of teach from home And that's been quite challenging and folks are now starting to come back to the job market, post pandemic and are interested in technology, perhaps changing their, their career path or folks who were in women who were in technology, um based professions previously looking to rejoin or advance one of the questions that I'm often asked um at my, within Pfizer and within my network is do I need a computer science degree or background to, to work in the tech industry?

And uh I come from a background that's very varied and I do not have a computer science degree, uh which I think is helpful for what I do. But I think the the answer for this particular question is, you know, that it really depends on what type of path you're looking for. Even taking a technical path for, for folks like programmers, developers and computer science, uh scientists, some have a computer science degree sometimes that's not a prerequisite. There are many ways um with which you can explore and learn, um, different languages, uh, and your interests in the technical field that doesn't necessarily need to come along with a computer science degree. There are also a lot of, uh, less technical paths and by that, I mean, not necessarily coding, um, but you could certainly go into, uh, people might like myself, have gone into as well and there's huge demand for those in the industry and I'll talk a bit about that as well. Uh Moving forward and there are definitely alternatives to, to coding and, and roles of that nature, like being a tech manager. Um and being more of a people manager in a, a large dev organization personally, my path in technology was an unconventional one.

I started out with an English literature degree from university. And after graduation, wanted to go be an editor, go right into textbook publishing, which I did. And I was working on um interestingly enough engineering and computer science textbooks uh at the, at the uh publishing house that I was working at. Then I, I moved over to audio books and ebooks. So I think that that was probably my first toe into digital content because we started working with audio books, ebooks, and website, web companions. And um while I was exploring that I was also sort of a confronted with different health care and pharma needs on the website.

And that I think is when I, I made a bit of a shift in my career path, going straight from editorial over to more of a pharma and healthcare interest and doing so worked with agencies that were health care focused to lead some of their development teams, lead some of their creative teams.

Um At one agency, I created a quality assurance team and I have to say with my background in editorial that was extremely helpful uh to be able to bring that Red Pen mentality over to Digital and Pharma. And currently I'm with Pfizer working on platform DEV ops and platform strategies. So I lead a team um it within platform DEV ops that works solely on the web publishing platforms and uh different products within the web publishing um la lateral. So it's been very interesting for me to move from wanting my red pen at all times over to uh being more of a content creator and then um moving into management, less of content and more of people that's focused in digital and web. Um my group right now, uh which I lead is about 50 people or so. And it's within the larger uh Pfizer digital organization. Another question that I was asked prior prior to um the session was regarding life and family. And do those have to come second behind my career? This is a topic that we talk about often um within the US. And uh I'm not sure how often it is it is discussed or, or uh mentioned within the UK but we are fortunate enough to, to uh be able to handle both, um juggle both.

But I think a lot of it depends on uh self advocating and making sure that you're creating non negotiables for yourself when you're looking into a career path, uh particularly with tech, because within uh pfizer digital, we do aim to have a 365 you know, 24 hour, 24 7 mentality.

But we're able to do so because we're globally dispersed even prior to the pandemic, I was able to work in a fashion that I'm, I'm continuing to work in, in the sense that I'm remote uh for the majority of the time my team is, is completely global, the majority of which are in Europe and the UK.

Um So I think that we have, we are able to have the coverage, but we're also able to be flexible with hours that people are working um with any sort of different challenges or certain time off that folks need. Um We've, we've at Pfizer Digital always been very open to um unconventional or nontraditional sort of work schedules. I think that more companies are coming around now post pandemic because they have to be to be competitive, which is great news. I think for everyone, companies are definitely more willing to work with your schedule. I think that over the past 2.5 years with, with um the pandemic and COVID forcing everyone home the importance of work life balance has been um absolutely magnified for everyone. I think people were struggling and trying to balance and burning out of it because folks who are less familiar with working remotely um even subconsciously may have felt like they needed to put in extra time or make sure that they are viewed as uh valued because the work experience was so different than what, what folks were used to.

I don't see us going back, taking a step back from where we are now to pre panem as far as um flexibility and n needing bodies and seats every day. Uh in an office space at pfizer in particular, were able to um work several days from home work, maybe one or two days a week from the office. Um And that, that the intention of that moving forward is to only have those in office days before when people need to get together, have a meeting with multiple people, uh maybe have a workshop and then people are able to work remotely if they choose to um to sort of continue how we've been working during the pandemic.

So having your family and life life not work, life being a priority um is absolutely possible and encouraged because I think making sure that that people are coming to work every day, you know, with their authentic selves and bringing their experiences to, to um development and to digital is incredibly important.

I see this change happening firsthand. Um It's harder than ever to be able to hire and retain top digital talent. And I think that the market is incredibly hot right now for, for tech and digital jobs and for, for a change, if you're a woman in tech, you're an extremely hot commodity. I know that there's an enormous focus internally on diversity on female leadership and on making sure we can write the balance of power issues that, that we've seen historically. So um there's a concerted effort to make sure that we are focused on diversity on female leadership as we are uh recruiting talent. And of course, we want to retain that talent. So making sure that you're going in with your non negotiables when you want to either advance uh within your current career or maybe change um change companies, but stay in, stay in the tech path I think is incredibly important because now is the time to ask for, for anything and everything that you feel is nonnegotiable.

Um because folks are looking, companies are looking for you and what you bring to the table and they're absolutely willing to have a very different negotiation than, than they may have been able to have three or four years ago. I think regarding diversity, um in particular, uh within Pfizer digital, a lot like the companies that I just mentioned were extremely open and eager to being able to uh recruit top talent um regarding and when we're we're able to see a, a senior developer who's, who's female or um identifies as a woman.

It is extremely, extremely appealing to us because we want to make sure that our group uh within digital is as diverse as it can be. We're all learning from each other. Um It's very different. I'm seeing, I'm seeing change even over the last few years of, uh you know, I used to be the only woman on the meeting. I used to be the only woman in the room. Uh for much of these higher level digital conversations. I'm seeing that change by quite a bit over the last few years. So there are huge opportunities and, and they're definitely there for the taking. So I think it's, it's a great time to, to jump in kind of raise our hands and shout out those, you know, those non negotiables. And I think that we'll, we'll be able to see how that that balance is um able to shift for folks who are raising families and working. At the same time. I have the, I guess I would call it honestly great fortune. Uh Given my situation to be a single parent for the majority of my son's childhood. He's actually graduating high school uh tomorrow. No, I'm sorry, not tomorrow next week. Um which is extremely exciting and he's going off to college in the fall.

But the majority of his childhood, um it was just the two of us So I had to make sure that I walked in and had those conversations with folks who uh were interested in my background, you know, who saw that? I'd led digital teams before and um were interested in my agency experience or my experience on the quality assurance front. Um you know, I needed to make sure that I was upfront about the time that I would need away from the computer or away from the office because um making sure that my son who is also uh learning disabled. So there were additional challenges there, you know, he had the, he had the attention he needed from me and I had the ability to go into school and make sure that I could advocate for him as needed, especially when he was very young. And I found that as long as I was able to over communicate and make sure that everyone understood exactly what they were getting, it was very successful. I was very lucky. Um Maybe not so much lucky, but fortunate that I was comfortable advocating for myself in that, in that sense and apologies. I am unfortunately struggling with a bit of a cold. So I have a little bit of a, a Kathleen Turner husky voice right now.

Um Again, just, just to reiterate, I've, I definitely wanna make sure that everyone is aware of that. Being a woman in tech right now is a position of power that we should absolutely lean into and um embrace because I think that folks who, who have the technical skills right now, folks who are interested in um going out and gathering those technical skills and women who are interested in leading uh kind of leading the charge with some of our digital teams and some of our uh recruitment and retention with folks.

Um you know, the the positions are out there right now, companies are very, are struggling to uh to recruit and retain which again, a nice, a nice change to be on on that side of the conversation. Uh rather than feel like it's everything is a fight to, to kind of obtain and then stay within that particular tech position. I know that I had trouble starting and unfortunately, you're not able to see my my presentation, but I did want to open it up to any questions again, my apologies for the lack of visual. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I did want to know if anyone had any questions regarding what I spoke about or um any topics that they may want to me to get into that. I may not have been able to feel free to put them in the chat. I will take a look at the chat as I haven't earlier. Um Kata Dola has asked, have you been confronted with gender related roadblocks in your career? I would definitely say I've been confronted with gender related roadblocks in my career. Yes.

Um throughout both the um agency side for me and the Pharma side for me, there have been, there's been a bit of a G I know people have talked about this ad nausea, but there's definitely been a bit of a glass ceiling approach. Um with advancement in the past, my own experiences have been quite some time ago and I'm seeing a lot of change here in that respect, which is great, particularly at pfizer where I am now. But previously, I was at a few global agencies where the fact that I was able to um secure and retain a position. Uh an example would be like a VP position of an agency uh where I was leading the North American office of a large global uh farm agency. I think that there are challenges um when working with, with global groups due to uh different cultural attitudes towards female leaders, um uh different levels of respect or lack of respect. Uh And I've been able to work through that um quite a bit while at first, it was extremely challenging and frustrating for me because I come from um I'm on the east coast in the US uh close to New York City where I, for the most part had had really great experiences with um sort of dealing with the, with office politics and, and making sure that there was diversity and, and respect, equal respect.

Uh When we would open up to, to uh working with or speaking at particular um companies or events in different countries with different cultures, sometimes that reaction is different. Um But like I said, I've been, I've been fortunate enough to kind of tackle those situations with, I think uh uh initially frustration, then maybe a bit of humor, then kind of pointing out, pointing out how someone put me in a position that was really inappropriate. Um It has served me well and I think that like I mentioned, some of those experiences were quite early on in my career. I'm seeing less and less of that now. Thank goodness um within my particular industry. And I think that over the last three years uh in the US pan pandemic, plus some of the racial issues and injustices that we've seen that are tip of the iceberg, of course, but I think it's given some companies and some people a real shake and um now, now it's less sort of gender bias in your face and more we know these problems exist.

How can we work through them? Hey, can we have your help having a conversation or starting a conversation? Uh I also feel fortunate to work at a company that embraces the idea of someone at my level or someone with, with my background and perspective, kind of building some groups within the company and working together with some of those folks to, to um you know, gather people together, point out some issues, highlight them in a larger platform, maybe with the entire company and in an all company conversation and, you know, help people understand and then make change.

I think I've been really fortunate. Um Sonia, I really want to move to a leadership position, how to fight for that. I think that um internally I have seen where I work. Uh Currently, I have seen that moving to a leadership position at a company that you're already at requires um much more, um I would say much more emphasis on being proactive and less so on, you know, taking a look at the calendar and being like, hey, I've been here for four years.

Why haven't I been promoted? I think that that probably goes without saying, but we do have some experiences of folks who come to the table with kind of that approach to moving into leadership position. I think that the best advice that I can give is to make sure that you're watching, listening and being proactive about where you can be of most use most helpful. Where do you see problems uh perhaps with process or with um within kind of moving from different groups within your organization, how can you tackle some of those problems or challenges and make it easier for everyone, not just yourself? Um I think that finding some of those opportunities and being vocal about those opportunities is a huge step towards uh moving into a leadership position. Um And moving into a position that has more, more of an emphasis on people management and change management. Um So less just, hey, pointing out a problem and more pointing at a problem and coming to the table with more than one solution, you know, options of solutions for people so that they realize, hey, this person is thinking about these things without us having to tell them to think about these things.

I think that um within my own organization, I've picked out people who have done that to move them up to a director level or to move them up to a senior director level um within our company because it's obvious that folks are thinking ahead rather than just thinking about just right now.

I think I am at time, unfortunately. Um And again, apologies for my lack of presentation, but please do reach out uh via linkedin. I believe all of my information uh is excuse me, within the main women tech group. I would love to answer any questions. I would love to make connections um have conversations about not just um Pfizer but about kind of being a woman in this industry. What that means. Um What that means for us from a leadership perspective. I think it is very important, but again, thank you so much. Um My presentation which you were unable to see. I'm sure will be available post session. I would love to share it. And um yeah, I'd be happy to speak with anyone after. Thanks again.