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Breaking Barriers Panel
Moderator: Lori Mackenzie, Executive Director, Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University Panelists: Kathy Chou, VP, Research & Development Operations and Central Services, VMware; Susan Chen, VP, Business Development, Mozilla, Lynn Christensen, SVP, Applications Development, Workday & Erin Kitchen, Vice President, Global Diversity & Inclusion, Dell View recording This panel of senior female technology executives will share their own experiences breaking through barriers throughout their careers. The group will offer examples on how they have overcome obstacles, dealt with personal and professional challenges, constantly changing demands in technology and innovation, and how they have persisted in some of the most difficult situations an executive can face. The panelists will offer advice to attendees on how their experience can help each of us reach our own career goals given changes in the technology industry. |
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Emerging Leadership Track
Leadership Lessons Learned from the Marine Corps Rebecca Fitzhugh, Consulting Architect View recording Being a good leader is about more than just getting the job done. Leaders must balance their team’s needs with their own goals, working in the best interest of the entire team. Leadership is not something everyone knows how to do instinctively. Leadership, whether in intense combat or in the tech industry, is a learned skill that belongs in everyone’s toolbox. There are many different leadership styles, but the best leaders demonstrate some common traits. The speaker will share her own personal experiences and lessons learned from time on active duty military and how they’re applicable in tech. Rebecca is an independent consulting architect (VCDX #243), published author, blogger, and technical evangelist. In a past life, she served 5 years in the United States Marine Corps. |
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Technical Track
Building Cloud Native Applications Reshmi Krishna, Cloud Application & Platform Architect, Pivotal View recording Cloud Native Applications have a lot of benefits like individual scaling, individual deployments. However, when we are building them, we also need to think about challenges like configuration management in the cloud, load balancing, service registry, latency analysis. In this talk, we will talk about industry wide best practices for designing your applications for the cloud. We will also discuss the design patterns and tools available to us like 15 Factor App, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud. At the end, you should feel empowered to build scalable, resilient cloud native applications that can run on any cloud infrastructure. Reshmi Krishna (@reshmi9k) is a Cloud Application & Platform Architect with Pivotal, where she works with Cloud Foundry and helps customers transform the way they build software. Previously, Reshmi was a software engineer with investment banks and startups on Wall Street. Reshmi has also presented in various conferences and meetups like Oreilly’s Velocity (New York), Spring One Platformc(Las Vegas), Spring User Group (NY), Cloud Native Meetup (NY). She also supports various conferences and causes for diversity, including Women in Tech and the Society of Women Engineers, and participates in the Grace Hopper Conference for Women. |
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Executive Leadership Track
Tech for Good: Design Thinking for Influence and Impact Moderator: Sue Bethanis, Founder and CEO, Mariposa Leadership, Inc. Panelists: Risa Stack, Ph.D., General Manager, GE Ventures, New Business Creation; Lila Ibrahim, Chief Operations Officer, Coursera & Nicola Acutt, Ph.D, Vice President, Sustainability Strategy, VMware – Office of the CTO View recording Curious about how you can leverage your knowledge and skillset in technology as a force for good? Ever wished you could design a greater sense of impact and purpose into your career? Drawing inspiration from a design thinking approach to leadership, this session will examine radical curiosity and big picture thinking in innovation cultures. Our panel of thought-leaders will share strategies and practical tips from their work at the confluence of technology and social impact in education, healthcare and the environment. The session will challenge our assumptions about influence skills by examining the importance of "influence-ability" in leading for impact (and creating a purposeful career in the process). Be prepared to open your mind to opportunities for greater influence and impact. |
Kara Swisher
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Betsy Sutter
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VP+ BREAKOUT - BY INVITATION ONLY
Fireside Chat with Kara Swisher Hosted by Betsy Sutter, Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer Recording not available |
Melissa Abad
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Alison Wynn
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DIVERSITY COUNCIL – BY INVITATION ONLY
Breaking STEM Pipeline Barriers Melissa Abad, Research Associate, Center for the Advancement of Women’s Leadership & Alison Wynn, Graduate Dissertation Fellow 2016-17, Sociology, Stanford University Recording not available Alison Wynn and Melissa Abad from Stanford will lead a conversation and share research on what successful strategies for breaking STEM pipeline barriers look like and how “culture fit” impacts the hiring of women. |
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Emerging Leadership Track
How to Pursue a Successful Career in Leadership Madhura Dudhgaonkar, Engineering Leader: Data and Machine Learning Products, Workday Inc View recording. Most leadership books focus on what it means to be a great leader. But there is no practical framework to help you decide if you have what it takes to pursue and succeed in the leadership track. In this session we will discuss the “Dos” of great leaders and the “Don'ts” of the struggling ones. In addition, you will receive some practical tools to help with your leadership decision: 1. A map of day-to-day work-life at early leadership levels 2. A practical framework to assess if you are ready for the leap i. Make or break competencies ii. Value system shift iii. Are you ready for what’s to come? You will walk away with a toolset to navigate key decision points in your career. When the right leadership opportunity arises, you will be able to make the decision with knowledge and confidence to succeed. Madhura Dudhgaonkar is an engineering leader at Workday responsible for the company's data and machine learning products. The belief she lives and leads by - All of us can reach our highest potential, given an inspiring and nurturing environment. She started her career at SUN Microsystems in the Java team. After SUN, she joined Adobe to build a team to ship a version 1.0 Flash Design Tool. She spent last decade of her 18-year professional journey actively honing her leadership craft. She is fascinated by two areas 1) Tech and Innovation - specifically its role in moving us forward as a species, and 2) Neuroscience and Leadership - understanding what inspires people and applying it to build rock star organizations. She holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications and masters in math and computer Science. Madhura is originally from a small town in India and came to the United States to pursue a career in technology. She currently calls San Francisco home, and in spite of 8 years here, can’t get enough of its hilly charm, hidden staircases, the diversity of people, culture, and experiences. When not obsessed with technology and neuroscience, she is an adrenaline and outdoors junkie and loves hiking, snowboarding, and mountaineering. |
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Technical Track
Velocity, Volume & Veracity: Leveraging DevOps Culture in Data Science Jiaqi Liu, Data Scientist, Capital One View recording Nowadays, it is not only necessary for us to be able to process big data, but we also must be able to do it quickly and accurately. MapReduce and Distributed computer are great tools in big data because they allow you to process huge data sets in a manageable way, but does not allow for incremental decision making. Internet companies and ad tech companies have successfully been leveraging real time streaming to process event data, but might not provide the same level of veracity that batch processing does. Thus, it is important for certain types of work to have a unified batch and real time architecture that includes a real time decision engine coupled with historical data and feedback loops for improving the algorithm. In this talk, we will discuss how such an architecture would allow for data science work to find the right balance between the three Vs – Velocity, Volume and Veracity. In addition, we will discuss the value of leveraging devops in data science work and the challenges of training and maintaining a real-time decision making model. Jiaqi Liu is a Data Scientist at Capital One working on consumer facing data products. Her work revolves around using big data tools and machine learning algorithms to gain insights from bank and credit card data. She works with largescale data platforms and enjoys seeing challenges in consolidating the science and the engineering part of data-driven work. Outside of work, she is active in the NYC Women Who Code network. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University. |
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Executive Leadership Track
Extraordinary Teams, Extraordinary Results!™ For women who leads teams Pattie Vargas, Speaker, Coach and Trainer, Vargas Group View recording Of all the skills required of a leader, the one and only thing we truly have control over are team interactions. Too often we focus on the technical aspects of our work, thinking so-called soft-skills are just a “nice to have” and yet studies confirm that strong interpersonal skills are the new management core competency. Participants will learn how to develop the five characteristics of an Extraordinary Team: • Trust: Recognize the identifiers that indicate either high or low trust on your team and learn practical tips for increasing honesty and vulnerability. • Managed Conflict: How we manage conflict indicates the level of trust on our teams. • Outrageous accountability: Learn how to use positive peer pressure and honest conversations to increase accountability to personal and team goals. • Self-management: Leading others takes a heightened awareness of self. Develop new insights on how to turn external negatives events into an internal catalyst for change. • Commitment: Leverage your innate ability to inspire confidence, loyalty and commitment to a common goal. Pattie Vargas is a recognized leader in performance and change management with a proven track record in behavioral, organizational and personal change. She focuses on leadership development and team effectiveness, especially during times of transition. Pattie coaches managers and individuals through the twists and turns of change, helping them gain personal perspective and self-management so they can, in turn, better equip their teams for what lies ahead. Pattie is a frequent conference speaker on the topics of change management, personal resilience, team dynamics and issues facing women in the workplace, with a delivery that is humorous, practical and backed by years of personal experience, both painful and pleasant! She holds a Masters degree in Organizational Management and is certified in the use of DISC Behavioral assessments. She is also a certified speaker, coach and trainer with the John Maxwell Company. From her technical days she holds the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from Project Management Institute as well as a certification in Total Quality Management and Process Improvement. Pattie is also passionate about The American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) where she has held many leadership roles including serving on the American Business Women’s Foundation, a Board focused on Gender and Wage Equity. |
Gloria Steinem
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Carrie Varoquiers
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VP+ BREAKOUT - BY INVITATION ONLY
Fireside Chat with Gloria Steinem Hosted by Carrie Varoquiers, Vice President, Global Impact, Workday, Inc. and President, Workday Foundation Recording not available For Gloria Steinem's bio, please visit the keynote section.
Carrie Varoquiers is Vice President, Global Impact, Workday, Inc. and President, Workday Foundation. In these roles, Carrie leads the company's philanthropic grantmaking, employee community engagement, environmental sustainability, belonging & diversity, employee wellbeing, and corporate citizenship reporting. Most recently, Carrie was the President of the McKesson Foundation and Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at McKesson Corporation. Carrie developed the McKesson Foundation's "Mobilizing for Health" grant initiative, which encourages the use of mobile technologies in chronic care, and founded Giving Comfort, a not-for-profit program supporting low-income chemotherapy patients. Prior to joining McKesson, Ms. Varoquiers served as the Founder and President of Cause Partners, a cause marketing consulting firm based in San Francisco. Carrie received her BA from U.C. Berkeley, her MBA from Golden Gate University, and her MPH from Johns Hopkins University. She serves on the board of Family House in San Francisco. |
Melissa Abad
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Sharon Jank
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DIVERSITY COUNCIL – BY INVITATION ONLY
What Blind Auditions Tell Us About Diversity in Tech Sharon Jank, Stanford University & Melissa Abad, Research Associate, Center for the Advancement of Women’s Leadership Recording not available We will discuss different definitions of diversity — who do we imagine embodies diversity and why? To kick off this conversation, Sharon Jank from Stanford, will share research in progress on how blind hiring processes change recruiting outcomes — and for whom. |
