Women at the Helm in Technology with Claire Priestley, CIO

Men hold the overwhelming majority of positions in IT leadership, where women fill less than 17% of CIO. The lack of diversity remains an issue and the numbers are unlikely to improve a lot right away but there is hope. Initiatives like Europe’s 2020 legislation, which has the goal of reaching a 40% gender diversity on the Boards of publicly held companies, has boosted the initiatives for more CIOs. The number of CIO’s in the Fortune 500 has been dropping, from 24% in 2015 to only 15% as of November 2017, so what do we do? Today the CIO role focus on driving business transformations, customer-facing initiatives, on-demand services and developing “smart cities and companies”. To have gender equality we need role models and CIO’s who are encouraging women to go into technology and focus on management and operations. Today we are going to be speaking with a woman who has made it to the Board and is a CIO, a role model in the field of technology and an encouragement to all.