SAVE THE DATE!
5th Annual Women Transforming Technology Conference
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Held at the VMware Campus in Palo Alto, California
The Call for Participation will open in October 2019
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2019 Schedule at a Glance
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Download the printed program:
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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Opening Keynote 10:00 -11:00 am
Joy Buolamwini, Algorithmic Bias Researcher | Poet of Code | Bloomberg 50 | Forbes 30 under 30 | Tech Review 35 under 35
Joy Buolamwini, Algorithmic Bias Researcher | Poet of Code | Bloomberg 50 | Forbes 30 under 30 | Tech Review 35 under 35
Joy Buolamwini is a poet of code on a mission to show compassion through computation. As a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab, she leads the Algorithmic Justice League to fight coded bias. Her research explores the intersection of social impact technology and inclusion. In support of this work, Buolamwini was awarded a grant as the Grand Prize winner of a national contest inspired by the critically acclaimed film Hidden Figures, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly.
Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, Buolamwini's global interest in creating technology for social impact spans multiple industries and countries. As the inaugural Chief Technology Officer for Techturized Inc., a hair care technology company, and Swift Tech Solutions, a global health tech consultancy, she led software development for under-served communities in the United States, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Niger. In Zambia, she explored empowering citizens with skills to create their own technology through the Zamrize Project. In the United Kingdom, Buolamwini piloted a Service Year Initiative to launch Code4Rights which supports youth in creating meaningful technology for their communities in partnership with local organizations. Through Filmmakers Collaborative, Buolamwini produces media that highlight diverse creators of technology. Her short documentary, The Coded Gaze: Unmasking Algorithmic Bias, debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and her pilot of the Code4Rights: Journey To Code training series debuted at the Vatican. She has presented keynote speeches and public talks at various forums including #CSforAll at the White House, Harvard University, Saïd Business School, Rutgers University, NCWIT, Grace Hopper Celebration and SXSWedu. Her TED.com featured talk has been viewed nearly a million times. Buolamwini is a Rhodes Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, Google Anita Borg Scholar, Astronaut Scholar, A Stamps President's Scholar and Carter Center technical consultant recognized as a distinguished volunteer. She holds a master's degree from MIT, a master's degree in Learning and Technology from Oxford University, and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is completing a PhD at MIT
Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, Buolamwini's global interest in creating technology for social impact spans multiple industries and countries. As the inaugural Chief Technology Officer for Techturized Inc., a hair care technology company, and Swift Tech Solutions, a global health tech consultancy, she led software development for under-served communities in the United States, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Niger. In Zambia, she explored empowering citizens with skills to create their own technology through the Zamrize Project. In the United Kingdom, Buolamwini piloted a Service Year Initiative to launch Code4Rights which supports youth in creating meaningful technology for their communities in partnership with local organizations. Through Filmmakers Collaborative, Buolamwini produces media that highlight diverse creators of technology. Her short documentary, The Coded Gaze: Unmasking Algorithmic Bias, debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and her pilot of the Code4Rights: Journey To Code training series debuted at the Vatican. She has presented keynote speeches and public talks at various forums including #CSforAll at the White House, Harvard University, Saïd Business School, Rutgers University, NCWIT, Grace Hopper Celebration and SXSWedu. Her TED.com featured talk has been viewed nearly a million times. Buolamwini is a Rhodes Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, Google Anita Borg Scholar, Astronaut Scholar, A Stamps President's Scholar and Carter Center technical consultant recognized as a distinguished volunteer. She holds a master's degree from MIT, a master's degree in Learning and Technology from Oxford University, and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is completing a PhD at MIT
Closing Keynote 4:00-5:00pm
Ashley Judd, American Actress and Political Activist
Ashley Judd, American Actress and Political Activist
Ashley Judd is well known for dexterously starring in both box office hits and for turning in unforgettable performances in fine independent films. From her debut in Sundance Film Festival grand jury prize winner, Ruby In Paradise, to Where the Heart Is, Simon Burch, Helen, De-Lovely, and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, her films tell very personal stories-- which is exactly what Judd does when she is not making movies. But the stories she tells are not about being a Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated actress or about making People magazine's “50 Most Beautiful People” list three times.
Ashley Judd is a feminist and social justice humanitarian. She has been working internationally, with NGO’S, grass roots organizations, governments, and supranational bodies since 2004. Presently, she serves as Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), is the Global Ambassador for Population Services International, and also for Polaris Project. She serves on the Advisory Boards of International Center for Research on Women, Apne Aap Worldwide, and Demand Abolition. She is Chairperson of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project: Curbing Abuse, Expanding Freedom. She has also served as a board member for Population Services International (PSI) and as Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, and in 2010, earned an Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her paper, Gender Violence, Law and Social Justice, won the Dean’s Scholar Award at Harvard Law School.
Ashley Judd is a feminist and social justice humanitarian. She has been working internationally, with NGO’S, grass roots organizations, governments, and supranational bodies since 2004. Presently, she serves as Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), is the Global Ambassador for Population Services International, and also for Polaris Project. She serves on the Advisory Boards of International Center for Research on Women, Apne Aap Worldwide, and Demand Abolition. She is Chairperson of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project: Curbing Abuse, Expanding Freedom. She has also served as a board member for Population Services International (PSI) and as Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, and in 2010, earned an Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her paper, Gender Violence, Law and Social Justice, won the Dean’s Scholar Award at Harvard Law School.
Watch a video of Ashley talking about her session.
Read more of Ashley's bio
Ms. Judd speaks on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. Judd has traveled the world to do international public health work on all fronts– maternal health, child survival, human rights, family planning, STD and HIV prevention, and malaria prevention and treatment. She has experienced firsthand the connection between poverty, illness, and gender inequality and how that sets up the pain and degradation that is sex and labor slavery (on which she testified before the General Assembly of the United Nations). Judd says, "The more we hear their stories, the more motivated we are to heal them and the social systems that victimized them in the first place. I believe with all my soul that the art of compassionate witnessing is at the core of global change and peace building."
She has spoken at many prestigious conferences around the world, including the London School of Economics' Family Planning Summit, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She also hosted a talk with President Clinton on the work of the Clinton Foundation for the London School of Economics. In 2012, she spoke on the floor of the Democratic National Convention as the delegate from Tennessee asked to cast the ballots for the party's nominee for president and vice president. She is also passionate about the environment. An eighth generation Kentuckian, she is an outspoken critic of mountaintop removal coal mining. A proponent of a "green collar" economy, Judd is committed to helping find innovative renewable energy solutions.
She frequently serves as an expert panelist at international conferences, is a sought after public speaker, and is a widely published OpEd author, with a diverse and unique social media presence. Her book, All That Is Bitter and Sweet, detailing her visits to grassroots programs in 13 countries, was a New York Times bestseller.
She is well recognized for her work on behalf others. In 2017, she was the recipient of the Muhammad Ali Kentucky Humanitarian Award, and her alma mater, University of Kentucky, established the Ashley T. Judd Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in the Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women. She was also featured on the cover of TIME Magazine’s 2017 Person of the Year issue honoring the “The Silence Breakers”, the thousands of people across the world who have come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault.
Whether it's on behalf of a patient dying from a preventable illness a world away or on behalf a woman struggling with mental illness and abuse, Judd is telling the stories of the vulnerable and the at-risk. Judd says, "I don't do it because I'm an actor. I do it because I'm a human being."
Plenary Panel 11:00-12:00pm
Inclusive Innovators – Designing for Change
In this panel session, we will explore how meaningful change towards greater diversity and equity is realized in engineering cultures and workplaces. Our lens is design: how do people design for change in their technical environments, even when an environment does not seem, at least initially, receptive to new ways of thinking, interacting, and achieving? We talk with three individuals who are re-shaping our understanding of what engineers do, care about, and confront in their technical work and broader societal contexts.
Moderator: Shannon Gilmartin, a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University
Panelists:
Susan Fowler, New York Times’ Op-Ed Technology editor and former Time Magazine’s Person of the Year as one of the silence breakers
Lisa Gelobter, CEO, tEQuitable
Ray O’Farrell, Executive Vice President and CTO, VMware
In this panel session, we will explore how meaningful change towards greater diversity and equity is realized in engineering cultures and workplaces. Our lens is design: how do people design for change in their technical environments, even when an environment does not seem, at least initially, receptive to new ways of thinking, interacting, and achieving? We talk with three individuals who are re-shaping our understanding of what engineers do, care about, and confront in their technical work and broader societal contexts.
Moderator: Shannon Gilmartin, a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University
Panelists:
Susan Fowler, New York Times’ Op-Ed Technology editor and former Time Magazine’s Person of the Year as one of the silence breakers
Lisa Gelobter, CEO, tEQuitable
Ray O’Farrell, Executive Vice President and CTO, VMware
 Shannon Gilmartin
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Susan Fowler
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Lisa Gelobter
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Ray O'Farrell
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Read Shannon's bio
Shannon K. Gilmartin, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. She is also Managing Director of SKG Analysis, a research consulting firm. Her expertise and interests focus on education and workforce development in science and engineering fields. Previous and current clients include the American Chemical Society, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, California Institute of Technology, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at California State University Fullerton, the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Stanford University, the School of Medicine at Stanford University, and the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Shannon received her B.A. at Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. at UCLA, and held two postdoctoral research appointments at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University before starting her own consulting practice. She has taught undergraduate courses at UCLA in gender, psychology, and education.
Her publications appear in such journals as Academe, Journal of American College of Surgeons, Journal of Research on Adolescence, Journal of Research on Science Teaching, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, Research in Higher Education, The Journal of Higher Education, and the International Journal of Engineering Education. With Sheri Sheppard and Carol Muller, she is currently co-teaching ENGR311C/FEMGEN311C "Expanding Engineering Limits: Culture, Diversity, and Gender", next offered to Stanford undergraduate and graduate students in Winter 2018.
Read Susan's bio
Susan Fowler is a central figure in the #MeToo movement. Named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year as one of the silence breakers, Fowler is the former Uber engineer whose viral blog post ignited an ongoing, worldwide conversation. The Financial Times named her Person of the Year as well, writing that her actions hold “the potential to improve the way women are treated at work permanently.” Recently, Fowler was appointed the New York Times’ Op-Ed Technology editor. That’s Fowler’s public narrative. But her personal story—a homeschooled science nerd, a woman in STEM against massive odds—is equally fascinating. In uplifting talks, she tackles a variety of topics, including how regular people can effect positive change on a global and personal scale.
“Words can change the world.” This was Fowler’s famous five-word speech, delivered at the 2018 Webby Awards, where she was named Person of the Year for “opening the door wider to the better treatment and fairer employment of women within tech and the world at large.” At the age of 26, the engineer, physicist, and writer Susan Fowler wrote a meticulous blog post detailing the harassment—and the systemic denial of it—that she faced at Uber, where she worked as an engineer. Fowler’s powerful words led to a sea change in attitudes toward workplace conduct in Silicon Valley and corporate America. It soon spread into Hollywood, politics, professional sports, academia, and beyond. It empowered countless women and men to speak up and share their stories, as well as providing the much-needed spark for companies to re-evaluate their policies, practices, and priorities. Now, Fowler tells Time, instead of denying there’s a problem, companies are embracing the solutions to it, “trying to build something that's good for consumers and treats employees fairly.” In 2018, Fowler was named Technology Editor of the New York Times’ Opinion section, where she’ll lead the Op-Ed coverage on the ways technology is shaping our culture, economy, relationships, politics, and play. The Times writes that she will, “bring her unique brand of courage, clarity of mind and moral purpose.”
Susan J. Fowler is a member of Vanity Fair’s New Establishment List, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, and the Bloomberg 50. She is writing a memoir, and a movie about her life is forthcoming. Fowler grew up in rural poverty, one of seven children in an Arizona town of 600 people. She received virtually no formal schooling. “I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness,” she says. “But over the past few years I’ve learned to see it as one of my greatest strengths. I had to fight for everything I wanted, like my education.” With unbelievable grit, Fowler gained admission into Arizona State University, at the age of 18, partly by providing a list of books she had read at her local library. She then earned degrees in physics and philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. In her career-so-far-in-STEM, Fowler has designed electronics that were used at CERN; worked on the search for the Higgs boson; worked at three start-ups; served as editor-in-chief at Increment (“The New Yorker of Silicon Valley”); and published her first book, on software architecture, at the age of 25. In her talks focused on diversity in STEM, and women in STEM, Fowler uses her inspiring career path as a backdrop to discuss why inclusion matters, and how to make it happen.
Read Lisa's bio
Lisa Gelobter is the CEO and Co-founder of tEQuitable. Using technology to make workplaces more equitable, tEQuitable provides an independent, confidential platform to address issues of bias, harassment, and discrimination.
With 25+ years in the industry and products that have been used by billions of people, Lisa has a deep and proven track record in software. She has worked on several pioneering Internet technologies, including Shockwave, Hulu, and the ascent of online video. Lisa’s experience ranges from small, entrepreneurial startups to large, established organizations. Most recently, she worked at the White House, in the U.S. Digital Service, serving as the Chief Digital Service Officer for the Department of Education. Previously, Lisa acted as the Chief Digital Officer for BET Networks and was a member of the senior management team for the launch of Hulu. She has an expansive background in strategy development, business operations, user-centered design, product management, and engineering.
Lisa was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People and she brings consumer focus and transformative practice to bear in technology, media, and the social sector. Lisa is one of the first 40 Black women ever to have raised over $1mm in venture capital funding. She is also proud to be a Black woman with a degree in Computer Science. Go STEM!
Read Ray's bio
Ray O’Farrell joined VMware in April 2003 and currently serves as executive vice president and chief technology officer. His main focus area is to ensure VMware’s long term technology leadership through research and innovation programs, with the primary goal of positively impacting and shaping the future of VMware, its ecosystem and its customers. He is also responsible for ensuring VMware’s successful partnerships across the industry with a focus on the Dell Technologies family of businesses. Prior to his role as Chief Technology Officer, O’Farrell co-led the Software-Defined Data Center Division comprising the vSphere, networking, management and storage businesses and was responsible for the division’s strategy, business and product planning and engineering execution.
O’Farrell joined VMware to lead the ESX Storage team during the early development of the ESX platform. He helped build a large ecosystem of partners in storage and helped expand the portfolio, which today includes products such as VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) and VMware vSAN. During his tenure at VMware, O’Farrell built and managed a global R&D organization and held engineering responsibilities across the entire VMware portfolio. His responsibilities spanned management of all of the components of VMware’s flagship vSphere and suite products, including core compute, networking, storage and Cloud management. O’Farrell also spearheaded the Dell Technologies IoT division.
O’Farrell has over 20 years of software engineering and product delivery experience. Before VMware, he developed and shipped development tools and operating systems for real-time, embedded and DSP systems at a number of companies including Industrial and Scientific Imaging (Ireland), Ashling Microsystems (Ireland), Improv Systems (United States) and Microtec/Mentor-Graphics (United States).
O’Farrell holds a Bachelor’s of engineering in electronics and a Master’s of engineering in computer science, both from the University of Limerick in Ireland.
Breakout Sessions 1:00-2:00pm
Executive Leadership Track - 3 Presentations
Andrea Little Limbago,
Virtru
Increasing Retention Capacity: Insights from the Field
Why do organizations work so hard to recruit a talented workforce, but fall flat when it comes to retention? After all, rapid turnover negates investments in recruiting and training, stalls projects and innovation, and is often a gauge for the health of a company. Retention must be elevated within corporate priorities and move beyond monolithic or artificially deflated metrics to implement real change. But what are those factors that improve and hinder retention? Building upon my own survey analysis, social science research, and personal anecdotes as an information security researcher, I will describe those key drivers for workforce retention. I will offer several concrete steps organizations can take to improve retention, including a nuanced approach to professional growth and addressing burnout, as well as key cultural factors within the workplace environment.
Why do organizations work so hard to recruit a talented workforce, but fall flat when it comes to retention? After all, rapid turnover negates investments in recruiting and training, stalls projects and innovation, and is often a gauge for the health of a company. Retention must be elevated within corporate priorities and move beyond monolithic or artificially deflated metrics to implement real change. But what are those factors that improve and hinder retention? Building upon my own survey analysis, social science research, and personal anecdotes as an information security researcher, I will describe those key drivers for workforce retention. I will offer several concrete steps organizations can take to improve retention, including a nuanced approach to professional growth and addressing burnout, as well as key cultural factors within the workplace environment.
Read Andrea's bio
Andrea Little Limbago is a computational social scientist specializing in the intersection of technology, national security, and society. She currently is the Chief Social Scientist at Virtru, a data privacy software company, where she researches, presents, and publishes on the geopolitics of cybersecurity, global data protection and privacy trends, and usable security. Andrea is also a Program Director for the Emerging Technologies Program at the National Security Institute at George Mason. Prior to that, Andrea taught in academia and was a technical lead at the Department of Defense. Andrea earned a PhD in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Linda Lubin Thompson, L2T Leadership Development
Expanding Opportunities for Everyone: Getting the Most from Diverse Teams
When technical women move into middle management, their technical brilliance provides little help in leading meetings of people with different functions, priorities and styles. The presentation will focus on leading productive and inclusive meetings, offering tools to ensure that everyone’s best thinking is heard, valued, and contributes to reaching the best solution for the company.
When technical women move into middle management, their technical brilliance provides little help in leading meetings of people with different functions, priorities and styles. The presentation will focus on leading productive and inclusive meetings, offering tools to ensure that everyone’s best thinking is heard, valued, and contributes to reaching the best solution for the company.
Read Linda's bio
Linda Lubin Thompson applies more than 20 years of Silicon Valley HR executive experience to her leadership coaching and consulting practice. She excels at helping high-potential leaders achieve breakthroughs—in their influence, executive presence, and business impact. Linda holds a Bachelor's degree from Skidmore College and a Master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a recipient of the YWCA Tribute to Women and Industry Award, which recognizes women leaders who represent leadership role models for others.
Kathy Chou,
VP, R&D Operations, VMware
Increase Inclusion, Drive Innovation
How to leverage inclusion in a journey to transform a central engineering function from an on-prem to hybrid-focused organization.
How to leverage inclusion in a journey to transform a central engineering function from an on-prem to hybrid-focused organization.
Read Kathy's bio
Previously, she served as SVP, Sales Operations for Informatica, VP, Sales Operations at Intuit and spent 18 years at HP. Chou holds a BSME and MS in manufacturing systems engineering from Stanford, and an MBA from Harvard. Kathy served on the Stanford Presidential Search Committee and chaired the Stanford Trustee Nominations Committee. She is currently Vice Chair for the Stanford Institute for Research in Social Sciences, Santa Clara University Board of Regents, Engineering Advisory Board and Development Chair for the Asian Pacific Fund.
Kathy received the 2013 Stanford Medal and was selected as the Top 100 most influential women by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2011. Chou lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and four sons.
Emerging Leadership Track
Strategic Networking for Successful Product Leaders (1 Hour Panel)
We all grow as leaders and product experts with the experiences we have lived with, the mistakes we have made or from the stories and anecdotes that we hear from leaders, mentors and articles we read everyday. Our experiences always broaden by the number of people we talk to about a certain topic.
Strategic Networking for Successful Product Leaders (1 Hour Panel)
We all grow as leaders and product experts with the experiences we have lived with, the mistakes we have made or from the stories and anecdotes that we hear from leaders, mentors and articles we read everyday. Our experiences always broaden by the number of people we talk to about a certain topic.
Read more details about this session
However, adding folks on LinkedIn or meeting them once at a conference isn’t going to be enough to have a great professional networking relationship. How do we leverage the power of connections to grow as leaders? How do we maintain useful networks where we not only gain but give back to keep the relationship strong and growing? Listen to this panel talk about their experiences and effort to network strategically. Learn about how they juggle their personal & professional commitments and how they strategically choose networks that help them grow and advance their product knowledge as well as leadership skills. Understand how they broke the mold and moved to build strong mentors, sponsors and allies that have helped them grow in their career. We will be touching upon the following areas and give some tactical advice based on where you are in your personal and professional life.
Listen to this panel talk about their experiences and effort to network strategically. Learn about how they juggle their personal & professional commitments and how they strategically choose networks that help them grow and advance their product knowledge as well as leadership skills. Understand how they broke the mold and moved to build strong mentors, sponsors and allies that have helped them grow in their career. We will be touching upon the following areas and give some tactical advice based on where you are in your personal and professional life.
What kind of networks should people build?
● Mentor, sponsor and ally networks
● Execution based networks (peer networks)
● Goal based networks (what do you want to do next and who should you connect with)
● Personal networks (giving back, personal areas of improvement)
Strategy matrix
● What can you give?
● Balancing these networks
● What factors influence the time and effort you put in
● What forums do you want to invest in?
Internal vs External networks
● What do you optimize for?
● How do you allocate time?
Panelists:
Archana Ramamoorthy, Director of Product Management, Workday
Parul Goel, Product Manager, PayPal
Subha Shetty, Vice President and Head of Product at Loop Commerce, a Synchrony Company
Lauren Chan Lee, Senior Director of Product Management, Care.com
Archana Ramamoorthy, Director of Product Management, Workday
Parul Goel, Product Manager, PayPal
Subha Shetty, Vice President and Head of Product at Loop Commerce, a Synchrony Company
Lauren Chan Lee, Senior Director of Product Management, Care.com
Archana Ramamoorthy
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Parul Goel
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Subha Shetty
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Lauren Chan Lee
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Read Archana's bio
Archana is a Director of Product Management at Workday and drives the Workday product vision and strategy for Identity, Authentication and Access Management. She leads up the Product Management guild for Workday and the Associate Product Management program. She plays an active role in M&A efforts, product evangelization, setting strategy/product direction and customer adoption for Workday. She has over 8 years of experience driving product for large scale enterprise companies and is a regular speaker at customer conferences like Workday Rising and Workday Altitude. She is an active member of women in product and identity communities around the world and enjoys giving back to these forums. Archana loves to travel around the world in her spare time and is always looking for new destinations to visit. She received a B.S in Electronics and Communication Engineering from SRM University in India and an M.S in Electrical Engineering from Duke University.
Read Parul's bio
Parul is a Product Manager at PayPal. As a part of the Partners and Marketplaces team, Parul enables easy payments for large marketplaces and platforms, and helps them find new ways to monetize. She is also an expert in dispute and chargeback process setup and optimization. Outside of her role, Parul is one of the leaders of Product Excellence Programs at PayPal. She also enjoys being a part of Women in Product and several other product communities. As an avid TV watcher, she looks forward to conversations about Game of Thrones or Great British Baking show with other fans. Parul holds an M.S in Computer Science from Columbia University.
Read Subha's bio
Subha is the newly appointed Head of Product at Loop Commerce, a ground breaking e-commerce company, owned by Synchrony, the worlds largest retail credit company. She is a seasoned Product Leader with 12+ years of E-commerce & Mobile expertise in both big & small companies like eBay, Walmart.com, Upwork & most recently at a startup called Zenfolio, which in the last 3 years under her leadership as Head of Product and Design transformed from an emerging product to the industry's leading business & commerce platform for professional photographers. Subha is passionate about helping & working with startups & Product Managers. She sponsors events for Women-in-Product, is a mentor to leading start-up accelerators like 500start-ups & Founders Institute and an active advisor & angel investor. Subha obtained her MBA from University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.
Read Lauren's bio
Lauren Chan Lee is Senior Director of Product Management at Care.com, the largest online marketplace for finding and managing family care. Having worked in marketplace businesses over the past decade, Lauren loves getting the flywheel spinning and using her skills at Care.com to empower women on both sides of the marketplace. Prior to joining Care.com, she held various product management positions at StubHub and strategy positions at StubHub, Microsoft, and Triage Consulting Group. Lauren received a B.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA with Honors from the Kellogg School of Management.
Technical Track - 3 Presentations
Fernanda Campello, Data Scientist, VMware
Making Federated Analytics Real
There is a growing need for organizations to be able to perform worldwide, distributed computations of in-place data at scale, while minimizing data movement, avoiding bandwidth constraints, and adhering to security and GRC regulations. As datasets grow larger and reside in more and more disparate locations, organizations face the challenge of how to analyze such data at scale. While one option is to gather all the data in a central location, another is to enable the orchestration of data analysis without moving the data, in a federated analytics paradigm. With federated analytics, data can be analyzed locally, and only the local results are shared — the raw data itself stays put. When used in combination with blockchain technology, organizations can analyze distributed data with trust, transparency and traceability.
There is a growing need for organizations to be able to perform worldwide, distributed computations of in-place data at scale, while minimizing data movement, avoiding bandwidth constraints, and adhering to security and GRC regulations. As datasets grow larger and reside in more and more disparate locations, organizations face the challenge of how to analyze such data at scale. While one option is to gather all the data in a central location, another is to enable the orchestration of data analysis without moving the data, in a federated analytics paradigm. With federated analytics, data can be analyzed locally, and only the local results are shared — the raw data itself stays put. When used in combination with blockchain technology, organizations can analyze distributed data with trust, transparency and traceability.
Read Fernanda's's bio
Fernanda is a data scientist in the Dell Technologies IoT Division at VMware, leading the Milky Way Data Science track. Fernanda’s work includes business and analytics problem framing, model development, and deployment, with a special focus on federated analytics. Before joining VMware, Fernanda was a senior Dell EMC data science consultant, developing projects in industries such as healthcare, utilities, and finance. Fernanda holds a PhD in Operations and Information Systems from the University of Alberta in Canada, a Master's in Industrial Engineering and a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, in Brazil. Fernanda has also worked in research and development of new analytical models, having published academic papers in the area of operations and information systems.
Cornelia Davis, Vice President of Technology, Pivotal
P to V to C: The Value of Bringing ‘Everything’ to Containers
Twenty years ago, VMware revolutionized how IT systems would be managed. Initially used for only a small subset of applications, eventually enterprises would move the majority of ALL workloads into virtual machines – many had “P(hysical) to V(irtual)” initiatives to accelerate the movement.
Today we stand at a similar crossroad with the widespread availability of container-based systems and particularly, with the extraordinary embrace and expansion of the Kubernetes ecosystem. We’ll make clear the important role that VMs continue to play in a containerized ecosystem, and cover the additional benefits that containerization brings including things like patch management, malware elimination, capacity management and more. By the end of the session you’ll be starting to think about your and your customer’s V(irtual) to C(ontainer) initiative.
Twenty years ago, VMware revolutionized how IT systems would be managed. Initially used for only a small subset of applications, eventually enterprises would move the majority of ALL workloads into virtual machines – many had “P(hysical) to V(irtual)” initiatives to accelerate the movement.
Today we stand at a similar crossroad with the widespread availability of container-based systems and particularly, with the extraordinary embrace and expansion of the Kubernetes ecosystem. We’ll make clear the important role that VMs continue to play in a containerized ecosystem, and cover the additional benefits that containerization brings including things like patch management, malware elimination, capacity management and more. By the end of the session you’ll be starting to think about your and your customer’s V(irtual) to C(ontainer) initiative.
Read Cornelia's's bio
Cornelia Davis is Vice President of Technology and works on the tech strategy for both Pivotal and with Pivotal customers. With a broad view across the various cloud-computing models of IaaS, App as a Service, Container as a Service and Function as a Service, her current focus is on how the use of container platforms such as Kubernetes can be leveraged to achieve operational efficiencies, resilience and security. She is the author of the book “Cloud Native Patterns: Designing Change-tolerant Software” by Manning Publications.
Rashim Mogha, Senior Director Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle
Building Voice Experiences through Alexa Skills
Voice is the new standard. It is estimated that by 2020, over 200 million searches per month will be done with voice. With over 22 million Alexa devices sold in 2017, there is already a massive voice platform that you can use to share your content and programs with the women in tech community! In this session, learn how to design and develop voice experiences (or Alexa skills) that engage audiences by solving real challenges or entertaining them through delightful experiences.
Read Rashim's's bio
Rashim Mogha, Senior Director Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is a thought leader and cloud evangelist who empowers professionals by articulating complex cloud capabilities into crisp, clear, and attainable business benefits. A keynote speaker and #1 Amazon best-selling author of “Fast-Track Your Leadership Career”, Rashim speaks at conferences around the world. Her thoughts on leadership, innovation, women in technology, and enablement strategy have appeared in publications such as Forbes and ATD. With a goal to empower women leaders, Rashim founded eWOW- empowered Women of the World, an intellectual platform to help women with their technical and leadership skills to be successful, to thrive! Her extensive career portfolio includes leadership roles in companies such as Oracle, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and VMware where she built high-performing teams to support over $2 billion businesses.
Diversity & Inclusion Track
Marianne Cooper, Senior Research Scholar at the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford University
Diagnosing and Dismantling Negative Cultures for Inclusion
In this breakout session, Marianne Cooper will talk about how to diagnose negative workplace dynamics that get in the way of inclusion. She will also provide research based solutions for addressing and preventing these dynamics from arising in the first place.
In this breakout session, Marianne Cooper will talk about how to diagnose negative workplace dynamics that get in the way of inclusion. She will also provide research based solutions for addressing and preventing these dynamics from arising in the first place.
Read Marianne's bio
Marianne Cooper is a Senior Research Scholar at the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford University. She is also an affiliate at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. She was the lead researcher for Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. She is a contributing writer to the Atlantic and a LinkedIn influencer. She is an author of Lean In & McKinsey Women in the Workplace reports on the status of women in corporate America. She is an expert on gender, women’s leadership, diversity and inclusion, financial insecurity, and economic inequality. Her book, Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times, examines how families are coping in an insecure age. Dr. Cooper regularly speaks, writes, and consults on these topics for companies, media outlets, and professional groups. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Breakout Sessions: 2:30-3:30pm
Executive Leadership Track - 3 Presentations
Caroline Winnett, Executive Director, Berkeley SkyDeck
How Leaders Can Inspire Women to be Leaders in Tech
Motivating women to be leaders in tech requires intentionality and diligent effort. Every semester, my organization coaches more than 100 startups on how to pitch investors. We have a remarkable success rate: our 300 alumni startups, to date (men and women) have raised over $1B. 70% of our last cohort batch received term sheets. Statistically, companies with at least one female founder show a higher return on investment, but they do not receive the backing that men do. In 2017 male-led companies averaged $12M VC investment, and female-led averaged only $5M. I would like to share three of the inclusion strategies that we have found to be successful at SkyDeck for inspiring women founders to be leaders in tech.
Motivating women to be leaders in tech requires intentionality and diligent effort. Every semester, my organization coaches more than 100 startups on how to pitch investors. We have a remarkable success rate: our 300 alumni startups, to date (men and women) have raised over $1B. 70% of our last cohort batch received term sheets. Statistically, companies with at least one female founder show a higher return on investment, but they do not receive the backing that men do. In 2017 male-led companies averaged $12M VC investment, and female-led averaged only $5M. I would like to share three of the inclusion strategies that we have found to be successful at SkyDeck for inspiring women founders to be leaders in tech.
Read Caroline's bio
Caroline Winnett is Executive Director of a major startup accelerator, UC Berkeley’s SkyDeck. Since 2014, Winnett has more than tripled the Berkeley SkyDeck program advisers, and started a dedicated fund which gives 50 percent of its profits back to UC Berkeley, closing at an oversubscribed $24M. Winnett herself is a serial entrepreneur with two successful exits. NeuroFocus, acquired by Nielsen; and BoardVantage, acquired by Nasdaq. Caroline received her MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Her undergraduate studies were at Brown University and she earned her Violin Performance degree at the Indiana University School of Music. In her spare time she likes to read books on startups, play the violin, do the occasional Ironman triathlon, ski as fast as possible without crashing, and scuba dive.
Heidi Williams, CTO & Co-Founder, tEQuitable
Beyond Inclusion 101: Intersectionality and Systemic Change
In over 20 years the needle hasn’t moved for women in tech and our industry D&I approach too narrowly serves only white women. I co-founded tEQuitable with a mission to create work culture that works for everyone. We support both employees and companies to implement systemic culture change. I will share insights from our work and hope to inspire you to take a more holistic approach to inclusion and belonging that has intersectionality front and center.
In over 20 years the needle hasn’t moved for women in tech and our industry D&I approach too narrowly serves only white women. I co-founded tEQuitable with a mission to create work culture that works for everyone. We support both employees and companies to implement systemic culture change. I will share insights from our work and hope to inspire you to take a more holistic approach to inclusion and belonging that has intersectionality front and center.
Read Heidi's bio
Heidi Williams is CTO and Co-Founder of tEQuitable, a confidential platform addressing workplace bias, discrimination, and harassment. In 2016 she founded WEST, a mentorship program for mid-career women. Before that, she was VP of Platform Engineering at Box and spent 17 years at Adobe. Heidi has a B.S. in Computer Science from Brown University.
Padmaja Vrudhula, Industry Innovation Executive, Office of the CTO, VMware
Holistic Analysis Framework for Diversity in Technology
Diversity and Inclusion programs at most companies are implemented based on measuring immediate needs rather than the longer-term impact of hiring, mentoring, and promotions. Further, the programs may not necessarily incorporate components which affect the grade-school or college pipelines, or in the case of women, those seeking to return to work after a break. Review how a set of frameworks, processes, and metrics which take all of these into account could help the overall sustainability of investment in D&I programs.
Diversity and Inclusion programs at most companies are implemented based on measuring immediate needs rather than the longer-term impact of hiring, mentoring, and promotions. Further, the programs may not necessarily incorporate components which affect the grade-school or college pipelines, or in the case of women, those seeking to return to work after a break. Review how a set of frameworks, processes, and metrics which take all of these into account could help the overall sustainability of investment in D&I programs.
Read Padmaja's bio
Padmaja Vrudhula is a leader in VMware’s Office of the CTO, experienced in working with executives across many industries to drive technology adoption, organizational change, and digital transformation. She has participated in numerous community organizations and projects focused on providing education, access, and economic empowerment to non-mainstream groups and individuals.
Pratima Rao Gluckman, Engineering Leader - Blockchain, VMware
Emerging Leadership Track - 3 Presentations
Persistent & Inclusive Leadership
Participants in this session will be able to walk away with valuable best practices in the following areas:
● How to combat imposter syndrome (that nagging feeling that you aren’t capable as you take on or
consider taking on challenges that are large in scope)
● Authentic leadership - how do you bring your whole self to work
● Sponsorship versus mentorship and strategies for getting sponsored.
● Individual strategies for women to advance in their careers
● Collective strategies for changing the cultures within our companies
● How to get our male colleagues to become champions for change in this arena
Persistent & Inclusive Leadership
Participants in this session will be able to walk away with valuable best practices in the following areas:
● How to combat imposter syndrome (that nagging feeling that you aren’t capable as you take on or
consider taking on challenges that are large in scope)
● Authentic leadership - how do you bring your whole self to work
● Sponsorship versus mentorship and strategies for getting sponsored.
● Individual strategies for women to advance in their careers
● Collective strategies for changing the cultures within our companies
● How to get our male colleagues to become champions for change in this arena
Read Pratima's bio
Pratima Gluckman has worked in the software engineering field for two decades where she has both developed and driven software solutions for Silicon Valley startups and several Fortune 500 companies. At VMware, she has spearheaded several engineering initiatives in Compute and Networking space. She currently runs Blockchain engineering and is an intrapreneur at heart. She is passionate about diversity in the workplace and has led the charge on several initiatives for gender and diversity efforts both internally and for the company’s campus recruiting and summer internship efforts. She recently published a book detailing leadership journeys called Nevertheless She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech and speaks at conferences, universities and companies around the world. Pratima Gluckman holds both a Bachelor of Science in Instrumentation Engineering and a Masters in Chemistry from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani, Rajasthan, India and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas. She lives with her husband and 3 children in Palo Alto California.
Dormain Drewitz, Senior Director of Product, Partner and Customer Marketing, Pivotal Software, Inc.
Do Inclusiveness and Innovativeness Have a Shared Destiny? Or a Common Heritage?
Learning organizations, curiosity, asking questions over making assumptions… These qualities describe how innovative teams operate. It turns out, they are also ingredients for a more inclusive culture. Whether or not you agree that more innovation is a by-product of a more inclusive culture, the benefits of these qualities ring true.
This talk will explore the intersection between habits, practices, and behaviors that promote inclusiveness and those that promote innovation. For busy technology leaders, that intersection provides somewhere to focus, a starting point. Iterating towards being a leader that promotes innovation and inclusion starts with small, concrete steps. Let’s illuminate what those steps could be.
Learning organizations, curiosity, asking questions over making assumptions… These qualities describe how innovative teams operate. It turns out, they are also ingredients for a more inclusive culture. Whether or not you agree that more innovation is a by-product of a more inclusive culture, the benefits of these qualities ring true.
This talk will explore the intersection between habits, practices, and behaviors that promote inclusiveness and those that promote innovation. For busy technology leaders, that intersection provides somewhere to focus, a starting point. Iterating towards being a leader that promotes innovation and inclusion starts with small, concrete steps. Let’s illuminate what those steps could be.
Read Dormain's bio
Dormain is a Senior Director of Product, Partner and Customer Marketing with Pivotal. She has published extensively on cloud computing topics for ten years, demystifying the changing requirements of the infrastructure software stack. She’s presented at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development, and Integration Summit; Monkigras; SpringOne Platform; Monktoberfest; Open Source Summit; Cloud Foundry Summit, and numerous software user events. Dormain holds a B. A. in History from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Rashim Mogha, Senior Director Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle
Project YOU! DevOps Approach to a Leadership Career
With the fast pace of innovation, it is critical for emerging women leaders to continue to invest in themselves and innovate themselves so that they are strong contenders for leadership roles. Just functional skills are not going to cut it! Emerging women leaders need a holistic strategy to advance their leadership career. This session covers the end-to-end strategy:
• Identify your superpower
• Build your personal brand which ties in with your success
• Create a plan to develop the skills that are you need to be successful
• Navigate bias and make sure you are heard
• Building emotional, intellectual, logistical, and financial support systems
• Rinse and repeat in a typical DevOps model to continue innovating yourself
With the fast pace of innovation, it is critical for emerging women leaders to continue to invest in themselves and innovate themselves so that they are strong contenders for leadership roles. Just functional skills are not going to cut it! Emerging women leaders need a holistic strategy to advance their leadership career. This session covers the end-to-end strategy:
• Identify your superpower
• Build your personal brand which ties in with your success
• Create a plan to develop the skills that are you need to be successful
• Navigate bias and make sure you are heard
• Building emotional, intellectual, logistical, and financial support systems
• Rinse and repeat in a typical DevOps model to continue innovating yourself
Read Rashim's bio
Rashim Mogha, Senior Director Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is a thought leader and cloud evangelist who empowers professionals by articulating complex cloud capabilities into crisp, clear, and attainable business benefits. A keynote speaker and #1 Amazon best-selling author of “Fast-Track Your Leadership Career”, Rashim speaks at conferences around the world. Her thoughts on leadership, innovation, women in technology, and enablement strategy have appeared in publications such as Forbes and ATD. With a goal to empower women leaders, Rashim founded eWOW- empowered Women of the World, an intellectual platform to help women with their technical and leadership skills to be successful, to thrive!
Her extensive career portfolio includes leadership roles in companies such as Oracle, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and VMware where she built high-performing teams to support over $2 billion businesses.
Technical Track - 3 Presentations
Malini Bhandaru,
Open Source Lead for IoT & Edge, VMware
Let’s talk IoT
The Internet-Of-Things (IoT), also known as the 4th industrial revolution, is marked by the close interplay of the physical and digital worlds. Come learn of use cases and the challenges they pose, from device heterogeneity, data volume, low latency, security, regulatory and compliance, network connectivity, and more. We summarize some open source IoT efforts and share a sample automotive IoT project.
The Internet-Of-Things (IoT), also known as the 4th industrial revolution, is marked by the close interplay of the physical and digital worlds. Come learn of use cases and the challenges they pose, from device heterogeneity, data volume, low latency, security, regulatory and compliance, network connectivity, and more. We summarize some open source IoT efforts and share a sample automotive IoT project.
Read Malini's bio
Malini Bhandaru, leads open source IoT efforts at VMware. Over the decades she has worked on a big data research platform for autonomous driving, open source cloud and software defined networking technologies, fast crypto, server power and performance, and IoT before it was hot, at Intel, Nuance and other companies. She has over 10 granted patents, a Ph.D. in AI from University of Massachusetts, and is a CASA volunteer.
Dhanashri Phadke, Sr. Principal Software Engineer, Veritas
Preventative Maintenance in Data Protection Environments
Predictive maintenance can serve as a differentiator to improve customer centricity through efficient incident management and product improvement.
Predictive maintenance can serve as a differentiator to improve customer centricity through efficient incident management and product improvement.
Read Dhanashri's bio
Dhanashri Phadke, is a seasoned software professional. Over the years, she has worked in information management, cloud, data science and machine learning. Her latest work focussed on innovation in harnessing the power of data for Backup Failure Prediction and offering Telemetry-as-a-service to enhance customer value.
Leah Schoeb, CTO, Data Glass
Ransomware: Prevent, Detect, and Mitigate or Pay Up!
The term ransomware and the attack stories released weekly are reading more like a sequel. For some, this may be a bad dream. For others, they sleep like babies knowing their data is secure. New variants and new attack tactics arise almost daily in this sophisticated landscape of malware. Did you know ransomware penetrates a corporate firewall every 40 seconds? Have you ever heard of Ransomware-as-a-Service? If you answered "no" to one of these questions, then you need to arm yourself by peering through the ransomware looking glass. Join this session, led by Leah Schoeb to learn more: about the threat, theory, and solutions for Ransomware.
The term ransomware and the attack stories released weekly are reading more like a sequel. For some, this may be a bad dream. For others, they sleep like babies knowing their data is secure. New variants and new attack tactics arise almost daily in this sophisticated landscape of malware. Did you know ransomware penetrates a corporate firewall every 40 seconds? Have you ever heard of Ransomware-as-a-Service? If you answered "no" to one of these questions, then you need to arm yourself by peering through the ransomware looking glass. Join this session, led by Leah Schoeb to learn more: about the threat, theory, and solutions for Ransomware.
Read Leah's bio
Leah Schoeb, CTO, brings expertise ranging from cloud infrastructure and virtualization to system and data infrastructure performance. Her latest work with infrastructure optimization and solid state technology. She draws over many years of experience in the computer industry helping systems companies with performance engineering and optimization, market positioning, benchmark evidence creation, and guiding industry standards development for system, virtualized, containerized, and data solutions. Leah has served in several leadership roles for performance architecture for companies, such as, Turbonomic, VMware, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Intel, and Amdahl.
Diversity & Inclusion Track
Block Bias in Micro-moments
Much of the work to reduce bias has focused on key people processes, like hiring, performance management and promotions. In all those cases, we learn to use criteria, slow down and be consistent in order to produce better and fairer outcomes. Yet, in the moment, when we hear a potentially biased comment against a colleague or ourselves, we may be unequipped to act. In this workshop, practice ways to block bias in everyday conversations and develop your own tools to help you deliver on your intention to build and enact a culture where everyone’s voice is valued and all contributions are seen.
Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, Executive Director, Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University
Co-Founder Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab
Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Consultant, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Much of the work to reduce bias has focused on key people processes, like hiring, performance management and promotions. In all those cases, we learn to use criteria, slow down and be consistent in order to produce better and fairer outcomes. Yet, in the moment, when we hear a potentially biased comment against a colleague or ourselves, we may be unequipped to act. In this workshop, practice ways to block bias in everyday conversations and develop your own tools to help you deliver on your intention to build and enact a culture where everyone’s voice is valued and all contributions are seen.
Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, Executive Director, Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University
Co-Founder Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab
Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Consultant, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Read Lori's bio
Lori Nishiura Mackenzie is Executive Director of Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research and the co-founder of the new Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. She advises the diversity and inclusion efforts at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and teaches executive education. Lori speaks globally at organizations such as the European Central Bank, the Watermark Conference for Women and the World Banking Group. Her work has been published in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, BBC, San Francisco Chronicle, and brand eins. Lori was one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2017 and was interviewed for the 2018 documentary, bias. Lori brings 20 years of business management experience from companies including Procter & Gamble, Apple, eBay and PayPal and is on the board of the Alliance for Girls. She has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
2019 Women Transforming Technology Consortium
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