In Her Ellement

How can you harness your strengths and understand your weaknesses? FYLD’s CEO Shelley Copsey has spent her extensive career figuring out just that and has some great advice for anyone that is hard on themselves about their perceived shortcomings. At FYLD she spends time with junior colleagues, unlocking their potential and expanding their horizons.

When she was thinking about her future, Shelley’s dad told her that she should keep her options open. That meant she studied a variety of subjects and ‘future-proofed’ her career through extra learning. When she decided to take a side step into technology, she continued to invest in herself. She practices this at FLYD by sponsoring junior colleagues in pursuing higher education and making time in her schedule to mentor and teach. In Shelley’s first consultancy role, she struggled to find women in senior leadership that she could look up to. Now she’s outspoken about the massive lack of encouragement that women receive during their tech career advancement.

FLYD is a digital platform that helps utility field workers manage productivity and safety in real-time. Shelley finds satisfaction in her work by helping people work in a safer, more efficient way.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology and business.

When women are asked about their experiences at work, what challenges do they face and what are their significant milestones? Neveen Awad is a Managing Director and Partner at BCG and leads the Women in Technology Initiative in North America. This wide-ranging study surveys a diverse range of women, bringing their career experiences to life through data.

When Neveen completed her Computer Science BSc at Yale, she was the only woman to graduate. There have been many other times in her career where she’s been the only woman in the room and has scrutinized whether this is because of her abilities, or tokenism. Neveen works in the digital, data, and technology space, mainly with clients in the healthcare and government spaces. She’s on a mission to streamline overly-bureaucratic processes to help citizens get the most out of their public services.

Through her work on the Women In Technology Initiative, Neveen has some fascinating insights into senior women’s experiences to share in this episode.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

May Habib has been a CEO for the past decade and always knew she wanted to build a company. She currently heads up Writer, an enterprise AI platform, and has an incredible support system that allows her to do her best work and also hang out with her two children.

May is truly a global citizen. She was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to Canada when she was little. She went on to study in the USA and has worked across the world. Her parents worked incredibly hard and May recognizes that her work ethic was inspired by them. May’s goal has always been single-minded; to build something that outlasts her that has a positive impact on the world. Writer is an operating system that tackles the unstructured nature of written content to comply with brand, compliance, and all the other elements that enterprises struggle to align on. 

May believes that it is impossible to be groundbreaking and inspiring when you are in survival mode, and believes that many women don’t have the support they need to thrive.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business. 

Self-belief is a journey, and there will be bumps in the road. A lack of self-belief is something Professor Margot Gerritsen still experiences sometimes, even after achieving Professor Emeritus status at Stanford. Margot now dedicates her time to running Women in Data Science (WiDS)

Margot began her career in computational science over thirty-five years ago, and she predictably found that she was one of the only women in her class at university. Unfortunately, she hasn’t really seen the number of women in STEM rise in her career. WiDS exists to help encourage more women into this field, by offering a community to help them learn and grow. Margot also hosts the WiDS Podcast which you can listen to on a podcast app of your choice.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

Facing constant challenges can be daunting. How can you welcome them into your life? Shaku Kandan has always chased new challenges. From joining the groundbreaking startup AirAsia X to joining Malaysia Airlines at a difficult time, she’s always seeking out new ways to push herself further.

Full Episode Description: Facing constant challenges can be daunting. How can you welcome them into your life? Shaku Kandan has always chased new challenges. From joining the groundbreaking startup AirAsia X to joining Malaysia Airlines at a difficult time, she’s always seeking out new ways to push herself further.

Shaku loves to travel. If you name a country in the world, it’s likely she’s already visited. For her, she views challenges as opportunities, a chance to be part of history in the making. In both her airline roles she saw a huge transformation and relishes the chance to seek out innovative solutions.

Shaku is also very thankful for the men in her life who have supported her. From her father to her male friends, they’ve all constantly reminded her that she is deserving of success. She also had two male mentors in her career who provided her with the self-belief she needed to succeed. 

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

When Suma Nallapati was growing up, she didn’t have many women in STEM that she could look up to. During her extensive career in tech, and in her current role as CIO at Insight, she’s put herself forward, inspiring the next generation of talent and giving women and girls a role model to give them hope.

Suma was one of only two women who graduated from her nuclear physics class in her home country of India. When she moved to Colorado, Suma began to build an impressive career in tech. Starting out in programming, she always held a deep love for her local community. She even worked in local government for a while, as Secretary of Technology, making her the first person of Indian descent to become a cabinet member. 

Insight is unusual in that its C-Suite includes many women, including its CEO. As CIO, Suma leads a global team of more than 400 information technology specialists and drives Insight’s digital transformation efforts. She’s also a central part of creating the new solutions integrator category, which she’ll be breaking down in this episode. 

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

How do you use your leadership position to help women thrive? Today on In Her Ellement we’re welcoming our first-ever male guest - Christoph Schweizer, CEO of BCG. Christoph is vocal about how leaders have a responsibility to speak out and advocate for women in the workforce.

Christoph has worked at BCG for over twenty-five years, rising up through the ranks from a  summer internship to become CEO in 2021. Throughout his time at BCG, Christoph has advocated for higher representation of women in the workforce and has mentored and sponsored several women colleagues to help them realize their potential.

For the past three years, Christoph was recognized as a HERoes Advocate Executive Role Model by INvolve People for his work with Women@BCG related to the hiring, promotion, and retention of women.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

How can we have the courage to tackle problems that seem insurmountable? Mariana Vasconcelos is the founder of Agrosmart, an agricultural startup that helps farmers use data to become more sustainable and thrive.

Mariana grew up in a farming family and decided to try and find solutions for the types of issues that her father faced every day. From there she used her technology and leadership skills to found Agrosmart, a groundbreaking organization that charts a route to a brighter future for farmers. She’s open and honest about how nervous she feels when faced with the responsibility she’s taken on. However, she acknowledges that she has strong support networks that keep her afloat every day. Mariana encourages those who feel overwhelmed by the world’s problems to ask the question: who will rise to the challenge if not you?

Alongside founding Agrosmart, Mariana has been selected as one of the WEF’s Young Glocal Leaders. She’s also made it onto Forbes 30 under 30 and Bloomberg’s Most Influential People in Latin America lists.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

How do you carve out a way to follow your passions in your own way? Dr. Erin Young has followed her professional interests across disciplines, and the world. As a Research Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute in the UK, Erin co-leads the Women in Data Science and AI project, examining AI and gender bias.

Starting her career officially as a cabaret dancer in school, Erin went on to study classical Greek and Latin at Cambridge University. From there, she moved on to a range of organizations including The United Nations (IIEP-UNESCO) in Paris, Kantar in London, and Thomson Reuters in New York City. She has also flourished in her academic career and completed a Ph.D. in the socio-technical practices of interdisciplinary research and development projects building new technologies in 2019.

The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. The Women in Data Science and AI project seeks to help policymakers and key stakeholders take action to tackle the inherent bias present in AI. Erin is passionate about making AI more equitable and admits that she’s both “excited and terrified” at the prospects of its future.

She believes strongly that the only consistency in life is change, and that, by preparing yourself, you can succeed in any career. She also rejects the idea of a ‘non-tech background’, and thinks that we’re looking at the idea of a multi-faceted, multidisciplinary skillset in the wrong way.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.

How can being part of support groups at work help you advocate for yourself? Kathleen Noreau is Head of Strategic Partnerships in the Consumer, Health & Energy Industries at the World Economic Forum. At The WEF, she co-founded the Women’s Inclusion Network, a group that promotes collective learning opportunities and advocates for its members.

Kathleen began her career as a lawyer but realized that she wanted to make a change. After speaking with a career coach, she figured out that she loved working with clients and enjoyed problem-solving. This took her to Bloomberg, where she used her legal background to help them to develop a research platform designed for lawyers. At the WEF, Kathleen spends her time building relationships with partners, helping them to innovate and digitize.

As well as bringing in guest speakers, The Women’s Inclusion Network (WIN) has also managed to advocate for extended parental leave, now on par with Switzerland.

Join us every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology, and business.