Karenann Terrell, CIO of Wal-Mart, isn’t a formidable female CIO. She is a formidable CIO, who is also a woman. And as she and some fellow IT chiefs spoke to about 500 attendees at a Michigan Council for Women in Technology leadership event this week, they modeled something still quite rare — being comfortable in your own skin as a woman and an IT leader.
Terrell came to share her wisdom on managing tech talent, on a leadership panel that I moderated. She was joined by Kim Hammonds , CIO for The Boeing Company; Sheila Jordan, senior VP of communication and collaboration IT at Cisco Systems; Bridget A. Van Kralingen, IBM’s senior VP of global business services; and David Behen, CIO for the state of Michigan.
Talent is not a “women’s issue.” Developing and managing talent is a top concern for every IT leader. CIOs tell me repeatedly of their struggles to find the right mix of people and then keep them from hopping to rivals. That’s one reason that the Big 3 Detroit automakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler — sponsored this event and their CIOs participated, to discuss developing the next generation of talent.
As I looked out at the audience of about 500 people, at least two-thirds female, eager to help each other move their careers forward and encourage girls to study science and math, I felt inspired. Perhaps the panelists felt inspired too — because they got unusually candid with this audience about the pressures and hurdles that women often experience in tech.