Throughout my 20-year career leading high-tech and startup companies, I’ve worked with a number of inspirational entrepreneurs who I always strived to emulate. I admired my role models’ abilities to handle adversity and negotiate ambiguity. Despite working in an overwhelmingly male industry, I never saw my gender as an obstacle to replicating these attributes and ultimately achieving my career goals.
But the more exposure I’ve had to company boardrooms, the more I’ve come to realize that the gender imbalance at the uppermost echelons of tech leadership genuinely stymies the upward mobility of talented women.