Dive Brief:
- This summer brought change to CIO positions in major corporations, and many of the positions went to women, according to CIO. Of those listed, women made up one-third of the new CIO hires.
- To name a few, Staples named Pragati Mathur as CIO following her senior VP role at Biogen. BNY Mellon brought on former CIO Consumer Bank of Bank of America, Bridget Engle, as CIO. And following the GE merger, Jennifer Hartsock was named CIO at Baker Hughes.
- More women are entering C-suite roles in major companies but still remain in the spots behind CEO, according to the New York Times. Currently, women account for 19% of CIOs followed by CEOs at 5%.
Dive Insight:
The tech industry is plagued with a sexist reputation riddled with sexual harassment cases, and general claims of discrimination. Less than 20% of women are represented in Silicon Valley's major hubs like Google, Intel, Apple and HP.
With the tech industry influence expanding, companies are working to close the gender gap. Facebook just announced its Facebook University had 27% women in its graduating class. While just 18% of computer science majors are women in the U.S., Facebook's diversity push cannot be ignored.
Some organizations are working to increase diversity starting earlier in education. The Girl Scouts announced a partnership with Palo Alto Networks to encourage badge options for cybersecurity. Introducing girls to the tech frontier is increasing as seen in YouTube's CEO Susan Wojcicki and IBM's CEO Ginni Rometty commitment to Girl Scout mentorship.
Notably, 2016 proved to be a successful year for women in CIO roles after 42% of women in the role received a pay raise compared to the 32% of their male counterparts. Even with the salary improvements, women made up just 19% of CIO positions at leading firms in the U.S. in 2016.
