Advocating for Women in Tech: A Conversation With Michelle Carroll From GSK

Far more than a nice-to-have, gender diversity delivers bottom-line benefits. The most gender-diverse companies are 48 percent more likely to outperform the least gender-diverse companies, McKinsey finds. And yet, women in the technology industry continue to face unequal representation and treatment.

While women make up 50 percent of the total UK workforce, they account for only 26 percent of the tech space, according to government-funded growth network Tech Nation. These stats are echoed across many other countries, including Australia, Germany and the United States, with Deloitte Global research on large, global tech firms finding that women account for 33 percent of the overall workforce, on average.

And this reality actually represents an improvement, as the proportion of women in technical roles at 20 large technology companies has nudged upward in recent years, Deloitte reports. Still, women in tech report lower pay and barriers to career progression. In the tech industry, only 52 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men.

One way tech companies can repair the broken rung on women’s career ladders? Build a strong culture of support via mentors, according to McKinsey. A thriving mentorship culture relies on women – such as Michelle Carroll – who excel at empowering other women.

As the Vice President of Global Digital and Tech Support Functions at GSK, Carroll has prioritised her advocacy for women and other underrepresented groups in tech. Carroll, who’s based in London, recently spoke with Steve Dunne from Workday, about how she made the switch from human resources to technology and why she believes other professional women in non-tech roles may have the skills needed to thrive in software-as-a-service (SaaS) environments. 

Tell us about your career and education and how your career choices led you to the technology sector.

At university, I studied finance and HR. I had grand plans of being an accountant, but I didn’t come from a particularly well-off family and ended up not finishing my degree. I got a job in what was then called personnel services. I spent my twenties working in HR and in my thirties, worked within a human resources information system (HRIS). It was when I joined GSK about six years ago that I made the true shift into pure tech, but still supporting it from the HR side.

What was your introduction to Workday?

My journey with Workday started back in 2013. I was a consultant at Diageo, and we were deploying a business solution globally. It was then that I heard the word Workday for the first time, and all of a sudden, we had a big shift in direction and were deploying Workday globally.

You had an interesting journey from an HRIS background to a technology leader role. Can you share how that transition felt?

While HR and IT are so intrinsically linked, when you move over to tech, you do notice the abundance of women in HR. Then suddenly you’re like, ‘Oh, now I’m in the minority’. Your role and view of yourself change because you aren’t just one of many sitting around the table anymore. You stick out.

How do you think the rise of SaaS has changed the landscape for women in technology?

I think the evolution of technologies has been an enabler for women. Women often gravitate toward roles that include consultation, business analysis or project management, whereas for a whole range of reasons, there's a fairly significant gap with women in pure engineering and technical roles. But now, we have SaaS solutions at our fingertips and the skills you need to set up a SaaS solution are more geared toward the skills women have developed. And that’s a wonderful thing, because it's meant that so many more women have been able to move into the tech space. People like me. You don’t need to be a coder anymore to make that shift.

And once female leaders like you are in those roles, role models exist for younger women moving into the industry.

Diversity breeds diversity, right? I currently have around 10 mentees, just within GSK. There's a lot of talent trying to work their way up and it’s important to nurture that in the right way. A lot of companies have made progress by setting ambitious targets around having female leaders at the top. But frankly, I think we’ve got a lot of work to do in the middle. A lot of women drop off in those middle layers of management. We’re getting them in the door, but we’re not progressing them through as well as we can be. 

How does GSK go about recruiting women at the global level?

I think we do a really good job and have some fantastic early-career targeting across all our different geographies. So many companies aren’t based out of just one location. We’re all facing global and cultural challenges. Trying to tackle something like diversity becomes even trickier when some locations have progressed more than others. It’s tough, then, when you have global roles and are sourcing them from different markets while still trying to stay true to your diversity goals. Getting women in the door is one thing, but how do you get them to progress all the way up so we’re not having to hire externally for the leadership roles?

I think we do a really good job and have some fantastic early-career targeting across all our different geographies. So many companies aren’t based out of just one location. We’re all facing global and cultural challenges. Trying to tackle something like diversity becomes even trickier when some locations have progressed more than others. It’s tough, then, when you have global roles and are sourcing them from different markets while still trying to stay true to your diversity goals. Getting women in the door is one thing, but how do you get them to progress all the way up so we’re not having to hire externally for the leadership roles?

What should companies be doing to encourage more women to pursue STEM careers?

Sometimes we don’t look laterally enough for untapped talent. Not everyone has to start in tech to have a great career in tech. We should be saying, ‘hey, there are transferable skills among people here’ – as opposed to just bringing people in at the ground level.

How do you go about creating a culture where women can thrive?

The first thing you have to do is hold up the mirror to yourself and cast the shadow you want to see. I’ve been fortunate to have had a lot of great mentors over the years and I try to replicate that with the people who sit within, not only my own organisation, but more broadly as well. I advocate for the female talent I mentor and encourage other leaders to do the same.

What other best practices do you believe promote workplace diversity and inclusion?

Diversity clearly has so many more dimensions than just the female lens. In a broader context, it has to start with education and making sure we’re advocating and being a true ally for all underrepresented groups. We need to make sure we’re tamping out all these unconscious biases, whether that’s through our recruitment processes or through day-to-day interactions. That means things like having diverse recruitment panels when you’re hiring for roles and making sure you’re getting a really diverse talent pool.

How does GSK excel in that regard?

Here at GSK, we’re very good at assessing performance and reward. We work hard to make sure we are calibrating and having those conversations as a leadership team at the end of the year, that we’re making sure we aren’t applying our own biases to people, whether it’s based on proximity, location, gender, or any other factor. We’re looking at the data and challenging ourselves to say, ‘have we given the right people the right rewards and recognition for the work they’ve done?’

What are your top tips for young women and others considering entering tech?

Invest time into building a network – not just with people you work with, but with people in roles to which you aspire. Be curious and reach out to people and try to understand what else is out there. I think most people would be surprised at the diverse types of roles that exist within tech – they aren’t just all coding roles or technical configuration roles. I spend more time dealing with people than I do with systems as a technology leader. And probably the last piece of advice would be: find a good mentor.

Read more about diversity and equity, overcoming prejudice and building inclusive organisational cultures as well as inspirational stories from women in IT in Vol. 7 of SmarterCIO.