Sg2009wc:cios

From She's Geeky Wiki

Title: Female CTO's - tales from the trenches

Session: 4-A Bay Area Jan 2009

Conveners:

• Amy Bowers, CTO of startup still limping along
• Phyllis Renther, CTO of 4 year old startup

Attendees:

• Susan Kline- elearning and instructional design
• Stacey Banks- computer security consulting
• Lisa K
• Eve Philips – email security and psychoanalysis into software
• Jen Silva- want to be a CTO. Firmware engineer and MBA.
• Susan Merrit
• Lynn Langit – went to MS after running her own company, opted NOT to be a CTO

How did you move up the ranks?

• PR: Documentum led to mobile search product. Drew the architecture on placement. Customer got contract, asked her to be CTO. Wanted to see her software vision realized in real software.
• AB: Started working on social networking for weight loss. Didn’t want CTO job. After some convincing took the job. Very small company, up to 5 contractors.

Does product management report to CTO?

• PR: VP of product development came from product management and those roles have been swapped a few times. Right now, both product development and management report to marketing but get technical direction from me.

What was your job title before CTO?

• AB: Have been consulting for 10-12 years doing programming and database design.
• PR: Working in computers, landed there because they were interesting. Went back to school- Carnegie Mellon grad school. Documentum: Information Retrieval Scientist was her title. Did enterprise search and management, dotted line to CTO. As part of her job, bought other companies, filled in gaps at the job.
• AB: She said she knew Jen is looking for a CEO. She did not ask all of the questions she might have. In particular, the CEO would have blue sky ideas but didn’t answer why.

Sometimes it seems that the CTO is a business development role, interfacing with other companies.

• PR: Engineering does not report to her, she works with the architects and travels quite a lot. She’s a strategic CTO, going to visit customers, partners and conferences. Keep focused on your core competencies, partner with the people who have the pieces you don’t. Develop partnership relationships. There is a point in every sales cycle where the customers (partners) they bring in someone who needs to have technical reassurance. The CTO needs to do that. On the flip side, the customer executive management needs to be reassured as well and the CTO needs to do that. Having met CTOs and looked at CTO job descriptions, the description is wildly varying. She is focused on getting contracts signed and is good at it. She doesn’t write code, it isn’t cost effective to have her do this.

As CTO, you work very closely with the CEO. Some jobs are blended and so does matter which shows up to the customer/partner. If you haven’t worked with them and/or don’t know what their limits are, then things will not happen that need to happen. She’s learned a lot about what she needs to get in writing from the next CEO.

As a woman, what is the most challenging aspect due to how people perceive your gender?

• AB: Hard to differentiate when people are arguing with her or with her gender. Have to shutdown religious discussions like which language is best. Have been in situations where it seems that a man has been threatened by her, mostly because he wanted her job. Had to be diligent about keeping him in check.

PR: Find people who think they are better engineers and maybe they are. Never felt like gender was an issue. Women do introduce themselves differently. Men introduce themselves as my education/career/etc is better than the other person, especially engineers. By doing that, she tends to get put in the engineer category and then gender doesn’t matter. Sometimes at conferences, someone will note that she’s a female CTO and be happy (impressed? noted as unusual?). There is a culture gap and once you bridge that gap, it becomes less of issue. Do use staff hours and man hours and other language like that.

How to convince other people to use gender neutral language?

• PR: When they say man hours, say staff hours. They’ll follow.

Any difference as CTO working across cultures? What happens when you go to Asia?

• PR: When she goes to Asia, she acts her rank, using the appropriate protocols. She walks in the middle, sits in the middle of the table, gets in the cab first. Fitting in to the rank protocols in Asia is very important. In Europe, things are more Western but more formal in the US.
• AB: Ask for help understanding culture.

How about dealing with Islamic countries?

• PR: Not a lot of experience. Some potential dealings in Kuwait. It really depends on what you are doing. She does mobile software so she works with the telecom professionals who are technical and are doing business with Westerners all the time. Most have been educated in the West and money comes first. Business development people are careful to keep her safe, for example in India, where it might be dangerous to be alone. Have to be very tight with the people who have the accounts because they have a good idea of the local culture. Given search technology, have to be culturally aware- the blacklisted items in China are primarily political which is different than the US. Have to understand cultures if you want to work in the global marketplace.
• AB: No experience.

How do you do budget? How far ahead do you plan?

• PR: Fight with the CEO. Because we are a startup, doesn’t have my own budget. Every few months, a discussion with a CEO happens. If she had to do it over again, she’d have a separate budget written into her contract.
• AB: Had no budget. Angel investing.

AB: Lynn, why didn’t you become a CTO?

• Lynn: personal reasons which have changed

AB: Why do you want to be a CTO?

• Want to see vision implemented. Software is built too much by men, want to be one of the people who do it.

AB: Jen, what about you?

• Jen: Like to come up with new technology. Need someone else to temper grand ideas and to help find a market for it. Like the idea of eInk, the paper like display technology.

AB: Anyone else?

• El: Yes. I want to be a CTO. Not to implement brilliant ideas but because I’ve gotten a taste of getting big ideas done, ideas that are bigger than I can do.

How do you see your CTO role being different than engineering role?

• AB: No difference between CTO and VP of engineering for her, very small company.
• PR: Like/want to build things. As an engineer, looking for best way to build things. As CTO, looking for best way to get a thing built and get it into the hands of the users. To be able to externalize what she does and describe the people who work with her… she doesn’t have to do everything just to get something done. She’s very good at looking at a system architecture and then handing the code off to some one else.
• AB: Had people suggesting different implementation options, learned from them, got fascinating input. Loved being able to take the input and then lay down what should happen. Give a vision.
• PR: Like being able to get a problem and a number of solutions. And then suggest a solution after listening to input.

Does CTO have to come from engineering? How to give advice to an experienced worker?

• PR: LinkedIn and search for CTO.
• AB: Actual programming language should not matter.

How large are your companies?

• PR: 50 person company, 30 people in Mtn View
• AB: 5 programmers, working out of homes

Non profit CTO… how to make this title scale from nurtured non profit? What are the sort of things you say?

• PR: Need to know that you have a vision going forward and willing to stand your reputation on that. Your team needs to believe your team (and your customers) your decisions are good.

How to sell yourself as CTO?

• PR: Here is how we kept engineering costs down, here is a how a budget is made, here is how revenue was create and how much. But those are just resume points. You have sell your ability to make a successful products. Have to explain you’ve built teams who have successfully shipped projects. C* is all about taking responsibility.

Talking a lot about leadership skill and decision making skills?

• PR: Negotiation. Project management (for engineering). How to manage and how to lead.

Would technical leadership of teams be more important than technical management?

• PR: Technical leadership is good. Chief architect is a good stepping stone.

Have you pitched a VC? How do you prepare? Are you the main speaker?

• PR: CEO is main speaker, CTO is to right or left. CTO does product architecture and product direction. CEO is required for execution and that is the important bit but you do need a product. Must look smart technically.
• Lynn: VCs like teamwork, not trained monkeys led by the CEO.
• AB: Some VCs are nice, some are tough.
• PR: Rejection letters are hard. One email said that the VCs said he didn’t believe the technology would scale. Now with 300 M users.

What is next?

• AB: Heading to another startup. Have funding and biz plan.
• PR: Closing current round in two weeks… maybe checking out what is next sooner rather than later. Technical advisor to other startups so may go there. Have ideas for own startup, nothing quite baked. Technical evangelist, technical advisor to VC firm. Like being CTO and enjoy the position, would do it again. Though, get miffed that CEO gets all the press, might try that next time.