How Salesforce Is Nurturing Women Tech Leaders Of The Future
SHEROES and Salesforce come together to inspire more women to join the workforce through conversations, stories and advice on upcoming opportunities
While it’s no secret that women are underrepresented at every level in the workforce, women’s participation in the technology sector is higher than in several others. Yet, a large number of women exit the workplace, when caregiving responsibilities take priority over professional goals.
When they attempt to return post a career break, they face larger challenges with prospective employers.
Companies that proactively build an ecosystem that facilitates mentorship, peer groups and re-skilling, are able to attract and retain talent, and catapult women into leadership roles. Salesforce is one of the companies at the forefront of championing equality and diversity, through its various inclusivity initiatives, events, and Equality groups.
From spending nearly $15 million USD to close the gender pay gap through the Equal Pay for Equal Work initiative, to building a dynamic women’s employee resource group like the Salesforce Women’s Network, Salesforce is leading the way.
#JourneyToSalesforce
We at SHEROES are excited to partner with Salesforce to drive conversations, and inspire more women to join the tech industry and grow into leadership roles. The pandemic has been a catalyst in driving new opportunities, especially for women, as the equity of remote work and demand for digitization rises.
The #JourneyToSalesforce campaign aims to inspire and educate women about emerging opportunities, as well as platforms like Trailhead, that they can leverage to upskill, network and access these opportunities.
As part of the campaign, women leaders from Salesforce India shared their stories with the SHEROES community. These stories triggered conversations, inspiration and hunger in community members, to know more about upcoming opportunities.
Breaking barriers for success
Vijaya Tirumalareddy, Director, Software Engineering at Salesforce, was raised in a small village in Andhra Pradesh.
She is the first graduate in the family.
Early in her career, a lack of guidance pushed her to make a lot of her own decisions.
But exposure to mentorship helped accelerate her careergraph.
“My mentors played a huge role in constantly pushing me to aim higher. My switch to Salesforce in fact was suggested by one of my mentors, understanding how my experience would best suit an open role and also help me level up in my career. Salesforce is one of the few companies that walk the talk when it comes to Equal Pay for Equal Work. Pay Scales are evaluated on an annual basis to address any gaps among gender globally. To date, more than USD $15 million dollars has been spent to ensure our global workforce is paid fairly.”
~ Vijaya Tirumalareddy
Read Vijaya’s inspiring journey here
Nurturing women leaders
“When I joined Salesforce there were very few women, “ shares Padmaja Kota, Director at Salesforce, one of the first few members of the Salesforce Women’s Network in Hyderabad.
“Today, we are able to discuss ideas as well as address concerns as part of this growing network within the organization. For instance, when we realized that the office space was not conducive for women just coming back from maternity, we ensured that we ensured that we had designated rooms for new mothers, such that they could return to work comfortably.”
~Padmaja Kota
An active member of the Salesforce Women’s Network, Padmaja has been instrumental in supporting more women to rise in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Read Padmaja’s advice to young women looking to entire the workforce here
Back to work with Trailhead
Senior Salesforce professional Suman Humane, an industrial engineer by profession was struggling to stay relevant in her career.
“While I was looking for opportunities to rejoin the workforce, I was also keen on up-skilling myself. The #JourneyToSalesforce programme, gave me the opportunity to understand the platform capabilities even better, which helped me get the role of a Salesforce Consultant.
The programme leverages Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, to equip individuals with in-demand skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow, “shares Suman.
Through the programme she was also able to access mentorship opportunities, and engage with Trailhead’s community of salesforce customers, partners, product specialists, and employees.
Read Suman’s advice on how women job aspirants can leverage Trailhead here
Having a beginner’s mindset
Shanthi Padmanabhan, Vice President — Customer Success at Salesforce, discovered her passion for software development in the 1980s.
During her remarkable career, she went from working on GPS for ISRO to leading global teams in some of the world’s top organizations.
Shanthi shares what excites her most about working at Salesforce.
“After more than two decades in the business, we operate like a startup does, in the pursuit to deliver the best and innovative solutions to our customers. The variety of customers one gets to interact with across industries, and the wealth of knowledge you get to take away from every interaction, really excites me.
You get a first-hand experience of the challenges and best practices that are followed within each of these industries, which is a favorite part of my job.”
~ Shanthi Padmanabhan
Read Shanthi’s inspiring career journey here
Emerging opportunities and new career paths
This series of inspiring stories culminated in an interactive webinar where women leaders and trailblazers shared their perspectives and anecdotes with members of the SHEROES community.
The audience comprised a mix of young job aspirants, mid-level professionals looking to reenter the workforce, and first-time job seekers of all ages, from the SHEROES community.
During this high-energy session hosted over one hour, veterans Deepa and Neeta shared their perspectives around work culture practices that can attract and nurture more women in the workforce, while Anisha elaborated on the importance of supporting women founders, building their tech empires.
The women attending the webinar were especially inspired by Neetu Bansal, a young woman hailing from a very conservative family in a small town in Rajasthan.
Neetu boldly shared her story of defying the odds to educate herself and build a career path. She credits the free learning resources of Salesforce’s Trailhead platform, with helping her realise her dreams.
Today, Neetu works as a Salesforce Developer for a big consultancy firm in Gurugram, and considers the Trailblazer community, as her second family. She also heads Jaipur Women in Tech (WIT), India’s largest WIT group.
Curating equal opportunities
Interestingly, sign-ups on the Trailhead platform went up by 37% and learner engagement by 50% during the pandemic in 2020.
These statistics, as well as the engagement around the #JourneyToSalesforce campaign, indicates that there is a deep hunger among women to find accessible pathways that can lead them back to work.
Initiatives like the Salesforce Women’s Network further nurture talent within organisations, by making mentorship, upskilling and peer groups, accessible and part of the work culture.
SHEROES, the women-only social network is a safe, constructive, high-empathy, high-trust online ecosystem for women to engage and chase dreams. It offers communities, a chat-based counsellng helpline, champions, resources, opportunities, credit opportunities, a reproductive health tracker and a social commerce marketplace. It is accessible via Sheroes.com and the SHEROES app
