Executive Fireside Chat with Women in Tech Sweden

Good morning and thanks for tuning in. My name is Lee Sam. I'm part of the recruiting team here at Cloudflare and I'm joined today on this fireside chat by Matilda Eriksson and Åsa Johansen. So let's start off with introductions. Let's start with you Matilda first. For those who are watching, whether live or the recorded version, introduce yourself. Yes, thank you Lee. So I'm Matilda Eriksson. I'm based in Stockholm, Sweden and I'm the Area VP for Northern Europe here at Cloudflare. And I run an organization of roughly 50 people where my main focus is their success in their roles and their happiness in their roles, but also the growth of our company. Awesome. And Åsa, how about yourself? Well, hi everybody. Nice to have me on board. My name is Åsa Johansen and I'm part of the Women in Tech Sweden organization that I'm heading up. And we are today in Sweden, we are like 50 commercial partners like Cloudflare, like we're happy to have on board, but we also have members of approximately 28,000 members in Sweden that identify themselves as Women in Tech. So that's pretty much what I'm doing heading up day to day. That's awesome. So you're both pretty important people. So I'm really happy that you're both giving time to kind of share your experience here. So Åsa, why don't we start off with you? So I was actually in preparation for our fireside chat today. I looked you both up on LinkedIn just to familiarize myself a bit more with your backgrounds. And what's interesting about yourself Åsa is that earlier in your career, you used to work at Ericsson, the kind of communications company, the mobile phone company. And your background is actually in communications. Share with us a bit about your time at Ericsson, what you did and some of your observations. Yeah, sure. You know, I started at Ericsson in 1990. It's sometimes hilarious to think about how long time ago that was. But that was actually, if you can do the math, before we started using Internet. And that was a very special time. So I started with communication, actually introducing Internet and common information handling on Ericsson in those days. And it was a very, very special time, I would say. So I was 10 years with Ericsson, both working with internal communication, employer branding. It was not called employer branding by that time. But it was all about feeling, making sure that everybody felt welcome and that they know their purpose and that, as Matilda said, to cater for their success. So I've been off and on with Ericsson since then as an employer. Or when I moved over to the agency side, I've been heading up different kind of CEO roles and PR agencies within Stockholm, in Sweden. But I've always been, throughout my career, I've always been deeply involved with technology driven companies for some reason, because I tend to drive my interest to do that. And my experience has given me a broad perspective on technology shaping both business and society. And I've always been passionate about how that industry, we need to make it more inclusive. Because coming from Ericsson and from that part, you can imagine me being 19 years old, being in a room where it is seldom, or more often being the only woman in the room. But I think through Women in Tech Sweden, I find a perfect platform to combine my background with both communication and leadership, but also my commitment to diversity and inclusions. And that means helping open doors for other women to come and to make sure that we have a great and strong community together. Yeah, that's really insightful. And I want to touch on the point that you just made there, being the only woman in the room. Matilda, coming to you, so you've been in sales for quite some time. And I noticed that earlier in your career, you worked with the TV broadcaster Canal. It'd be interesting to hear from you what your experience was like that early in your career, probably having the same experience, being one of the only women in the room. What was it like for you? Yeah, that was really the starting point of my real career. That was at the Canal Digital. That was part of Telenor Broadcasting. And yes, it was very much a male-led organization. The females or the women in the company was mainly in marketing. What I found when working in that role was I often had a different perspective than many others, that we were very task-oriented. You needed to do X, Y, Z, and it would result in this or that. And I often took a very much value-based view on everything, which started conversations that maybe would not have happened if I wasn't in that room. So yeah, I think I learned a lot about what diverse teams could accomplish when already that early in my career. Was diversity something that leaders, sales leaders at the time in Sweden were even talking about or considering, Matilda? I don't see that it was as high on the agenda as it is today at that point. I did see a lot of women coming into the wider spectrum, but the balance that I do see as more active knowledge today was not as active at that point. And Asa, from your time earlier in your career at Ericsson to fast forward to today, what are some of the things that have stood out to you about the demographics of the tech landscape in Sweden? Have you noticed any kind of changes in the industry and demographics? I mean, Sweden has a very strong tech sector and it's very known for innovation. Of course, Ericsson back in the days and Volvo and coming up with some new unicorns day by day, I feel. But the gender balance has still always been a challenge, I would say. Women make up a relatively small percentage of the workforce intake, especially when it comes to tech roles, when it comes to development or stuff like that. And I think that, however, the positive trend is that companies are increasing in the recognition and importance of diversity. And I think that we are actively working to attract and retain more female talent because we want to have teams that are diverse and include, because the product and the services that we are producing and developing needs to have the diversity to be able to be relevant, both for our customers, but for the society as well. But I think also that in the same time, we need to continue shifting the culture and structures to see that more women see that they have an obvious career choice in this. And I think that is the big challenge for the big tech companies, because it's been headed up by a very monochrome kind of leadership. I didn't mean to say that in a negative way, but I think we need to be more inclusive in both how we think about including women into the workforce as well. So I'm glad you use that word inclusive because one of the questions I actually wanted to get both your perspective on is inclusion. We often hear DEI, which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. And the inclusion part, I feel, is sometimes quite overlooked because if you can have a lot of initiatives to attract and hire women and underrepresented ethnicities, but if you don't invest just as much in initiatives to retain those people and make them feel included, then they're probably not going to stay very long. So what are some of the things that employers can do to ensure that women feel that they are included and that they belong in those tech companies? Matilda, let's start with you. What are your thoughts there? So in Sweden, we are quite lucky to have probably the largest female workforce, active workforce. And a lot of that is thanks to the generous parental leave that we have and the subsidized child care that we have in Sweden. And I think that we don't often stop to reflect on how good we have it, because if I look at my colleagues in other countries, it's somewhere around three months and child care costs as much as you earn in a month. So I have many friends that are working throughout their kids' young age and putting all of their salary into daycare because the option is unthinkable, because staying at home before the kids start school, you don't have a lot of career options left. I think that we have this at hand. We should utilize it much more. So men in leading positions should lead by example, by taking parental leave, prioritizing a work life balance and recognize and respect that there are parts of our employees' life outside of the work that is actually more important than the actual work. And when we build a balanced dependency for our families, then it will make it much easier for employees, but also better for employers that you're not dependent on one parent and you will actually have a family that the parents have the ability to go after the career that they desire. And once we push towards normalizing this, it will be a win-win situation for everyone. And I think that this is key to really make sure that the women are, it's okay for them, but it's also okay for men to take that parental leave so that it goes both ways. Yeah, that's really, really insightful. Asa, what about you? Same question. From your observations, being the director of Women in Tech Sweden, I imagine you've been approached by a number of employers, sponsors who are basically trying to achieve the same thing, right? Create an environment where they can not only attract, but retain more diverse talent. What are some of the things that you recommend to some of your partners to help them make women feel more included in the workplace? Yeah, as you said, Mathilda, I totally agree with what you said about leading with being a good example. I think that's, of course, something we need to lift even more. But I think hiring women is only a part of the solution. We have to ensure that they want to stay. That is important because, I mean, a couple of years ago, we were asking our members if they were considering leaving the tech industry. And then 40% actually said that they were, and that's a huge number for an industry that are lacking of so much competence of today. And a couple of years, last year, we asked the same question, and the answer was 20%. So hopefully it goes to the right direction when it comes to that, to make sure that we are keeping the ones that we really have. But I think three things comes to my mind when we think about this, and I think that we should foster a culture where all voices matters. Because I think to make sure that women have equal opportunities to speak and contribute in meeting and decision making processes overall, I think that's something that we need to work on a little bit more. I think, as you said, offering flexibility in the work-life balance and just parental leave is a fantastic thing that you said. But sometimes we forget about, we take it for granted, living in Sweden, that you should have a year off with your kid. And that's really a unique thing. But I think that many women leave tech due also the environment issue of lack of flexibility. Because I think that when you are in a producing kind of environment, you want everybody to be working like this or in the way that we've always been doing it. Because everything's moving so fast. So sometimes being a manager, you want to increase the flexibility rather than to open it up, because it's moving so fast that you don't really know it yourself. But I really think that we need to ensure that that's a sustainable work condition, that you are flexible in the way that you work. And Sam, I was going to say a clear career path and leadership opportunities. Not saying that everybody should be leaders, because that's not the same thing of making a career. But if you don't want to be a leader, what is the clear career path for you? Can you still evolve and do something with yourself, upskill and reskill without being a leader and taking care of people? Because being a career is not always learning to take care of people. In this industry, we need to take care of the solutions and problems rather than we have people persons as well. That we need to have a clear career path, because I think we're lacking a bit of that to make sure that we help people with mentorship. And if they want to have leadership, make sure that they have some training of it, not just giving that to have a career path and a higher salary. We need to cater their career path. Yeah, I'm glad you touched on career path, because Matilda, you being the area vice president for Cloudflare. You've obviously had a career path yourself that has kind of got you to where you are now. If you look back, did you have any sort of mentors or were you able to take advantage of any initiatives that really helped accelerate your career to where you are now? Yes, I've been very lucky to have both mentors and sponsors, allies around me. And then in those companies where I've been the most impactful and most successful, I've had really strong allies. So started, if I look back in my previous employer where I had my kids, I was promoted to sales manager when I just got pregnant. And it was not official yet that I was pregnant. So when I got this promotion, I got really scared because two of my dreams were happening at the same time and they were kind of colliding worlds. But I had a fantastic manager who really believed in me and he said, that's fine. We will work with what we got for the period that you're here. When you're off, we'll just cover it and then you will hopefully come back to us when you're done with being on lead. So I got tremendous support in that. And then at Cloudflare, I've probably found two of the strongest partners that I've had so far in my career. That is really helping me, supporting me to realize the vision that I have for what Cloudflare and what Cloudflare in the Northern Europe can mean to our employees, but also our customers. Yeah. So that's quite interesting. I was about to ask you whether your manager was a woman or a man, but you answered that. And that brings me nicely to my next question. What are some of the things that men in tech, particularly in the Swedish market, but anyone who's watching, what are some of the things that men like me can do to be more of an ally, to help the representation of women in tech? Matilda. Yeah. So throughout my career, I've seen kind of three, a lot of different men, of course, but three distinct areas that stick out. It's the group that is the unknowing, which is more those that don't really care if it's a man or a female that they are working with. They're just happy to work with anyone and they look at the bigger picture and they don't make a big thing out of it. And I think that this is the largest group. And this is where we need to educate them more to make them aware of the power that they hold and the impact that they can have in changing the status quo. Because they do have, even if they don't realize that they do sit on a power to influence and drive change. So here, I believe that the education on unconscious bias and these things is needed. The second group is the, I call it the bully group, which are men, but also women that feel threatened about women that are successful. And these people actively work to limit success and make these women feel smaller. That's a group that we need to put spotlight on because this is happening in the background, in the quiet zone. And either it's being ignored or it's just being not seen by management or colleagues around. So that type of behavior, regardless if it's men or female, that we need to put spotlight on them. And the third group is the mentors and sponsors that are already addressed. And I think it's super important that we, if we look at what our companies want to achieve, it's always innovation and growth. And if we keep hiring people with the same profile, with the same background and the same idea, we will get the same outcome. So it's extremely important if you want to really be successful in moving forward, you need to build diverse companies, diverse organization. And that meaning not just gender diversity, but also background skills, everything. Because the more diversity you have, the more perspective experience you will have in your organization to really fuel that innovation and growth mentality. So, and then I think that this is also something that will not fall into our laps. This is something that men need to really go and look for, ask for, build these talents. And women, they really need to start asking for it and ask for the support that they need. And lean in, as Cheryl Sandel so elegantly put it in her book, lean in and really take that seat at the table. Yeah. And Asa, same question for you. What are some of the things that you perhaps propose or recommend to men who want to help play their part and increase representation of women in tech? First, echoing what Matilda said, I think, I mean, the unconscious bias is, of course, I think that is the biggest threat we have. And I think that challenge that, work towards creating a more inclusive work culture, of course. But I think, how do we do that? I mean, that's just words. How do we make sure that that really, really happens? And I think that one thing is we at Women in Tech, we talk about network and inspiration and we do that. We have a fantastic network of 28,000 people, not just saying that has to be women. It has to be everybody that wants to make this change. So everybody's welcome if you, whatever, however you choose to identify yourself. But what I do think that we need when it also comes to role models, I would like to have more male role models for males talking about how this makes actually an effect on the bottom line. That this is not just something to make sure that we are just nice to each other on the workplace, because that is some kind of, of course, that we are. But we need to understand that this is part of the business strategy to make sure that we have more diversity, more representation and more inclusion in the product and services that we actually deliver to our clients and to our customers. The ones that actually brings back the money and in keeping the shareholders happy. Because that, I mean, that is why we go to work every day. Most of us, I mean, then most of us have hopefully fun while we're doing it and we're actually contributing to a greater cause than that. But to be an active ally, I think that is something that I would like to lift up. To be, to make sure that we find male role models for other males. Because sometimes what I've experienced is that it's hard for males to talk about this because they think that they are taking their spotlight from us. And that they think that I should not talk about this because this is your area. It's like, this is not my area. This is the area of the business. This is not for one or if you're female or male to drive. This is how we support that Cloudflare or someone else becomes a relevant actor in the tech sector. And I think that if we can bring up a fantastic male role models that everybody knows about to talk about these things. As you say, lead by an example. Making sure also the mentorship and sponsorship. Offer guidance to these women who are entering this industry by actively sponsoring colleagues and staff for their career opportunities. So think allies, the mentor and sponsorship that you talked about, Matilda. But again, all of this bottles down to reflect on unconscious biases. Yeah, that's very so true. And that brings me to my next question, Asa. So we've hosted a few events in the London office over the last few years, primarily targeting women in tech or other groups. And one of the questions the panel often gets is comes from people who are women who are looking to actually break into tech for the first time. And they're asking the panelists, you know, how do they do that? Because often if you don't have experience, folks are not really giving you a chance. Asa, what advice would you give to any women watching this who want to get into tech and are currently maybe in an unrelated field? Well, I think the best advice is just to take the leap and don't feel like you need to tick in every boxes. Because sometimes the imposter syndrome that we women have when it comes to hiring, looking for jobs, is that we think that we need to exceed on all the bullets in the ad. And I think skip that and make sure how does it make you feel? Do you want to work at a company like this? But I think it's take the leap. I think that is the most important thing, because the first step you take is not where you're going to end up. I mean, look at me and Matilda in long careers. I worked with Ericsson many, many years ago, and it all led me to where I am today. So don't think that you're going to see where you're going to be in five years, because that was another common question you got when you were in an interview. Where do you want to be in five years? I have no idea. No one knows where we're going to be in five years. Take the leap. Take the step. Start doing. Make whatever makes you happy. Do whatever makes you happy and start the journey. Then make sure that you are at a company that helps you and foster your career path, that you have someone that you like. We talk about the mentorship, mentorship and sponsorship to make sure that you have a company that shares your values. The rest is going to work as you go along. What about you, Matilda? What advice would you give to to any women who are kind of trying to get maybe into into sales in tech or or any part of tech? What advice would you give them? Anything to add to Asa's points? I fully agree with what Asa is saying. It's define what it is you want to do. Do you want to work in coding? Do you want to work in sales? Where do you want to go and then do your research to find out what is the the soft skills that you need to start with in order to build confidence? And once you have confidence to take on greater challenges, that's how you will develop. So you just need to take the leap and start somewhere. And I think Asa mentioned a good point here, the role descriptions and when to apply for a role. That is an area I'm thinking a lot about because I'm spending maybe 20, 30 percent of my time recruiting. And if I look at the CVs that I get, they are a direct reflection of the role descriptions that we put out there. So we basically put the role descriptions. They're asking for features and functions. So we get the CV that speaks to features and functions and that's the filter. Then we get to the initial call. Then we actually start exploring who is the person behind all of these features and functions. What is the characteristics? What is the experience and what are what would they bring to the table? And I think that here is something that where we need to evolve that process to think about how do we write role descriptions in a way that it's relatable for a wider audience than the immediate narrow sector of women in tech or people in tech. Because that I think will also open the door for us to be able to take on board more people into the tech sector. Yeah, that's so true. Thanks Matilda. So we're down to our last couple of minutes and I want us to quickly share a bit about the new Women in Tech Sweden and Cloudflare partnership and the event in April. So Asa, do you want to do a quick plug for that event and tell us, share with the audience a little bit about that event in April? Yeah, I mean we've been doing this for 12 years now and now we have a yearly event coming up on April 23rd in Stockholm. That's when we are inviting 3,000 women or at least 3,000 members. Most of them are women. Sometimes there's men there and they just realize how it is to be the only one that stands out in a crowd. That's kind of humbling I think for some of these people. But we are inviting that. It's going to be fantastic. We just started to announce the different speakers that we have on main stage. It's a fantastic opportunity to cater our three leading words about networking, inspiration and role models. And I'm happy to welcome Cloudflare as one of our focus session partners. You're going to have your own focus session where you're going to have your own stage and your own audience and talk about the things that's close to your heart. And I think Matilda, you can elaborate. Tell me a little bit about that topic. Yes. So we will have a 45 minute session where we will divide it basically into two parts. It will be me one part talking about building a career within tech and my priorities in partnering with communities like Women in Tech. But also how I look at building a people first culture, making sure that regardless of your life situation where you have kids or whatever you have, that you are successful working at Cloudflare and that you develop working at Cloudflare. I will share some of my views and experience building organizations. And then I will hand over to my fantastic colleague Ella, who will talk more about Cloudflare's position in the tech market, our developer platform and a bit more into what Cloudflare's offering looks like and the opportunity for women to join Cloudflare and our partner community. So this is basically a must attend event with an all star cast. So for anyone watching, if you are either based in Stockholm or you can get a flight there, do make sure you get to this event where you'll be able to see Matilda and a number of other industry leaders sharing. And it will be live as well on the Internet. So it's just on a home page, live and on demand. So if you can't take the flight, watch it afterwards. Awesome. Right. Well, we're at time. So for those watching, thanks so much for tuning in. Hope you found it helpful. Matilda, Asa, thanks very much for sharing your experiences with us. Good to see. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye bye.