#BuildHer: Meet Jen Glass, Senior Director, Business Advisory Services, Slalom Australia
One of our key commitments at Slalom Australia is to drive important conversations around inclusiveness, diversity, and equity in the tech industry. With our #BuildHer campaign, we are aiming to inspire women to explore a career in tech and celebrate our own inspiring women and men at Slalom who continue to forge a path for others in the industry.
Today we meet Jen Glass, Senior Director of the Business Advisory Services practice at Slalom Australia. Jen is a seasoned developer, consultant, and leader at Slalom, and has been an integral part of our company’s fabric and family for more than a decade.
“We need to stop asking “why is it important to have more women in technology roles?” and start asking “what are we each doing to bring more women into technology roles?” — Jen Glass
When we entered the Australian market in early 2020, our ambition was not only to hire local talent, but also to bring over existing Slalom employees to transfer important aspects of our culture and service offerings to Australia. While a global pandemic certainly presented some challenges, Jen finally made the move from Seattle to Sydney in January 2021.
Jen thrives on adventure and building a team from scratch, and all the opportunities that come with this. It was this challenge that drove her to accept the role at Slalom in Australia.
Let’s jump in to learn about who Jen is as a leader and how she is pledging for the technology industry to change its tune when it comes to describing women as a “minority”.
An advocate for change
Jen knows first-hand through her experience with sailing the impact that women can have when they come together. Jen raced sailboats with her parents before she could walk, and down the track in 2005, she fell in love with sailing skiffs (high performance open boats). At the time, the Olympic event was co-ed, but the competitors were all men who are traditionally advantaged by their size and strength. For the next five years, she volunteered her time to lobby for a separate women’s skiff event to be included in the Olympics. Jen brought together women from across 20 countries and three continents to train and compete at events globally, proving the case for the event. Her work was a great success, with the first women’s skiff sailing event kicking off at the Rio 2016 Games — and was back again just recently at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Just as she passionately fought for the women’s skiff sailing event to be included in the Olympics, Jen believes women belong in technology, and feels strongly that in order to bridge the gender gap and create a paradigm shift around women seen as a minority in the industry, we need to stop asking “why is it important to have more women in technology roles?” and start asking “what are we each doing to bring more women into technology roles?” She thinks it is absurd that we must defend and explain the importance of gender balance anywhere, never mind the tech industry.
Jen believes that for real change to happen, it needs to start with every teacher, school counsellor, parent, coach, aunt, uncle, setting the expectation for gender balance and influencing early career decisions. She encourages all of us to spend the time being aware of the unconscious biases around us and start with picking one to act on and improve.
Jen is part of the Women’s Leadership Network (WLN) at Slalom Australia and mentors women both inside and outside the workplace, as she has done for the last 10 years. She says that if you cheerlead for others, they will do the same for others too. Networking is really important for women. If women could match the power men have through the “old boys’ network” this could help women change the game for themselves in the technology industry. This means looking out for each other and advocating for other women to take on new roles and challenges.
A strategic problem solver
Jen is always on the lookout to bring business and technology experts together to solve problems in a holistic way. She does this through a collaborative approach, building the right team to solve a problem, regardless of internal alignment, title, or other factors.
In 2019, Jen saw an opportunity to build an e-commerce capability within Slalom in the US. She identified a gap in the market which Slalom was uniquely positioned to fill, bringing together the company’s customer experience and data expertise.
Jen and the Slalom team took these capabilities to a major international entertainment company and improved its ability to deliver product to customers by surfacing fulfilment data, enabling inventory and shipping problems to be solved before they impacted the customer.
Real-time fulfilment reporting was just one of the major improvements that helped the entertainment company increase efficiency as they opened their online store to additional countries around the world; bringing official products to a global fan base.
A holistic team leader
Jen’s leadership shines through as she helps drive Slalom’s culture through the young and forming stage of the organisation in Australia. She reminds others of Slalom’s core values, like “do the right thing, always”, and that we are a people-first organisation in big and little ways, every day. She even created a swear jar when the word “resources” is used instead of people.
As someone who was the least-technical member of a technical team in the past, Jen knows first-hand that playing on each other’s strengths is the best way to tackle a problem or challenge. She believes greatness comes from both challenging yourself to bring something to a situation you may not be deeply familiar with, and also listening to an idea someone has brought in from another industry or subject area. Jen encourages her team members to bring their authentic selves to work, as diverse ways of thinking will achieve the best outcomes.
Jen is of the mindset that work teams are a second family. She leads with the approach that her team members look out for each other, feel comfortable to be vulnerable, find opportunities for one another, and educate and coach along the way. Jen believes if opportunities are created for all team members, everyone can contribute to the overall success of the organisation in their own unique way.
By creating an inclusive environment, it makes it easier for people at any level to feel comfortable enough to speak to upper management — share their voice or ask for help, especially for women who may feel outnumbered in the technology industry.
Jen’s three tips for women in the tech industry:
1.Go for it! There’s never been a better time to explore the technology industry. The industry is on fire, there are a lot of opportunities out there. A lot of women feel some amount of guilt when it comes to taking advantage of opportunities that are not available to everyone, but my advice would be — don’t hold yourself back.
If you feel some of that guilt, turn it into action and pull other women along with you too. Use the opportunity to bring somebody else along, so fewer of us are held back.
2.Build your support network: Create dialogue with people that can help elevate your career both in the short term and long term. Reach out to a leader in your organisation, look into mentoring programs, connect with anyone you feel comfortable with inside or outside of your workplace. Even if they are not right, they may be able to connect you to someone who is. You can never have too many people “on your team”. By getting past the hurdle of asking for help you will see the support is there for you.
3.When in doubt, remember you belong: One of my heroes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, lawyer and second female justice of the United States Supreme Court said, “women belong in all places where decisions are made, and it shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” When in doubt, use this quote to give yourself strength — you belong here.
Through our #BuildHer program we will introduce you to some of our extraordinary members of the Slalom team, who will impart their wisdom, share their viewpoints on what it takes to build a successful career in tech and continue the conversation on the importance of women in tech.
