My first tech conference was in Silicon Valley in the late nineties when Blackberries were the height of personal tech, carrying your laptop counted as a workout, and open-source code was a terrifying prospect for enterprises. That was pre-dot.bomb and tech was a heady place despite how painfully slow your modem downloaded songs from Napster.
Having gone to an all-women’s college and landed in tech quite by accident, I was unprepared to be a 10 %-er. And I don’t mean it in the tech billionaire way. In the late 90s, Microsoft boasted that 24% of their workforce were women, while a 1998 study by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network found that women only filled 4% of the top executive positions at the 200 largest tech companies
It was lonely, and there were few female role models. However, there was a movement to change that, and in 1997, Grace Hopper held their second Women in Computing conference in DC, which drew 500 people. That same year, five women founded Cisco’s Connected Women (where I was fortunate enough to work) to celebrate and mentor other women in the company. Despite contributions, such as Hedy Lamar inventing WiFi, Radia Perlman becoming the mother of the Internet, and Elizabeth Feinler developing the original search engine, women were not founding or leading companies. In fact, it wasn’t until 2013 that we were all invited to ‘lean in.’
As I grew in my career, I had wonderful inspirational leaders and men-tors like Matthew Szulik from RedHat or Charles Jones from Bedford Funding. As more women rose through the ranks, I started to work for women executives like Suzanne Miglucci at ChannelAdvisor. However, I wanted to help a woman build a great tech company. Despite women’s instrumental contributions to tech, only 13.2% of founders are female.
Despite admiring the tech accomplishments of the women I’ve mentioned, my coding credentials include a bomb-ass Myspace page and a class reunion website made to look like Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Therefore, I knew I wanted to partner with a female founder who was technical and needed someone to help amplify her company and promote her vision. That’s when I met Heather Morgan Shoemaker, a software developer, linguist, and founder of Language I/O.
Heather is a brilliant tech engineer and passionate about connecting people and helping companies expand and support customers globally–across language differences. As a foremost leader in AI and modern security practices for new channels like chat, I wanted to learn from her as tech moves to its next generation.
However, her support for other women showed me I was making the right decision to join forces with her. Language I/O boasts three female officers: our Chief Financial Officer, the Chief Customer Officer, and me, the Chief Marketing Officer. Many companies may claim that they support women or that women represent a large percentage of female leaders. However, the day-to-day encouragement and the time invested in developing others sets great leaders and founders apart.
When I learned that Heather made Inc’s Female Founders 250, which honors 2024’s most intriguing women entrepreneurs, I couldn’t wait to congratulate her and celebrate it. I mean, how often do you get to be on a list that Rhianna and Shonda Rhimes graced?
But Heather does have one fault. She’s humble. And I mean humble to a fault.
That’s where the network of supportive women you’ve developed kicks in. We can support, celebrate, and amplify one another’s accomplishments. The more we do that, the more likely we will attract investment into women-founded and led businesses. So, let’s celebrate Heather and all the other women on this list by reaching out to a woman who has supported you in your career or by becoming a mentor to future female leaders.
