Celebrating women in tech: How Talkdesk is shifting the narrative

Through its Women in Tech ERG, Talkdesk is leading the way to change the narrative for women in tech.

For the last decades, we’ve been dealing with the elephant in the room: although women make up nearly half of the workforce, they remain underrepresented in technology. While we’re seeing small, but notable progress, tech companies need to reaffirm their commitment to gender diversity and work even harder to boost diversity and give women representation and leadership.

Computer science and engineering is still a mostly male-dominated field. Trends suggest that’s beginning to change, but not at the pace we would like. Let’s look at some statistics:

• Women represent 32.2% of the overall tech workforce, but only a quarter of the technical roles are done by women.
• 63% of men in technology companies view their employers as equally gender-balanced, but only 47% of women feel the same way.
• The ratio of men to women in engineering is 5:1.
• 74% of girls express a desire for a career in STEM fields.
• But, in the U.S., women only earn 18% of computer science bachelors.

After the pandemic, these inequalities hit women even harder—a higher proportion of them have taken on a greater childcare burden. Also, women in tech are twice as likely as men to have lost their jobs due to the pandemic economic effects. As a tech company, Talkdesk is committed to fighting against all forms of inequality and contributing to closing the gender gap. But what are we doing?

Get to know the Talkdesk Women In Tech ERG.

Aligned to the Talkdesk corporate vision, our women in tech employee resource group (ERG) community helps cultivate an inclusive environment that supports and encourages women. Through connection, mentorship, collaboration, and discussion, we create a participatory experience where members can contribute, learn, and grow. We are innovative, creative, and challenge the old status quo to achieve a greater gender balance at Talkdesk and beyond.

As part of action to execute our vision, we forge partnerships with local and global non-profit entities that promote the advancement of women in technology.  We are partnering with two outside organizations to continue to foster awareness and to build mentoring relationships that will attract younger women to technology:

• Women in Technology, the premier professional association for women in the technology industry, which offers a broad range of support, programs, and resources to advance women in technology from the classroom to the boardroom.
• Inspiring Girls, an organization dedicated to raising the aspirations of young girls around the world by connecting them with female role models.

These partnerships, along with other initiatives, aim to foster the advancement of women’s role in technology.

We are working together to push women forward.

Joining this ERG wasn’t that obvious for me at first. I was a little bit hesitant to be put under the spotlight, actually—but then I thought about my background, the experiences I had in life, and how that would help shape some of the action plans for the ERG.

I’m so proud of what we’ve already accomplished—and so excited for what the future holds. I work with this amazing group of women, who compose the ERG leadership team, and each one of them contributes to this. It’s the diversity, our background, and our own experiences as women, that help us push forward.

Read the experiences of other ERG leadership team members: 

“I’m incredibly fortunate to have a real lineage of strong women that went into places where women were not present. So for me, being part of this ERG it’s a homage to my legacy and to the women that went before me—it’s really a true privilege.”
Kieran King, ERG executive sponsor and chief customer officer at Talkdesk.

“Before joining Talkdesk, I mostly worked in the telecommunications field. These traditional tech companies were marked by gender unbalance—I was often the only woman in the room. This is why, shortly after I joined Talkdesk, I signed up and was excited to be the employee lead and co-founder of this ERG.”
Marília Moita, ERG co-founder and PaaS product design manager at Talkdesk.

“I believe that, as women, we have the responsibility to bring each other up and to support each other. By taking an active role in this ERG, I’m hoping I can support that as part of our culture.”
Peri McDonald, ERG finance lead and vice president of customer & partner marketing at Talkdesk.

“What drew me to this ERG was that I have a lot of experience in advocating for myself, and speaking up in meetings, and negotiating salary—all those things we’re not socialized to do, as women. We need more mentors, we need more leaders, we need more women to carry that torch and show the way.”
Dawn Harpster, ERG vice president and conversation architect at Talkdesk.

“I’ve faced my fair share of challenges in my career path, and I wanted to be a part of a group that supports women and their career development. I was excited to join a community of people that were supporting women.”
Whitney Backman, ERG events and communications lead and enterprise account executive at Talkdesk.

“I actually felt the difference for being a woman, so I thought this was an opportunity to try to change that and be an active part of this change inside and outside Talkdesk. Women need to step up, and I want to be part of this.”
Ana Brandão, ERG secretary and QA engineer at Talkdesk.

We are changing the current workforce landscape.

Diversity must foster inclusion and equality, encompassing acceptance and respect. Given their prominent number in the Global labor market, effectively tapping into the supply of well-qualified women, internationally educated professionals, indigenous people, and persons with disabilities will go a long way addressing current and projected labor shortages in the STEM sectors, as well as helping companies achieve their competitive goals.

As avid learners, bold adventurers, and strong changemakers, women want a clear path to advancement so their futures can grow as much as they have. Currently, there are not enough women in tech and the women we do have are leaving. Our Women in Technology ERG is helping to change that.

We believe that through mentorship, community building, and career pathing we can shift the narrative—and we’re proud to say that over 50% of our executive leadership team is female.

We know that women are passionate and dedicated to their careers, and we also know that the diversity women bring to the tech table is integral in achieving dynamic and innovative results in the workplace—and in the world.

If you’re curious, know more about the other Talkdesk ERGs.