Years ago, in an empathy interview I was leading at Intuit, an engineering leader told me about her experience standing at a whiteboard, walking her team through a technical idea she’d been working on. In the middle of her explanation, a colleague stood up, took the marker from her hand, and took over. Finishing the idea and discussion for her, in front of everyone.
When I shared that story with executives, they reacted differently than they had to the rest of the presentation. We had dashboards with hiring rates, attrition, promotion analysis. We had outcomes from our development programs. None of it landed the same way that actual experience did. It underscored something none of the data could: how hard it still was for so many women to have a voice and hold the room. To be seen as the technical leader they worked hard to be.
I still remember that story years later. And it planted the seed for what I’m doing now.
I recently wrote The Spreadsheet Doesn’t Know Everything where I explored the tension between the art and science of leadership. Data certainly matters, but sometimes it’s a judgement or feeling that ultimately leads us to the right choice. This project I’m now launching is that same idea, showing up in a different form. Sometimes the thing missing from the spreadsheet is the human experience behind the numbers.
In my role at Intuit, I was hired with a seemingly simple mission: to increase the representation of women in technical roles. Being the analytical person that I am, I leaned hard into the data. I studied hiring and attrition by level, role, location and organization. I looked at promotion rates and succession opportunities. I tried to understand where women were thriving, where they were getting stuck, and where and why they were leaving. The data helped us identify patterns and build targeted programs and investments.
But the data was never the whole story. The biggest unlock came when my team and I coupled the data insights with employee empathy interviews. These were structured conversations where we asked women in tech about their experience. What was working. What wasn’t. Where they felt supported, and where they didn’t. These conversations were where the whiteboard story came from, along with many others like it. They didn’t just support the data. They gave it context. They helped us understand the everyday experiences of the people living the data. What it felt like, what mattered, and what we might otherwise have missed.
We pulled out the themes and shared those insights with executive leadership, using them to shape our roadmap and prioritize programs and resource investments. And it helped me keep a pulse on what really mattered to the people I was serving.
I’ve been thinking about that powerful combination of data AND real lived experiences. I still read the research. I follow industry reports like Women in the Workplace. I pay attention to what’s happening inside technology companies and what the numbers tell us about women in the workplace. But I found myself wanting to know something the reports couldn’t tell me:
What’s it actually like to be a woman in tech today?
What feels different? What’s getting better? What’s getting harder? Where are women finding opportunity? Where are they finding support? What excites them about the future?
So I decided to ask.
I’m calling it The Voice of Women in Tech. I challenged myself to a goal of having 50 conversations with women in tech over 60 days, including individual contributors, managers, executives, founders, women at startups and women at large companies. All built around the same set of open-ended questions. Each conversation is short, informal, and confidential. Twenty minutes. Centered on listening, not advising. I’m not there to coach on these calls. I’m there to hear.
What I’m noticing
I’m only a few weeks in now, so I’m deliberately resisting the temptation to declare “findings”. I’m still talking to women. But two things have struck me already.
The first is how many people were interested in this. I’ve heard from women I’ve never met, well outside my own network, who saw my LinkedIn post and signed up. And many have told me, in some form, thank you for making the space and doing this. That interest and gratitude has been its own kind of data point. It tells me that there is a need and interest to simply be asked, and truly listened to.
And I’m hearing more hope and optimism than I expected. Yes, I’m hearing about frustrations and barriers, but I’ve also heard genuine optimism and hope as people look ahead. I can’t wait to pull those insights out.
Between these two things is a lot of complexity. Different experiences of leadership, opportunity, AI transformation, and what it means to build a career in tech right now. I’m starting to see themes and nuances emerge. I’ll share more once I’ve had enough conversations to understand what they mean.
What’s next?
I don’t know what these conversations will reveal. That’s part of what I love about this project. I’m not trying to prove a hypothesis. I’m starting with open ended questions that I’m genuinely curious about. And I’m creating space to listen and hear the answers. The data, research and trends matter.
But sometimes, if you really want to understand what’s happening, you have to be curious and ask the people living it. And then listen.
Want to participate?
If you are a woman in tech and you’d like your voice included, I’d love to hear from you. Find a time here.
Want to see what I learn?
Join the list and I’ll send you the report when it’s ready.
I can’t wait to see what we learn together.
Keep carving your path.
Another powerful post, Tracy. I used to have a FEMALE boss who always said "The data speaks the truth." Butin my 40+ years in business, I learned that it's not the only truth. I respect data and like you, am always interested in what it reveals. But it's not the whole story. Thanks for articulating this!