A little thought experiment: Close your eyes for a moment and picture a tech expert.
Did you picture a man? Don’t worry if you did — that’s perfectly natural. It’s also reflective of a broad bias in our society that isn’t just bad for women, but for business as a whole.
That’s why we were so excited to read a piece in Fortune recently pointing out that “female members of corporate boards are nearly twice as likely as their male counterparts to have professional technology experience, which the study defined as either holding a key tech position at a previous employer—such as CTO or CIO—or having senior-level responsibility at a technology firm.”
There are a lot of reasons for this phenomenon, but one of the key takeaways for us — and what we tell clients looking for strategic decision makers with tech experience — is that there’s an amazing opportunity, right now, to ensure greater diversity and tech expertise in the boardroom.
And lest anyone think that proactive efforts toward gender diversity are just a nod to what is PC, consider this: companies with higher numbers of women on their boards tend to do better financially than those with overwhelmingly male boards.