Do Women In The Channel See a Brightening Outlook in Tech?

According to the latest Yahoo’s Diversity Report 2015, women are a significant minority in Yahoo’s overall global workforce. While the percentage of women grew to 37%, they only grew 1% when it comes to leadership roles, up to 24% in 2015 versus the 23% in 2014.

While the data is disappointing, there does seem to be an increase of including women within the IT channel. Just recently, Intel reached a goal of 43.1% of hiring more women and minorities. We’re witnessing an increased recognition for female leaders in the channel. For example, CRN Power 100: The Most Powerful Women of the Channel 2015, once again recognized executives such as Michelle Accardi of Star2Star Communications, for launching a co-op concierge marketing program to uncover new business and growing accounts for their partners; Alison Aldrich of Carbonite for helping building out a channel marketing arm, helping to support a growing network of partners and decisions that put the channel first.

In addition, many companies in the channel are now offering career acceleration programs for women. These companies include Avanade’s Accelerator Program, dedicated to help their female employees progress their careers and Microsoft’s Pink Cloud, targeted at training and providing young women with more job opportunities in IT.

As a woman in the channel, how do you leverage these new and growing opportunities and use them for a brighter future? Below are some advice and resources we put together for you:

• Get Connected: Just as how most B2B sales are generated as a result of the affinity and trust between staff and customers, our personal career success is often built based on the camaraderie that is nurtured by personal contact. Networking events such as the Microsoft’s WPC Women is a great program that expands opportunities for women at the WPC conference. Female attendees enjoy exclusive space on the expo floor where women can gather, network with leadership teams from both Microsoft and the channel partner organizations. 
• Be Visible: According to the IBM 2012-2013 Advancing Women at IBM Executive Search Study, research tells us that while high job performance is important, establishing visibility is equally important. In order for you to demonstrate your leadership capabilities, it is helpful that you take on critical, visible roles that will stretch your potential. With your achievements in place, you need to establish your presence both online and offline. Promote yourself on social media sites like Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook and get access to like-minded professionals.

Here are some social media groups for references:

• Women in Channels (WiC)
• IBM Partnerworld Women Network
• Microsoft WPC Women Group, & the dedicated hashtag (#WPC15women)
• Cisco Empowered Women Network

Think Education: Continuous learning is one of the key to success for any female leaders in the industry. You can enhance your industry knowledge by attending sharing sessions and workshops such as the Women of the Channel West 2016 to hear valuable insights from key executives, find mentors and invest in self-awareness and development. Find out more about this year’s Women of the Channel Leadership Summit.

The Channel is no longer perceived as a ‘boys-club’ industry. Women are stepping into stronger roles in the channel organizations and this is only the beginning of the road to diversity. Thus, embrace your skills and be prepared to be recognized as the next Woman of the Channel!