By Sarah Ospina, Vice President, Ventures Investment, Workday
Workday was a platinum sponsor of the seventh annual Women Transforming Technology Conference, an event that aligns with the Workday Ventures goal, to provide opportunities for the next generation of women entrepreneurs. It brings together organisations from industry, academia and non-profit sectors to build community and tackle prominent issues for women in technology. The conference looks to inspire, support and connect attendees in all areas and levels of technology in Silicon Valley and beyond.
The theme of this year’s Women Transforming Technology Conference was ‘elevate joy’ and my colleague Barbry McGann, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Workday Ventures, kicked off the conference by highlighting the joys of mentorship. She shared tips on how to engage with a potential mentor or mentee and provided practical frameworks for goal setting and check-ins to make it a rewarding experience for all parties. Other Workday-led sessions included how to evaluate a company culture and ensure corporate values align with your own, strategies for how to drive equity, inclusion and belonging in technology companies and best practices for optimising balance and growth if you’re a full-time remote employee.
Workday Ventures will continue to support events and networking, as well as champion our goal to provide opportunities for the next generation of women entrepreneurs.
As part of the conference, I moderated the CEO and founders roundtable on innovating, leading and learning. Three extraordinary women spoke authentically about the challenges and joys of founding their own companies. Our panellists included Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, CEO and Founder of Wellthy, who created a company that provides personalised caregiving support to help families balance work and the demands of caring for a loved one, Laura Del Beccaro, CEO and Co-Founder of Sora, a company that helps human resources operations teams scale amazing employee onboarding experiences in less time and Katica Roy, CEO and Founder of Pipeline Equity, who built a SaaS platform to increase financial performance of companies by closing the intersectional gender equity gap.
Our 75-minute panel discussion covered several fascinating topics. Here are some key observations I took from the day:
Empathy and innovation
What inspired each founder to start their own company often involved deeply personal experiences that informed innovation. In the case of Jurist-Rosner, this involved navigating healthcare decisions for a parent for 28 years, which then led her to start a company that could make caregiving easier.
Culture continues to be a CEO priority at early-stage companies. It fuels collaboration, innovation and employee experiences.
Culture matters
Culture continues to be a CEO priority at early-stage companies. It fuels collaboration, innovation and employee experiences, which are critical to helping companies grow and succeed. Del Beccaro spoke about her belief that innovative products stem from a great collaborative culture and how a positive customer experience has a direct correlation to culture.
Learning new skills
Building your skillset is a lifelong endeavour and the founders discussed the valuable skills they wished they had gained earlier in their careers. For Jurist-Rosner, it was the importance of becoming an empathetic storyteller and having the confidence to relentlessly pitch and sell her ideas. Del Beccaro talked about the need to sift through advice and not get locked into a notion of one right way for a company to accomplish its goals. Roy spoke about the ability to stand up and speak out in the face of inequity.
Women entrepreneurship
Although women have made tremendous strides in the venture space, there is still more opportunity, as women founders only secured two percent of venture capital in the US in 2021. Early-stage fundraising tends to be based on connections and belief in the individual’s capability instead of concrete company metrics and results. Roy spoke candidly about how women founders are often asked ‘prevention questions’. For example, ‘how do you intend to prevent competitors from entering the market?’ or ‘how will you prevent revenue decline in a recession?’. On the flip side, men are often asked ‘promotion questions’, such as ‘how big can this company be?’ or ‘what is the potential market share?’. Understanding these dynamics and knowing how to turn a prevention question into a promotion question is vital for women raising money.
This is just a snippet of the great insights these exceptional women shared with our audience. I was truly inspired to hear the panellists openly and honestly discuss their perspectives. I personally took away so much and am confident that the attendees did too. You can watch the complete recording of the conversation here. Workday Ventures will continue to support events and networking, as well as champion our goal to provide opportunities for the next generation of women entrepreneurs.
