It’s no secret that the tech industry has always been predominantly male orientated. Unfortunately, this is true to an even greater degree in the B2B SaaS world.
But as society keeps evolving, we’re noticing that women are entering the tech industry in greater numbers than ever before, bringing education, ambition, diverse ideas and experiences with them.
A gender-diverse culture at Rocketseed
While the overall statistics show that women still make up less than 25% of the tech industry workforce, there are businesses that veer away from this norm and employ, in some cases, many more women within the industry than males.
Rocketseed is one such case, and is extremely proud of the talented and inspiring women that make up 55% of our workforce and leadership team.
Important to note, this wasn’t simply about a quota to fit certain criteria or to simply tick a few boxes. These are women who’ve started at Rocketseed and worked their way up proving themselves at every level! We are who we are today, because we see the advantages of having a diverse workforce.
A diverse workforce ensures a balanced and inclusive work culture
Having a balanced mix of both men and women within the office has endless business culture benefits and far more than that of a more biased environment. Studies show that some of the benefits of gender diversity in the workplace include a wider talent pool, enhanced collaboration, a better reflection of customers and improved recruitment and reputation.
With a business that is pretty much equally balanced in terms of gender, we at Rocketseed have experienced these benefits first-hand! And support it 100%!
Having a vast variety of perspectives has sparked creativity and innovation within Rocketseed, and helped the organisation spot and seize new opportunities. It has also encouraged us to challenge gender stereotypes in many ways.
Meet Rocketseed’s female role models
Janine Ferenčak | Managing Director – RocketDev
Janine has been with Rocketseed since its conception and now leads the development of the software. However, Janine was not always in the tech industry. She started out in finance and, as she puts it, got into tech ‘by accident’.
Janine was looking for a challenge when her boss at the time gave her the opportunity to design an online share trading platform, from which she went on to manage many other tech-related projects, including Rocketseed.
When Rocketseed eventually launched as a business, Janine became an official employee of Rocketseed and the rest is history!
Throughout her career in the male-dominated tech industry, Janine has noticed that you need to be tough when you’re in the tech environment and as long as you know what you’re talking about and have courage in your conviction, you will be heard and respected as any male counterpart would.
Janine’s advice to women seeking to enter the tech space
“Always keep a curious mind – be open to learning, investigating and being innovative in an environment that is ever-changing. If you love and have passion for tech, you will become successful and achieve amazing things!”
Tracey Adams | Chief Operations Officer – Rocketseed
Tracey started out at Rocketseed as an Account Manager and went on to climb the ‘corporate ladder’, being promoted to Account Director and subsequently Managing Director for the UK. Given her success she was then appointed as Group Chief Operations Officer.
However, this was not without hard work and dedication. She has been involved in developing various versions of the Rocketseed software and worked with hundreds of clients over the years.
The male presence in the industry is dominant, however, this is definitely going in the right direction to be more balanced. She also stated that there are a lot of sides to tech, and many ways to gain knowledge from different experts, with varying journeys between them.
When asked about her experience with Rocketseed specifically, she said that it has been great to see the product develop from functionality to a user-friendly interface. The joy of being with the company for many years is seeing client feedback from a wide range of industries feed into our own development team and come to fruition. And the direction of what is coming is even better!
Tracey’s advice to women seeking to enter the tech space
“It’s an exciting industry to be part of, and probably one of the fastest moving and developing so be prepared to keep up. The opportunities are there across such wide fields that it’s a great place to be. Be proactive, look at networking groups or mentoring!”
Encouraging women to follow their tech-dreams
It’s clear that Rocketseed is unique in its approach to a diverse workforce within the industry. We truly value the female presence in the business and equal opportunity is provided to everyone. We strongly believe in upskilling and empowering women by making promotions available to our workforce. There is great opportunity for growth within the business and this has been displayed countless times with having some of our more junior female employees grow into top management positions. This is something we are extremely proud of and a culture we intend to continue in the future.
Having successful women in the tech industry is certainly something to look up to from the perspective of any females wanting to enter the technical workforce. It enables them to have a real-life example of how it is possible to go against the stereotypes and prove to the world that women belong in every business industry.
Shanique Brophy | Marketing Executive
Connect with Shanique on LinkedIn