Building the blueprint for women in tech

By Ingrid Espinosa

As digitalisation accelerates across the globe, it’s become increasingly clear that the demand for tech talent far outstrips supply. Just last year, the field of cybersecurity faced a worldwide shortage of around 2 million people in the Asia-Pacific region alone. Despite the tech industry’s surging demand for talent, women are a historically untapped base—creating a glaring gender gap.

Numerous studies have since laid out the business case for women in tech. Gender-diverse companies tend to be more profitable, more productive and less volatile. Given the clear benefits, how can leaders pave the way for more women in the tech industry? DBS Group CEO Mr Piyush Gupta tackled this question in a conversation moderated by Singapore Management University Professor Annie Koh during the Singapore Women in Tech anniversary webinar held on 20 October 2020.

Revisiting the gender ratio

Leading a company where 40 percent of senior management and 30 percent of all management are women is already remarkable, but Mr Gupta thinks DBS—and tech companies, overall—could still do better. Among his engineers, less than 25 percent are women. The problem lies in the pipeline of talent, said Mr Gupta. After all, only around a third of female students choose to take up courses in STEM and only a fraction pursue careers in engineering and technology.

According to a recent BCG report, Southeast Asia has a relatively strong baseline of gender diversity, with women comprising 32 percent of the tech workforce compared to the global average of 28 percent. Even so, the percentage of women in tech still lags in comparison to other industries—leading to fewer women in key decision-making positions like the C-suite or board-level roles. From these statistics, it is clear that there is still much room to equalise the field’s gender ratio.

Going beyond numbers, having more women also bring a diversity of viewpoints to the table. "Women have a natural tendency to be a lot more insightful about understanding data and connecting the dots, and [they] do it quite well,” observed Mr Gupta. In using Agile processes common in software development, he added that women tend to excel in the critical success factors of bringing people together and working beyond departmental silos.

Turning ambition into action

How, then, can companies begin to fill these gaps? According to Mr Gupta, three strategies can help bring more women into the tech workplace. First, external signalling through role models like those recently cited in the Singapore 100 Women in Tech list can overcome preconceived notions and encourage women to go for a tech career. In a discussion Mr Gupta once had with women working in tech, approximately half of the attendees had STEM graduates as mothers—inspiring them to pursue their own careers in the field. 

The second strategy is targeted hiring. Since 2017, DBS has held Hack2Hire, an annual hackathon meant to identify and recruit top tech talent into the company’s ranks. However, out of several thousand potential hires each year, only five percent were typically female applicants. “That tells you that women are not applying,” said Mr Gupta.

This led DBS to launch the inaugural Hack2Hire-Her programme in 2019 to increase its outreach to female communities. Since the programme’s launch, the number of female applicants jumped to over 30 percent. Aside from such initiatives, programmes that hire only women and provide incentives for female referrals can further boost gender-diverse hiring.

Finally, leadership also plays a large role, said Mr Gupta. Within DBS, the cybersecurity and tech infrastructure groups notably had the most gender-balanced teams, with almost 50 percent being women. This is because the leaders of the two groups made it a priority to hire women straight from graduate school and provide training to even the playing field. By providing access to hands-on learning and teaching, women are encouraged to become more comfortable even in disciplines traditionally dominated by men.

Leaders who champion women

Ultimately, championing women in tech means that even leaders have to acknowledge the biases of existing systems. Current arrangements need to evolve such that men and women alike will be driven to grow across different sectors. After all, Gupta stressed, the leader’s role is to get the right talent to ensure the best outcomes. 

One way to spur change in the workplace is by providing flexible work arrangements. Even today, women are still expected to carry out two roles.  For women to effectively participate in office jobs, they need flexibility to balance their full-time roles with their work of “invisible labour” at home. In managing DBS,  Mr Gupta advised, “We need to have the best engineering talent…to get that kind of better talent, you have to go out and embrace every kind of possibility.” This means adjusting to the reality of multiple roles that women face every day, in order to make room for their valuable contributions.

In the years to come, Mr Gupta hopes to see a shift in mindset among women. Given that many jobs of the future are set to play to the many strengths of women, tech is a fantastic career trajectory, he noted. In summary, it’s high time for the male-dominated tech industry and its leaders to welcome women. By doing so, everyone will reap the benefits.