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IBM, Macy’s And The U.S. Government All Just Appointed Top Female Executives As Their CIOs

March is shaping up to be a great month for women in tech. On March 1, IBM announced that Kathryn Guarini would become its new CIO. The same day, Macy’s named Laura Miller as its new technology leader, and this week President Joe Biden appointed Clare Martorana as federal CIO and administrator of the office of electronic government at the Office of Management and Budget.

The three leaders are stepping into challenging roles. IBM reported 2020 revenues of $73.6 billion, a 5% year-over-year decline, and the company is in the midst of yet another restructuring to try and revive growth. Macy’s, which is trying to accelerate its digital transformation strategy, turned a profit for the first time in a while in its latest quarter, but same store sales still plunged by more than 17%.

Martorana doesn’t have investors to worry about, but she’s taking over her new role at a time when U.S. government agencies are facing an unprecedented onslaught from hackers exploiting security holes in networking software and email servers to mount huge cyberattacks. As federal CIO, she’ll be responsible for overseeing security and privacy across federal agencies, as well as IT spending and investment plans.

Her experience should help her rise to the challenge. In a press release announcing her appointment, the White House noted that Martorana most recently served as CIO of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). In 2015 the OPM was the victim of a massive data breach that saw millions of personnel records accessed by cyber intruders. The release stressed that during her two years at the organization, she had “stabilized and secured agency operations” to deliver better digital-first services. Prior to the OPM role, Martorana had spent many years in other government IT jobs.

Inside tracks

IBM’s Guarini is also a long-serving insider who’s stepping up from her position as chief operating officer and vice president of impact science at IBM’s research arm. Miller, on the other hand, has been tapped from the outside: For the past six and a half years she was the CIO at InterContinental Hotels Group. While Martorana succeeds another woman, Suzette Kent, both Guarini and Miller are taking over from men. Guarini replaces IBM’s previous CIO, Fletcher Previn, while Miller’s predecessor was Macy’s chief technology officer Naveen Krishna.

Although the appointments are encouraging, women still remain heavily underrepresented in top corporate tech leadership roles. A study conducted in 2019 by headhunter Korn Ferry found that only 18% of the largest 1,000 public and private U.S. companies had women as CIOs or chief technology officers. (The firm hasn’t updated the study, but says it intends to do so.)

The three CIO moves this month have nevertheless encouraged other women in tech working to boost that percentage significantly. “I take this as a sign that things are changing,” said Suja Chandrasekaran, the chief digital and information officer of CommonSpirit Health and a leader of the T200 initiative that aims to foster and advance more women in tech. “The only way we go from less than a fifth to more substantial and equal numbers is by slowly, yet surely, increasing the presence of female leaders in senior executive roles.”

Katie Graham Shannon, who specializes in CIO recruitment at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, also said the moves are a positive sign. Over the past five or six years, women have made up around a fifth of total placements in which she has been involved; last year that percentage rose to over 26%. It’s not entirely clear yet whether the pandemic has held back the progression of female executives in any way, but at least in Graham Shannon’s experience that hasn’t been the case.

Instead, she’s seeing sustained interest amongst big companies in appointing more diverse candidates to tech leadership roles. One thing that search firms can do to help the process is to include multiple diverse executives in lists for clients to consider. “If I present a slate of candidates and I just put one female on there, that candidate may find it harder to get chosen,” said Graham Shannon. “If you put two females on there, the chance goes exponentially up [that one of the two will get the role].”

Helping hands

That, of course, means more high potential women need to be on recruiters’ radar screens. Chandrasekaran and the other top tech executives involved in the T200 initiative, which was founded by 10 women in 2017 and now has roughly 160 members, want to put them there. “One of the major ways we are helping to lift other women up is by first identifying women who are known and recognized by at least two of our existing members.”

The T200’s Lift Program, which it announced at an event to mark International Women’s Day on March 6, will help these high potential executives refine their career and personal goals, offer them coaching and give them access to a broader network of contacts to identify new roles. There are also plans for a CxO-in-tech masterclass. “We aspire to be a force that helps women CxOs in tech have even greater impact,” said Chandrasekaran.

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